For the psychologist, the action of the age is an all-important consideration; for the economist, it is a consideration of no importance at all. But it is by no means my intention to dismiss the Socialistic argument with this simple demonstration of the irrelevance of its general meaning. I am going to call the attention of the reader to the particular meanings that are attached to it, and show how absolutely false these are, by comparing them with historical facts. [Sidenote ◆1 Again, Socialists urge that no perfected invention is the work of a single man, but that many men have always co-operated to produce it.] [Sidenote ◆2 This is true; but the class of men referred to is that very minority who are the monopolists of Ability. It is this class only, not the community in general.] ◆¹ In the first place, then, the claims of the age, or of society as a whole, to be the author of industrial progress, in opposition to the claims of a minority, are supported by many writers on the ground that no invention or discovery is in reality the work of any single man. Such writers delight to multiply—and they can do so without difficulty—instances of how the most important machines or processes have been perfected only after a long lapse of time, by the efforts of many men following or co-operating with one another. Thus the electric telegraph, and the use of gas for lighting, were not the discoveries of those who first introduced them to the public; and Stevenson described the locomotive as the “invention of no one man, but of a race of mechanical engineers.” Further, it is frequently urged that the same discoveries and inventions are arrived at in different places, by different minds, simultaneously; and this fact is put forward as a conclusive proof and illustration of how society, not the individual, is the true discoverer and inventor. ◆² But these arguments leave out of sight entirely the fact that, in the first place, the whole body of individuals spoken of—such as the race of engineers who produced the locomotive, or the astronomers in different countries who are discovering the same new star—form a body which is infinitesimally small itself; and secondly, that even the body of persons they represent,—namely, all of those who are engaged in the same pursuits, and have even so much as attempted any step in industrial progress,—though numerous in comparison with those who have actually succeeded in taking one, are merely a handful when compared with society as a whole, and instead of representing society, offer the strongest contrast to it. The nature of the assistance which Ability gives to Ability is an interesting question, but it is nothing to the point here. To prove that progress is the joint product of Ability and Ability, does not form a proof, but on the contrary a disproof of the proposition, that it is the joint product of Ability and Labour—or, in