Political economists and philosophers like Adam Smith (1723-1790),
professor in the University of Glasgow, agreed on the "let-alone"
doctrine of government. They held that individuals could succeed best
when least interfered with by government, that a government could not
set aside natural law, but could only impede it and cause harm, as for
instance, in framing laws to tempt capital into forms of industry less
productive than others and away from the employment that it would
naturally seek. Many did not even believe in legislation affecting the
hours of labor or the work of children. This "let-alone" theory was
widely held until the close of the nineteenth century.

In moral philosophy, Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), lawyer and
philosopher, laid down the principle that happiness is the prime
object of existence, and that the basis of legislation should be the
greatest happiness to the greatest number, instead of to the
privileged few. He measured the morality of actions by their
efficiency in producing this happiness, and he said that pushpin is as
good as poetry, if it gives as much pleasure. He was followed by
James Mill (1773-1836), who maintained that the morality of actions
is measured by their utility. The fault with many of the prevalent
theories of government and morals lay in their narrow standards of
immediate utility, their failure to measure remote spiritual effects.

[Illustration: ROBERT SOUTHEY.]

The taste of the age encouraged poetry. Scott, although a natural born
writer of prose romance, made his early reputation by such poems as
_Marmion_ and _The Lady of the Lake_. Robert Southey (1774-1843)
usually classed with Wordsworth and Coleridge as one of the three
so-called Lake Poets, wrote much better prose than poetry. His prose
_Life of Nelson_ outranks the poetry in his _Curse of Kehama_. It is
probable that, had he lived in an age of prose ascendancy, he would
have written little poetry, for he distinctly says that the desire of
making money "has already led me to write sometimes in poetry what
would perhaps otherwise have been better written in prose." This
statement shows in a striking way the spirit of those times. If
Coleridge had not written such good poetry, his excellent critical
prose would probably be more read to-day; but he doubtless continues
to have a thousand readers for _The Ancient Mariner_ to one for his
prose.

Among the prose writers of this age, the fiction of Scott and Jane
Au