If such a _régime_ as this were established, there would be no more “tramps wandering from union to union,” In such a state of society as this, not in such as ours, the supreme law which ought to govern all economic relations might be realized. Mr. Herbert Spencer admirably defines this law in the following passage:— “I suppose a dictum on which the current creed and the creed of science are at one may be considered to have as high an authority as can be found. Well, the command, _If any would not work, neither should he eat_, is simply a Christian enunciation of that universal law of nature under which life has reached its present height, the law that a creature not energetic enough to maintain itself must die; the sole difference being, that the law which in one case is to be artificially enforced is in the other case a natural necessity.” This passage ought to be transcribed at the commencement of every treatise on social science as the supreme aim of all sociological research; only the delusion, borrowed from the old political economy, which consists in the belief that this dictum of science and Christianity is in practice in our midst, ought to be suppressed. Is it not a fact that, everywhere, those who can prove by authentic documents that, for centuries past, their ancestors have thriven in idleness are the richest, the most powerful, the most sought after? Only at some future date will this dictum of science and Christianity be brought to bear on our social organization, and our descendants will then establish an order of things which will create economic responsibility, and ensure to each the integral enjoyment of the produce of his labor. The difficult but necessary work of sociology is to endeavor to discover what this organization should be, and to prepare its advent. Mr. Shaw Lefevre’s speech shows very clearly the road that ought to be taken.