ABSTRACT
The nineteenth century suffered from a curious division between its political ideas and its economic practice. In politics it carried out the Liberal ideas of Locke and Rousseau, which were adapted to a society of small peasant proprietors. The diminution of individual liberty which has been taking place during the last thirty-five years is likely to continue, since it has two continuing causes. On the one hand, modern technique makes society more organic; on the other hand, modern sociology makes men more and more aware of the causal laws in virtue of which one man's acts are useful or harmful to another man. At present, within wide limits, any man who has money to invest may invest it as he chooses. This freedom was defended during the heyday of laissez faire on the ground that the business which paid best was always the most socially useful.
