ncrements of satisfaction in an urban
industrial population of those needs which are indicated by the terms
Socialism and Individualism. They could, however, be brought to admit
that the discovery of curves for that purpose is a matter of observation
and inquiry, and that the best possible distribution of social duties
between the individual and the state would cut both at some point or
other. For many Socialists and Individualists the mere attempt to think
in such a way of their problem would be an extremely valuable exercise.
If a Socialist and an Individualist were required even to ask themselves
the question, 'How much Socialism'? or 'How much Individualism'? a basis
of real discussion would be arrived at--even in the impossible case that
one should answer, 'All Individualism and no Socialism,' and the
other, 'All Socialism and no Individualism.'

The fact, of course, that each step towards either Socialism or
Individualism changes the character of the other elements in the
problem, or the fact that an invention like printing, or representative
government, or Civil Service examinations, or the Utilitarian
philosophy, may make it possible to provide greatly increased
satisfaction both to Socialist and Individualist desires, complicates
the question, but does not alter its quantitative character. The
essential point is that in every case in which a political thinker is
able to adopt what Professor Marshall calls the quantitative method of
reasoning, his vocabulary and method, instead of constantly suggesting a
false simplicity, warn him that every individual instance with which he
deals is different from any other, that any effect is a function of many
variable causes, and, therefore, that no estimate of the result of any
act can be accurate unless all its conditions and their relative
importance are taken into account.

But how far are such quantitative methods possible when a statesman is
dealing, neither with an obviously quantitative problem, like the
building of halls or schools, nor with an attempt to give quantitative
meaning to abstract terms like Socialism or Individualism, but with the
enormous complexity of responsible legislation?

In approaching this question we shall be helped if we keep before us a
description of the way in which some one statesman has, in fact, thought
of a great constitutional problem.

Take, for instance, the indications which Mr. Morley gives of the
thinking done by Gladstone on