rgument, we may find it convenient to assume that certain
elements remain fixed while others vary, we must always remember that
this is an assumption which, in the long run, never precisely
corresponds to the facts. We may, for example, in economical questions,
attend simply to the play of the ordinary industrial machinery, without
taking into account the fact that the industrial machinery is
conditioned by the political and ecclesiastical constitution, by the
whole social order, and, therefore, by the acceptance of corresponding
ethical, or philosophical or scientific creeds. The method is
justifiable so long as we remember that we are using a logical
artifice; but we blunder if we take our hypothesis for a full statement
of the actual facts. We are then tempted, and it is, perhaps, the
commonest of all sources of error in such inquiries, to assume that
conditions are absolute which are really contingent; or, to attend only
to the action, without noticing the inevitable reactions of the whole
system of institutions. And I would suggest, that from this follows a
very important lesson in such inquiries. To say that this or that part
of a system is bad, is to say, by implication, that some better
arrangement is possible consistently with our primary assumptions. In
other words, we cannot rationally propose simply to cut out one part of
a machine, dead or living, without considering the effect of the
omission upon all the other dependent parts. The whole system is
necessarily altered. What, we must therefore ask, is the tacit
implication as well as what is the immediate purpose of a change? May
not the bad effect be a necessary part of the system to which we also
owe the good; or necessary under some conditions? It is always,
therefore, a relevant question, what is the suggested alternative? We
can then judge whether the removal of a particular evil is or is not to
be produced at a greater cost than it is worth; whether it would be a
process, say, of really curing a smoky chimney or of stopping the
chimney altogether, and so abolishing not only the smoke but the fire.

I propose to apply this to the question of "competition". Competition
is frequently denounced as the source of social evils. The complaint is
far from a new one. I might take for my text a passage from J. S.
Mill's famous chapter on the probable future of the labouring classes.
Mill, after saying that he agrees with the Socialists in their
practical aims, de