THE END OF LAISSEZ-FAIRE

Finally, Individualism and laissez-faire couldnot, in spite of their deep roots in the politicaland moral philosophies of the late eighteenthand early nineteenth centuries, have securedtheir lasting hold over the conduct of publicaffairs, if it had not been for their conformitywith the needs and wishes of the businessworld of the day. They gave full scope toour erstwhile heroes, the great business men.“At least one-half of the best ability in theWestern world,” Marshall used to say, “isengaged in business.” A great part of “thehigher imagination” of the age was thusemployed. It was on the activities of thesemen that our hopes of Progress were centred.“Men of this class,” Marshall wrote , 1 “livein constantly shifting visions, fashioned intheir own brains, of various routes to theirdesired end; of the difficulties which Naturewill oppose to them on each route, and of thecontrivances by which they hope to get thebetter of her opposition. This imagination

1 “ The Social Possibilities of Economic Chivalry,”Economic Journal (1907), xvii, p. 9.

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