this sense individualistic. Its most significant phrases
were: "laissez faire" and "that government is best which
governs least." The latter has until recently been
almost an axiom for our American thought, and the
doctrine has received its most thorough application in
our American life. Yet the disciples of the "let alone"
theory were by no means in favor of anarchy. If you
had asked an American of the old school how freedom
could be consistent with order and industrial efficiency,
I suppose he would have replied, with us, that liberty-
loving people were as such intelligent people and that
intelligent people were, because they were intelligent,
orderly and efficient. But the theory of natural rights
which he had adopted never taught that order was
something to be won by the exercise of intelligence,
something that absolutely depended upon the intelli-
gent study of social relations. Rather was it something
provided for from the beginning by "the wisdom of
Nature." In other words, Nature had ordained that
if each would attend to his own affairs all should be well
in the body politic.

I need not undertake to describe in detail the process
by which this view has been discredited. It will be
sufficient to point to the radical change in social con-
ditions which has come about merely through the
mechanical inventions of the last century. To these,
in large measure, we attribute the rapid growth of
cities, the enlargement of the scope of the individual
industrial enterprise and the extension of its field of
distribution. The numerous difficulties presented by
these changes have shown quite clearly that "Nature"
will not take care of the body politic. And so from a
firm belief in the doctrine that the best government
governs least we are coming to a rather general feeling

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