tive.
He points out how a nation is dominated by its landlords, and how they
have consistently evaded the fiscal burdens they should bear. Only in a
return to a nation of freeholders can Ogilvie see the real source of an
increase in happiness.

Such criticism is revolutionary enough, though when he comes to speak of
actual changes, he had little more to propose than a system of peasant
proprietorship. What is striking in the book is its sense of great,
impending changes, its thorough grasp of the principle of utility, its
realization of the immense agricultural improvement that is possible if
the landed system can be so changed as to bring into play the impulses
of humble men. He sees clearly enough that wealth dominates the State;
and his interpretation of history is throughout economic. Ogilvie is
one of the first of those agrarian Socialists who, chiefly through
Spence and Paine, are responsible for a special current of their own in
the great tide of protest against the unjust situation of labor. Like
them, he builds his system upon natural rights; though, unlike them, his
natural rights are defended by expediency and in a style that is always
clear and logical. The book itself has rather a curious history. At its
appearance, it seems to have excited no notice of any kind. Mackintosh
knew of its authorship; for he warned its author against the amiable
delusion that its excellence would persuade the British government to
force a system of peasant proprietorship upon the East India Company.
Reprinted in 1838 as the work of John Ogilby, it was intended to
instruct the Chartists in the secret of their oppression; and therein it
may well have contributed to the tragicomic land-scheme of Feargus
O'Connor. In 1891 the problem of the land was again eagerly debated
under the stimulus of Mr. Henry George; and a patriotic Scotchman
published the book with biographical notes that constitute one of the
most amazing curiosities in English political literature.

V

Against the school of Rousseau's English disciples it is comparatively
easy to multiply criticisms. They lacked any historic sense. Government,
for them, was simply an instrument which was made and unmade at the
volition of men. How complex were its psychological foundations they had
no conception; with the single factor of consent they could explain the
most marvellous edifice of any time. They were buried beneath a mountain
of metaphysical right which they nev