THE END OF LAISSEZ-FAIRE

whether by skill or good fortune, is found withhis productive resources in the right place atthe right time. A system which allows theskilful or fortunate individual to reap thewhole fruits of this conjuncture evidentlyoffers an immense incentive to the practice ofthe art of being in the right place at the righttime. Thus one of the most powerful ofhuman motives, namely, the love of money,is harnessed to the task of distributing eco-nomic resources in the way best calculated toincrease wealth.

The parallelism between economic laissez-faire and Darwinianism, already briefly noted,is now seen, as Herbert Spencer was foremostto recognise, to be very close indeed. Justas Darwin invoked sexual love, acting throughsexual selection, as an adjutant to NaturalSelection by competition, to direct evolutionalong lines which should be desirable as wellas effective, so the individualist invokes thelove of money, acting through the pursuit ofprofit, as an adjutant to Natural Selection, tobring about the production on the greatest3 1