Chapter XI: BRANTWOOD, 14th September, 1879 (5)

This, in fact, is the first proposition which we must all accept. No human being can add to or subtract a single property of any species of matter. To do so were, indeed, to create. For matter is an aggregate of properties; each species of matter is differentiated only by its properties, and could we alter one of these we should really turn it into different matter. It is true there are what are called allotropic forms, such as oxygen and ozone, the yellow and red phosphorus, the forms of sulphur as modified by heat, and a considerable number of organic compounds, and we can by certain arrangements turn the one into the other. But when we ask what allotropism is, we find that it is itself one of the properties (however obscure to us) of the matter we deal with. Oxygen would not be oxygen, but something else, if it had not the inherent property of becoming ozone under certain conditions. Given these conditions, and there is nothing we can do which will prevent the change occurring. If, as chemists believe, allotropism depends on the different arrangement of the ultimate atoms of matter, then the capacity of assuming two arrangements in its atoms is clearly one of the ultimate properties of that species of matter.

It follows, then, that if a miracle were really a suspension of a physical law, or a change, temporary or permanent, of any property of matter, it would really be an act of creation--the creation of something having different properties from any matter that before existed. If iron were to float on water by suspension of the law of gravity, it would be in fact the creation of something having (at least for the time required) the physical and chemical properties of iron, but with a specific gravity less than water--and therefore something not iron.

But, without creation, man has enormous power over Nature. He can, and daily does, overpower her laws, or seemingly make them work as he pleases. Despite the law of gravity, he ascends to the sky in a balloon; he makes water spring up in fountains; he makes vessels, weighing thousands of tons, float on the seas. Despite cohesion, he grinds rocks to powder; despite chemical affinity, he transmutes into myriads of different forms the few elements of which all matter consists; despite the resistless power of the thunderbolt, he tames electricity to be his servant or his harmless toy. With water and fire he moulds into shape mighty masses of metal; he shoots, at a sustained speed beyond that of birds, across valleys and through mountain ranges; he unites seas which continents had separated; there is nothing in the whole earth which he has not subdued, or does not hope to subdue, to his use. There is hardly a physical miracle which he does not feel he can, or may yet, perform.

But all this wonderful, this boundless, power over material laws is gained by these laws. He alters no property of matter, but he uses one property or another as he needs, and he uses one property to overpower another. It is by knowing that gravity is more powerful in the case of air than in the case of hydrogen gas, that he makes air sustain him as he floats, beneath a bag of hydrogen, above the earth; it is by knowing that it is more powerful in water than in air that he sails in iron ships; it is by knowing chemical affinity or repulsion that he makes the compounds or extracts the simple elements he desires; it is by knowing that affinity is force, and that force is transmutable into electricity, that he makes a messenger of the obedient lightning shock; it is by knowing that heat, itself unknown, causes gases to expand, that he makes machines of senseless iron do the work of intelligent giants. He subdues Nature by understanding Nature. He creates no property; he therefore performs no miracle, though he does marvels.

By what means, then, does man bring one property, or law, into play instead of, or against, another? By one means only, that of changing the position of matter.

This is Bacon's aphorism (Nov. Org. Book i. 4): "Man contributes nothing to operations except the applying or withdrawing of natural bodies: Nature, internally, performs the rest."

In order to trace and recognize the truth of this fact, let us follow in rough and rapid outline the operations by which man effects his purposes. We will begin at the beginning, and suppose him to have only reached the stage when a knowledge of the effects of fire enables him to work with metals. He produces fire by friction--that is, by bringing one piece of wood to another, and rapidly moving the one on the other; or else by striking two flints on each other, which also is merely rapid motion and shock. He carries the wood to a hearth, he brings to it the lump of crude metal or the ore; he urges the fire by a blast of air--still his acts are only those of imparting motion. Then the fire acts on the metal, it excites some affinities and enfeebles other affinities, which result in removing impurities; it softens the purified metal. Then the workman lifts it on a stone, and by beating it with another stone--still motion--he moves its particles so that it assumes the form of a hammer, an axe, a chisel, or a file. Then by rubbing with a rough stone--still motion--he moves away some particles from the edge, and makes it sharp and fit for cutting. By plunging it in water when hot--still only motion--he tempers it to hardness. With the edge thus obtained he cuts wood into the forms he requires for various purposes, and by degrees he learns how to fashion other pieces of metal into other and more elaborate tools. Yet all this is done by no other means than giving motion to the material on which, or by which, he works. From tools he advances to machines, by which his power of giving motion is increased, and as he learns more of the properties of matter he constructs engines, by which these properties work for him in the directions in which he guides them. Meantime he has learned that clay, when heated, becomes hard as stone, and the arts of pottery take their rise; while glass-making follows on the discovery that ashes and sand fuse into a transparent mass. Yet, whether in their rude beginning or finished elegance, man in these arts does no more than bring together the rough materials and apply to them heat, then their own inherent properties effect the result. Science--that is, knowledge of natural laws of matter--guides his hand, but his hand only moves matter; it gives no property and takes away none; it does not even enable one property to work; it does absolutely nothing except to place matter where its own laws work, to bring or to remove matter which is needed, or to remove matter which is superfluous. Let us analyze every complicated triumph of human knowledge and skill, and we shall find it all reduced to the knowledge of what the properties of matter are, and the skill which imparts to it motion just sufficient to permit these properties to operate. Man's power over Nature is therefore limited to the power of giving motion to matter, or of stopping or resisting motion in matter.

Now, to give motion or to resist motion is itself either a breach or a use of a law of Nature, according as we express that law. The law is (as usually expressed), that matter at rest remains at rest till moved by a force, and that matter in motion continues in motion till stayed by a force. This is the law of inertia. If we consider that rest or motion when once established is the normal state of matter, then the force which causes a change causes a breach of the law of inertia. But if we consider that the liability to be moved, or to have motion stopped by force, is itself a property of matter, then the application of force with such result is merely calling into operation the law of inertia. It really does not signify which view we take, so long as we recognize that such are the facts. But since it is more familiar to associate rest with inertia, it will perhaps be most convenient and simple to consider rest and motion as the laws of matter, till the law is interfered with. Therefore in what follows we shall say, that when matter at rest is moved, or when matter in motion is stayed, or its movement by a natural force is prevented, a breach of the law of inertia is committed.

We come, then, to these propositions:--1st, That human power is utterly unable to break any law of matter except the law of inertia. 2nd, That when, by breaking only the law of inertia--_i.e._, by moving or by resisting the motion of matter--any operation is accomplished, no other law of matter is broken. 3rd, That to break the law of inertia by Force, directed by Will, is no interference with the properties of matter. 4th, That by breaking the law of inertia only, man has power to call into play properties which make matter subservient to his objects.

Nor is this man's power only. Inferior animals can also move matter, and by moving it can cause prodigious results. A minute insect, by secreting lime from sea waters, makes a coral reef, or aids in forming a cliff of chalk. A beaver cuts down a tree, and forms a swamp that changes the climate of a district; a bird carries a seed, and makes a forest on an island. Inanimate life has the same power. The plant opens its leaves to the sun, and abstracts the carbon that forms fruitful soils and beds of coal. Matter itself can by motion work on matter. The great physical powers, heat and electricity, are modes of motion. Radiation of heat causes freezing, and freezing crumbles rocks into soil, or it forms the clouds in the air, whose deluges hollow valleys; while electricity cleaves and splinters the summits of the mountain peaks. Everywhere motion, sharp or slow, works with matter; everywhere the law of inertia is broken; and everywhere the miracles of Nature are wrought out by Nature's unbroken laws, set in action or withheld by only the movement which matter has received, be it from Will in man or beast, or be it from forces which themselves are part of matter's properties.

Now, since we have started from the assumption that God does exist, it is impossible to make Him an exception to the rule which holds of the spirits of inferior creatures, and even of inanimate matter. If, therefore, He can cause or stop movement, He can, without further breach of any law of Nature, bring into play the laws of Nature. Or, to state the same proposition conversely, we must admit that whatever wonders God may cause by bringing into operation a law of Nature through the means of affecting motion in matter, cannot be called a breach of the laws of Nature. It is, of course, understood that this proposition is limited to the results of motion; it does not affirm that the cause of the motion may not be a breach of a law of Nature. This question will remain for future examination; at present it is neither affirmed nor denied.

Let us in the meantime, however, consider what we have reached by the proposition above stated. What are called miracles may be divided into three classes. The first are purely spiritual, affecting mind without the intervention of matter, such as visions (though these _may_ originate in the brain, and therefore belong to the next class), gifts of tongues, inspirations, mental resolutions. The second affect mind in connection with matter, such as, perhaps, the healing of paralytic or epileptic affections, and certainly the restoration of life to the dead. The third affect matter solely; they include the healing of wounds, or of corporeal disease, such as blindness, or fever; the dividing of waters; the walking on water, or raising an iron axe-head from the bottom of water; the falling of walls or trees; the opening of prison-doors, and such like.

The first two classes we may, in any discussion limited to the laws of Nature, leave out of view, because it cannot be said that we know any laws of Nature affecting mind by itself, or even mind in relation to matter. Metaphysicians have interested themselves in trying to trace the origin or sequence of intellectual processes, but I hardly think any would assert they had discovered or defined what can properly be called a law; and certainly, if any do assert it, the accuracy of the assertion is controverted by as many philosophers on the other side. Any direct influence of God on mind cannot, therefore, be charged with being in violation of natural law. Nor can it even be declared to be contrary to universal experience, since in this case the negative evidence of those who have not experienced it would only be set against the positive evidence of innumerable persons who affirm that they have experienced it.

The influence of mind on matter, and matter on mind, are also so obscure, that it cannot be affirmed that anything which mental operation can effect on one's own body is contrary to natural law. No physiologist will assert that mental resolution, or conviction, tending towards recovery from sickness, is without some power to bring that result to pass. They will admit also that this is peculiarly the case in regard to those disorders which, in pure ignorance of their actual source, they are fain to call hysterical, neuralgic, or generally nervous. They are all acquainted with many cases in their own experience of recovery from such disorders in which no physical cause for recovery can be imagined. If, then, God should convey to the mind of a patient an impression which brings about recovery, there would clearly be no violation of natural law. With regard to the restoration of life, it is quite true that this is beyond the ordinary power of man's volition. Nevertheless, at each moment of our lives there is a communication of life to the dead matter which has formed our food, but which, after digestion, becomes a part of our living organs; and this is true even in the nutrition of plants. How or at what moment the mind enters or becomes capable of affecting our frames, we do not know. But this happens at some moment before or during birth; its doing so at a subsequent period is, therefore, not a breach of natural law, but is only an instance of natural law coming into operation, by the same cause, at a period differing from that which is customary. The _act_, whatever it is, is not exceptional, but ordinary. The _time_ is alone exceptional.

We have now to consider the strictly physical phenomena to which the name of miracles is in this discussion confined, and to which the objection that they are contrary to natural laws is commonly stated.

A very large number of these are at first glance seen to be only instances of inertia being affected. To walk on water, to make water stand in a heap, to raise a body from the ground, to cast down walls, or move bolts and doors, are obviously exertions of simple mechanical force such as we ourselves daily employ. Their effective cause is neither more nor less than an interference with the law of inertia, and by the previous demonstration they are therefore not to be reckoned as breaches of any law of Nature.

Let us try if this can be made clearer by an example. It has been stated before that if iron were made to swim on water by modification of the law of gravity it would be creation of a new substance differing from iron in being of less specific gravity. At the same time, the original iron of normal specific gravity would have disappeared. These processes of creation and destruction would be so unprecedented that we should justly call them violations of the ordinary laws of nature. But at least we should then expect that the light iron thus created would be permanently light, and we should call it another breach of the laws of nature if on lifting it from the water we found it heavy. But if we were to hold a magnet of suitable power over the original heavy iron, when at the bottom of the water, we might see it rise and float, although not touched or upheld by any visible substance, and although its specific gravity remained constant. In this case it would be moved by a power which overcomes gravity, but there would be no creation nor destruction of any property, and no natural law would be broken. But if now we substitute for "magnetic" "Divine" power, there is still no breach of a natural law, for no property is created or destroyed. In both cases the acting agent is a power outside the iron, invisible and unknown, except by the effects. The effect of both is the same: it is to give motion to matter, and nothing more. Hence, neither violate any law of nature except that of inertia.

Proceeding to another class of miracles, which seem at first to be creative, we shall find that they also come within the range of familiar human potentiality. The making of bread, or meal, or oil, or wine, are instances of chemical synthesis. These substances are composed of three or four elements, all gaseous except carbon (to be absolutely accurate, we must add minute quantities of eight other elements), which no chemist has yet succeeded in uniting in such forms. But chemists have succeeded in forming certain substances by bringing together their elements, of which water is the simplest type, and others of greater complexity are every year being attained. These are formed by moving into proximity, or admixture, the elementary ingredients, under circumstances favourable to their union in the desired combination, and the combination then proceeds by the operation of natural laws. No one would be surprised to hear that some chemist had thus attained to form starch or gluten, the main ingredients of bread; or oil, or spirit, or essences; for if it were announced we should all know that he had only discovered some new method of manipulation by which circumstances were arranged so as to favour the natural laws which effect the union of the necessary elements. Therefore, if these substances are formed by Divine power, it is not creation--it is only the chemist's work, adopting natural laws for its methods, and bringing them into play by transposition of material substances.

Meteorological processes--such as lightning, rain, drought, winds--are sometimes made the immediate cause of "miracles," as when the wind caused the waters of the Red Sea to flow back, or brought the flights of quails, or locusts. These are effects which we know wind is quite capable of producing, and does produce naturally. Was there then any breach of natural laws (beyond that of inertia) in causing such winds to blow? or in bringing up thunder-clouds? or in causing an arid season? We cannot, indeed, say that there was not; but as little can we say that there was. For since we ourselves have acquired such power over lightning, the most inscrutable and irresistible of all meteorological agencies, as to be able to lead it where we will, how shall we say that God's infinite knowledge has not the same power over the winds and the clouds, by employing only natural agencies for His work, and employing these only by the operation of motion given to matter.

With regard to the healing of diseased matter, conjectures also can only be offered, because of the source of diseases we know so little. Sight is restored in cataract by simple removal of an abnormal membrane. Many fevers, if the germ theory or the poison theory be correct, are cured when the germs die, or the poison is eliminated. A power that could kill the germs, or remove them or the poison from the system, would then effect immediate cure in accordance with natural laws. It does not seem necessarily beyond man's reach to effect this when he shall understand natural laws more fully; it cannot, therefore, be a breach of natural laws if God should effect it by laws as yet unknown to man, provided they are brought into play with no other agency than the motion of matter.

It would be folly as well as impiety to assert that it is in such ways only that miracles are performed. No such assertion is made. But when, on the other side, it is asserted that the miracles narrated in Scripture cannot be true because they must involve a breach of the immutable laws of Nature, the answer is justifiable and is sufficient, that they do not necessarily involve any breach of any law, save of that one law of inertia which at every instant is broken by created things, without any disturbances being introduced into the serene march of Nature's laws. The scientific revelation is reconciled with the written revelation when it is shown that neither necessarily implies the falsity of the other.

But supposing the argument thus far to be conceded, it will be urged that the real "miracle" remains yet behind. When man moves matter, his hand is visible: when an animal gnaws a tree, its teeth are seen working; when a river flows down a valley, its force is heard and felt. How different, it will be said, is God's working, where there is no arm of flesh, no sound of power, no sign of presence.

Unquestionably it is a deep marvel and a mystery, that impalpable spirit should act upon gross matter; but it is a mystery of humanity as well as of Godhead. What moves the hand? Contraction of the muscles. But what causes contraction of the muscles? The influence transmitted from the brain by the nerves. But what sends that influence? It is mind, which somewhere, somehow, moves animal tissues--tissues consisting of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulphur. At some point of our frames, we know not yet where, mind does act directly on matter. It is a law of Nature that it should so act _there_. But if God exists, His mind must, by the same law, act on matter _somewhere_. Can we call it an offence against law if it acts on matter elsewhere than in that mass of organized pulp which we call brains? If no possibility of communication between mind and matter could anywhere be found in Nature, we might call such communication contrary to natural law. In other words, if it were one of the properties of matter that it could not receive motion from that which is not matter, its motion without a material cause would be supernatural. But since it is of the very essence of existence that matter in certain combinations should be capable of being endowed with life, and by such endowment become capable of being affected in motion by mind, it is indisputable that such capability is one of matter's properties, and that its being so affected falls within and not without Nature's laws.

It may be objected that, since it is only living substance which can be acted on by the human mind, it is contrary to law that dead matter should be acted on by Divine mind. But this is a simple begging of the question at issue. It is constructing a law for the purpose of charging God with breaking it. Where do we find evidence in Nature that matter cannot be moved by the Divine mind? Science reveals no such law. Science is simply silent on the subject; it admits its utter ignorance, and declares the question beyond its scope. Undoubtedly it does not pronounce that God does move matter, but it equally abstains from asserting that God does not. For when it traces back material effects from cause to cause, it comes at last to something for which it has no explanation. When we say that an acid and an alkali combine by the law of affinity, that a stone falls by the law of gravity, we merely generalize facts under a name, we do not account for them. What causes affinity, what causes gravity? Suppose we say the one is polar electricity, the other is the impact of particles in vibration (both of which statements are unproved guesses), what do we gain? The next question is only, what causes electricity and what causes vibration? Suppose, again, we answer that both are modes of motion, we only come to the further question, what causes motion? And since motion is a breach of the law of inertia, what is it that first excited motion in this dead matter? Carry back our analysis as far as we will or can, at last we reach a point where matter must be acted upon by something that is not matter. This something is Mind; and God also is Mind.

Again, when any one affirms that only living matter can be acted on by mind, whether human or Divine, we may fairly ask him, not indeed what is life, which is a problem as yet beyond science; but how life changes matter, which is a question strictly within the range of science dealing with matter. But to this inquiry we shall get no answer. The cells in an organism, the protoplasm in the cells, are living when the organism is living, dead when the organism is dead, and, as matter, no difference is discoverable between them in the state of living and dead. The cells consist of cellulose, the protoplasm of some "protein" compounds; no element is added or subtracted, no compound is altered, when it lives or when it dies. Nor can science even tell us when an organic compound becomes alive, or dead. Every instant crude sap is becoming living plants, every instant crude chyle is becoming living blood, every instant living organisms die and are expelled from plants by the leaves, from animals by the lungs, the skin, and the kidneys. Yet no physician can say at _what_ moment any of these carbon compounds become living, or when they cease to have life. Since of this perpetual birth and death in all nature we know absolutely nothing, it is manifestly unreasonable to lay down laws respecting them. If life and death make (as far as we can discover) absolutely no immediate physical change in the matter which they affect, how can we propound as a dogma of physical science that God cannot move "dead" matter, when our own experience tells us that our spirits can move "living" matter?

It is clear that if we are not warranted in making a law, we are not warranted in saying that it is broken. Our concern with laws is to see that such as we do know are uniform, for this is the basis of science. But true science repudiates dogmas on subjects of which it avows its ignorance.

Let us sum up the argument as it has now been stated. The propositions are the following:--

1. Matter is subject to unalterable laws, which express its
properties. No created being can originate, alter, or destroy any of
these properties.

2. It is possible, however, for one property to overpower the action
of another property, either in the same matter or in other matter.

3. By placing matter in a position in which one or other property
has its natural action, man, as well as animals and inanimate
matter, can overpower a law of Nature with almost boundless power.

4. The sole means by which such results are effected, are by
affecting the law of inertia. Therefore, whatever is effected by
natural laws, without other interference than by affecting inertia,
is consistent with the uniformity of natural law.

5. All strictly physical "miracles" recorded in the Bible are
capable of being effected by natural law, without other interference
than by affecting inertia, and therefore are consistent with the
uniformity of natural law.

6. It is consistent with natural law that created minds should
affect the inertia of certain forms of matter directly.

7. It is not inconsistent with natural law that Divine mind should
affect the inertia of other forms of matter directly.

* * * * *

The bearing of these conclusions upon prayer, in so far as it affects physical conditions, may now be briefly shown. It has been argued that, in the light of modern discovery, prayer ought to be restricted to spiritual objects, and that at all events it can have none but spiritual effects. It has for example been asserted that to pray for fine weather, for bodily health, for removal of any plague, for averting of any corporeal danger is asking God to change the laws of Nature for our benefit, that this is what He never does, what would produce endless confusion if He should, and consequently what He certainly will not do.

But if in point of fact God can confer on us all these gifts which we ask from Him without breaking a single law by which Nature is bound, we are restored to the older confidence that He will, provided that such gifts are at the same time consonant with our spiritual good.

Now as it has been shown that God can affect matter to the full extent for which we ever petition by means of Nature's own laws, set in operation by no other agency than the mere communication of motion to matter, it has been shown that He will break no law in giving what we ask.

For example, what is fine weather? It is the result of the due motion of the winds, which bear the clouds on their bosom, and carry the warmth of equatorial sunshine to the colder north. It is still as true as eighteen hundred years ago, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and ye hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth." But if it be no breach of law to give motion to the air, it is in God's power to bring us favourable winds. But the winds we wish are not necessarily moved immediately by God's breath. They depend probably on certain electric repulsions, which make the colder or the warmer current come closer to the surface of the earth. And electricity is motion. It may be directly, it may be indirectly, through electricity; it may be by some cause still further back, that God sends forth the winds; but, if He can give motion, He can direct their currents, and by such agency give to His creatures the weather best suited for their wants.

Or what is disease? Probably, in many cases, germs; let us then suppose germs, because it is what the latest science tells us. But germs need a suitable nidus, and we know that merely what we call "change of air" is one of the most potent means of defending or restoring our bodies from the assault of germs to which it is exposed. We change our air, by moving to another place; what violation of law would there be if God, to our prayer, were to change our air by moving a different air to us? That is but a rude illustration; the marvellous economy of the body suggests a thousand others, none of which may be true, but which yet all agree in this, that they would work our cure by strictly natural laws, set in action merely by motion given to matter.

That even an impending rock should not fall upon us would be a petition involving no further disturbance of natural law. Had we appliances to enhance our force we could uphold it, without breaking natural law. God has superhuman force, and if He upholds it by an arm we cannot see, He will break no law.

It were needless to pursue examples; but the subject must not be dismissed without reference to the spiritual laws, which we are bound to regard in praying for aught we may desire.

These are expressed and summed in the command, "Ask in my name." There is a prevalent misunderstanding of these words, arising out of the theological dogma which interprets them as if they were written, "for my sake." It is unnecessary here to enter into the inquiry how far any prayer is granted because of the merits or for the sake of Christ. It is sufficient that the words here used mean something else. When we desire another person to ask anything from a superior in our name, we mean to ask as if we asked. It must be something then which we should ask for personally. Therefore, Christ desiring us to ask in His name, limits us to ask those things which we can presume He would ask for us.

It is obvious how this interpretation defines the range of petition. It must be confined to what He, all-knowing, knows to be for our good. It must be, in our ignorance, subject to the condition that He should see it best for us. It utterly excludes all seeking for worldly advantage, for which He would never bid us pray. It equally excludes all spiritual benefits which are not those of a godly, humble spirit. Above all, it excludes all things which would be suggested by Satan as a tempting of the Lord our God. To ask, as some scientific men would have us do, for something in order to see if God would grant it, would be an experiment which, applied to an earthly superior, would be an insult--to God is impiety. To such prayers as these there is no promise made, for they cannot be in Christ's name.

Neither can those prayers be in His name which come from men regardless of His precepts. These are contained in the Book of Nature as well as in the Bible, and to both alike we owe reverence. We are bound to learn His will as far as our powers extend, we are bound to inform ourselves as fully as we can of the physical as well as of the moral laws set for our guidance, and having learned we are bound to obey. It were vain to pray for help in an act of wrong-doing, and equally vain to pray for relief from consequences of our own neglect or defiance of such rules of the government of nature as we have learned, or as with due diligence we might have learned. No man so acting can presume to think that he may ask in Christ's name for succour. Christ could not ask it for such as he.

But to what we can truly ask in His name there is no limit set. We may ask for all worldly and all spiritual good, which we can conceive Him to ask for us, in assurance that it will be given, if He sees it really to be for our good. How it may be reconciled with good to other men is not for us to inquire. The Omnipotent rules all, and He who can do all is able to do what is best for us as well as for every other creature He has made, without breach of one of these laws which He has set as guides for all.

J. BOYD KINNEAR.

WHAT IS RENT?

The public mind of the country is at the present hour largely occupied with thinking about rent. The severe agricultural depression has generated painful effects on the feelings and the fortunes of the people of England. The various classes who are connected with the cultivation of land are visited with much suffering, and we cannot be surprised if they are found discussing whether their relations towards each other, as well as the system of agriculture prevailing in these islands, are precisely what they ought to be. The various methods of dealing with the land and the population that devote themselves to its tillage, have been the subjects of keen debate for ages: failing harvests, low prices, and heavy losses, are well suited to impart energy and even violence to such discussions. In some portions of the kingdom, even agricultural revolution has made its appearance on the scene. The law itself is openly and avowedly defied. The debtor, it is decreed, shall determine at his own pleasure how much he shall pay of the debt to which he is pledged. If the owner of the property let on hire repels such an adjudication of his rights, he is plainly warned that they shall be swept away altogether, and the insolvent debtor be made the owner of what he borrowed. The very structure of society itself is imperilled. "To refuse to pay debt violently," it has been well said, "is to steal, and to permit stealing, is not only to dissolve, but to demoralize society: accumulation of property, and civilization itself would become impossible."

Amidst such agitated passions it was inevitable that rent should speedily come to the front. Those who had contracted to pay rent, in the expectation that the produce of their labour would enable them to redeem their pledge, had been plunged into losses, more or less severe, by the badness of the seasons; their means were reduced; to pay was inconvenient; and it was a simpler method to take the matter into their own hands, and rather than appeal to the feelings of their landlords for a considerate diminution of their rents, to call rent itself into judgment, and to suppress it altogether. When, then, matters have reached the pass that an anti-rent agitation, based on the confiscation of property and the repudiation of contracts, has sprung up, and is swiftly spreading among an excitable people, it becomes important, in the highest degree, that the true nature of rent should be clearly understood by the whole country. Whatever may be ultimately decided about rent, let every man first know accurately what it is. To advocate a system of agriculture which shall abolish the possession of land by a class who are owners and not cultivators of the soil, and thus extinguish the charge for the loan of it to farmers, is perfectly legitimate. Let the merits and demerits of such a tenure be freely investigated; let peasant-proprietorship be counter-examined over against it; but let the conviction be brought home to every mind that no just or intelligent conclusion can be reached, unless every element of the problem has been fully and honestly weighed. A reduction of rents may very possibly be called for by necessity and by reason; but to place the position itself of landlord in an invidious light, as that of a man who exacts from the labour of others that for which he has neither toiled nor spun, is a most unwarrantable process of argumentation, and can lead to no trustworthy result in a matter of such transcendant importance to the nation.

What then is rent? The true answer to this very natural question, obvious and easy though it may seem to be, has been grasped by few only. Let the question be put to a mixed company, and the incapacity to explain the real nature of rent will be found most surprising. One's first impulse is to appeal to Political Economy for an answer, for indisputably rent belongs to its domain; but unhappily Political Economists, for the most part, instead of enlightening have obscured this inquiry for the public mind. Some few amongst them have perceived the true character of rent; but most other economical writers have been led astray into a wrong path by Ricardo. Ricardo's theory of rent was accepted as the orthodox doctrine; but it was a theory from which the common world, landlords and farmers alike, turned away as unworkable. Ricardo was dominated by the passion of giving to Political Economy a strictly scientific treatment, and the explanation of rent he hailed as an excellent instrument for accomplishing his purpose. He built the amount of rent payable by different lands, on the varying fertilities of the soil. Land A paid no rent; its productive powers were unequal to such an effort; it must content itself with rewarding the cultivator alone. Land B presented itself as something better; a feeble rent it could supply. C, D, and E continued the ascending scale; the rents they yielded assumed grander dimensions, till the maximum of fertility and remunerating power was reached. The array wore a splendidly scientific air; it almost rivalled the great law of the inverse square of the distances. But, alas, as Ricardo himself dimly saw, rent bowed to other forces besides mere fertility. Varying distances from manures and markets, dissimilar demands for horsepower for the attainment of the same crops, unequal pressure of rates and taxes, and other like causes compelled rent to sway upwards and downwards in contradiction of the law of fertility; and that was not scientific. But it was true in fact, and Ricardo, under the pressure of necessity, summed up these disturbing causes under the general word situation. Like Mill, he had to recognise that Political Economy, as he and Mill posed it, was "an hypothetical science," and that the stern world of material realities was under the dominion of influences which were not hypothetical nor scientific.[1]

If Ricardo and Mill had contented themselves with laying down what the amount of rent was, governed by the quality of the soil's fertility and by the forces which they feebly recognised by the word situation, no harm would have been done. They would have given a tolerably fair description of the causes on which the magnitude of rent depends. It would not indeed have explained what rent is, but it would have expressed truths with which the common agricultural mind was familiar, and they might have retained the command of agricultural ears. But scientific ambition would not be satisfied with so simple and unpretending a statement. It was resolved that the explanation of rent should take the shape of a scientific doctrine; and with this object it invented an addition to it of whose scientific character there could be no doubt. "It converted the land," in the words of Mr. Mill, "which yields least return to the labour and capital employed on it, and gives only the ordinary profit of capital, without leaving anything for rent, into a standard for estimating the amount of rent which will be yielded by all other land. Any land yields as much more than the ordinary profits of stock, as it yields more than what is returned by the worst land in cultivation." This worst land, which had no rent to give, was erected into a standard which should measure rents as accurately as a yard measures distances, and a pound avoirdupois weights. Most useful indeed is the yard which tells us how far it is to Dover, and the lb. weight which informs us how heavy the load of coals is which has reached our door; and delightful truly, would be an instrument which should tell a disputing landlord and tenants, with unerring precision, how much rent exactly each farm was bound to pay. But this "margin of calculation," this land which pays no rent--what landlord or what farmer has ever inquired for it in the calculation of their rents? Has it ever occurred to the thoughts, or passed the lips, of a single practical agriculturist, in these days of excitement, and anger, and unceasing declamations in the press and tribune on rent? And if it had been found, what possible help could it have brought to a single agriculturist? Such land could be no measure to measure by. A measure must either be a given portion of the thing measured, as a yard of length, or else be an effect of a given force, as the height of the barometer of the pressure of the atmosphere. A piece of land which yields no rent cannot measure one that does, because the non-payment of rent is not the effect of a single force but of many diverse ones. A particular farm may pay no rent because it is isolated by want of roads, or is in a lonely spot, or is far off from manures, or is burdened with excess of taxation, as a whole parish in Buckinghamshire which was said to have gone out of cultivation because no man would face the burden of its poor-rates. What facility for calculation could such a parish furnish to a farmer in Middlesex or Lancashire? The selection of such a standard was a purely illogical process; it confounded effect with cause. The forces which determine rent decree that such a farm cannot pay rent, that is an effect; but its paying no rent could be no cause, by the mere fact alone that it did not yield sufficient net profit, why other lands should pay no rent. The margin of calculation was framed at a particular locality, under its own circumstances, but it could say nothing about the circumstances of another farm and their effects.

The moral to be derived from the examination of Ricardo and Mill's theories of rent is clear. The sooner that their margin of cultivation, their standard of the amount of rent, disappears, the better will it be for the interests of society and of Political Economy. It has driven away all agricultural audience from the talk of Political Economy about rent; it is felt to lie altogether outside of the practical world. Let the land which is cultivated without being able to pay rent be inquired into by all means, whenever there is a call for so doing. Let the impeding causes and all their circumstances be explored, but let the inquiry and its results be kept apart from all rent-paying land. The forces which determine that one farm can pay rent and another none are the same for both, either by their presence or their absence; but the two farms have no connection with each other, except as suffering effects from common causes. When this great truth is seen and acknowledged, and when Political Economy has ceased to talk of the non rent-paying land regulating the amount of all rent, the world which it addresses, and for whom it exists, will be won over to listen to its teaching on rent and to think it real.

And now let us face the question, simply, What is rent? It is necessary to distinguish here between two different meanings of the word rent. It is a legal word, connected with the hire of land or forms of real property connected with land, as houses, rooms, and the like. Agricultural rent is different in nature from the rent of rooms. The rents paid for a house or rooms in a large building such as Gresham House have no relation to any particular business carried on in them, much less do they depend on the success of that business. Agricultural rent, on the contrary, is given for the very purpose of engaging in a distinct business, agriculture; and the profits of that business enter largely, in the settlement of rent, into the calculations of the lender and the hirer of the land. It is of agricultural rent exclusively that we are speaking on the present occasion.

In order to make a correct analysis of the subject, let us place ourselves in the position of a farmer who is offered the tenancy of a particular farm. It is necessary, further, to form a clear conception of the fact, and to bear it constantly in mind, that in all acts of selling or hiring, it is the purchaser or hirer, not the seller or the lender, who ultimately decides whether an exchange shall take place. Whatever be the price asked, be it high or be it low, the buyer by giving or refusing it decrees whether a commercial transaction shall be carried out. It is not the landlord but the tenant who will in the last resort determine what the rent shall be. The landlord may select amongst competing farmers the man who will pay the highest rent; still it will be the judgment of that tenant that will decide at last, not only what the amount of the rent shall be, but even whether the farm shall be let at all. The inquiry thus becomes, What are the thoughts, and what the feelings consequent on those thoughts, which traverse the mind of the farmer? He is seeking to borrow the use of land in order to engage in the agricultural business; his motive is profit, such an amount of profit as will, after repaying all his outlay of every kind, yield him the fitting reward for his efforts and his skill. His object is to gain a living out of his farm; and his calculations turn on the inquiry, on what terms of borrowing the use of the land he shall be able to obtain the ordinary profits of trade. Let us accompany him in these calculations.

The landlord opens the debate by naming the rent which he requires for the farm. The question for the tenant becomes, Can the farm afford such a rent? Here, obviously, the productive power of the soil will present itself as the first and most momentous subject of inquiry. It is a productive machine that the farmer is seeking to hire. The strength of that machine, its capacity to turn out much and good work, is the great point to ascertain. The quality of the soil itself is clearly a most important element of the problem; but it is far from being the only force which constitutes the productive power of a farm. What the climate is at the particular locality is a consideration of great weight. Good land in a rainy district will yield an inferior rent to land of the same quality under a more genial sun and a drier atmosphere. Then the water connected with the farm will come under examination. Will it be capable of creating water-meadows, which have such a lifting power for rent in many parts of England? The fertility, too, of the several fields of the farm will differ. The intelligent tenant will feel himself called upon to estimate what amount of crop, what quantity of food for cattle, with his skill and capital, he may reasonably expect to produce. This is the basis of the whole computation--the quantity and quality of the produce that he can fairly reckon on obtaining. And he will not be governed solely by the then existing state of the land. If he is an able agriculturist, he will form a shrewd guess of what he will be able to make it yield by proper treatment. And it is very probable that he will prefer to pay a high rent for good land rather than a lower rent for inferior soil, because he may feel a well-founded confidence in his own resources to work up the greater power of a strong, if even obstinate, farm to larger results.

Having completed the first stage, and formed his estimate of the crops and cattle which the land will yield, the tenant will now address himself to the very grave question of the cost which his manufacturing industry will entail. Here he will encounter forces which pay small respect to the beautiful symmetry of hypothetical economic science, and often influence the amount of rent far more powerfully than the fertility of the land. Will his farm be amongst the light and sunny hills of Surrey; or will it be embedded in the stubborn clay of the Sussex weald? Will he need four horses or two only for each of his ploughs? The crop may be the same for both, but the cost will be widely different, and may create much resistance to the landlord's rent. If he appeals to steam-power for help, he must ask himself how far off he will be from the coal-field, how near to him will be the station at which he will buy his coals. So, again, with his manure. Will the lime and the marl be close to his borders, or must he send his carts long distances to the pit or the railway? Then comes the serious question of the place where his buyers dwell; how far he is from his market; what expense of carriage he will be put to. It may be his good fortune to be offered a farm in the neighbourhood of London, or some great manufacturing town. A weighty rent, it is true, may be demanded of him, even some ten or fifteen pounds an acre; but this will not extinguish the attractiveness of such a farm. Better markets, abundant supplies of manure, cultivation by the spade, and high prices, may possess higher claims in his eyes than a small rent in a rural region.