powerfully appealed; and many who are not socialists, nor ignorant of
economic science, have been led by it to give welcome to the notion
that the ideally "fair" price of a productive service is a price at
least rendering possible the maintenance of the producers and their
families in a condition of health and industrial efficiency.' This
is not the place to enter into a discussion as to the merits
or practicability of any of the numerous schemes put forward by
socialists; it is sufficient to say that socialism is essentially
unhistorical, and that in our opinion any practical benefits which
it might bestow on society would be more than counterbalanced by the
innumerable evils which would be certain to emerge in a system based
on unsatisfactory foundations.

[Footnote 1: We must guard against the error, which is frequently
made, that, because the classical economists assumed self-interest
as the sole motive of economic action, they therefore approved of and
inculcated it.]

[Footnote 2: P. 401, and see Marshall's Preface to Price's _Industrial
Peace_, and Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. i. p. 137.]

[Footnote 3: _Political Economy_, p. 268.]

[Footnote 4: Tit., 'Political Economy.']

[Footnote 5: Vol. iii. p. 138.]

[Footnote 6: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 7: See Laveleye, _Elements of Political Economy_ (Eng.