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Henry George — A Perplexed
Philosopher
Part III — Recantation
We now come to the purpose for which the preceding lengthy examination has been made: the consideration of Mr Spencer's present opinions on the land question, as set forth with all the weight of the "Synthetic Philosophy" in its author's most recent volume, Justice, which bears date of June, 1891, and was published somewhat later in that year. But it will be best to break the chronological order, and record here the fate of Social Statics. Even after Mr Spencer had made The Times and Mr Greenwood believe that he had suppressed it years before, that book still continued to be published by Mr Spencer's authorized publishers, D. Appleton & Co., and their edition of Justice, published in October, 1891, contains an advertisement of it in its original form. But now, at last, it has been done for. It has not been killed outright; that would be mercy compared with its present fate. It has — and I cannot but feel that Progress and Poverty, the Edinburgh reviewer, and Mr John Laidler of Newcastle, have been innocent causes of its fate — it has been disemboweled, stuffed, mummified, and then set up in the gardens of the Spencerian philosophy, where it may be viewed with entire complacency by Sir John and his Grace. Soberly, the original volume has with this year been withdrawn from publication, to give place to a new Social Statics, dated January, 1892, and published in February. This volume, which is, of course, now to pass in the publisher's lists as Social Statics, has for full title, Social Statics, abridged and revised, together with The Man versus the State. It consists of disjointed fragments of the old Social Statics, which, in order to make some approach to the bulk of the original, is padded out with the magazine articles before referred to. In the preface Mr. Spencer says:
If appropriateness was what Mr. Spencer sought, it does seem as if a title much less inappropriate might have been found. For the only discernible principle of revision is the chopping out of all that might imply a God or offend vested interests, in the same fashion that Russian censors revise distasteful works, the result being a Hamlet from which not only Hamlet himself, but the Ghost, the Queen Mother, and Ophelia, have gone. The "First Principle" is left, but everything large or small relating to land is omitted. The only allusion to land is in the cavilling at Locke, which is retained, and that what was originally Section 3, Chapter X, now converted into a chapter, headed "Socialism," is left by careless editing to begin, as in the original:
The foot-note indicated by this asterisk is:
Thus revised, Social Statics no further concerns us. All that Mr. Spencer originally said about the relation between men and the earth having now been definitely withdrawn, we are referred for his present opinions to the book we are about to consider. But the advertising of the revised Social Statics is worth noting, as by some blunder it lays before the American reader what was originally intended for English circulation only, and brings to mind the fiction about the suppression of Social Statics, which did duty in the St. James's Gazette and the London Times. Here is the advertisement as published at the head of D. Appleton & Co.'s announcements in May, 1892:
This is a queer statement to come from D. Appleton & Co., who have been publishing and advertising the old edition of Social Statics up to this year, without the slightest warning to purchasers that the author had changed his views otherwise than as stated in the prefaces and notes, which, as I have before said, made no reference to any change on the land question. It is strange to hear from them, that the annoyed Mr. Spencer ten years ago stopped the sale of his book in England, when it had not been in print for over twenty years, serenely leaving it to be sold in the only country where it was in print, and that he also at the same time prohibited its translation. Why is Mr. Spencer so careful of what Englishmen in the little home island and even the "foreigner" may read, yet so careless of what is read by Americans, Canadians and Australians? And why have D. Appleton & Co., for nearly ten years, been passing off on their great constituency a book that its author would not allow to be sold in his own home or in foreign countries? These are questions this advertisement suggests but does not answer. |
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