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.