One of the main questions raised by the practical criticisms of the times is this:--How is a stop to be put to the oppression which working-class humanity suffers under private capitalism. The owner, or controller, of capital is in a position to press other men's bodily labour into the service of any work he takes on hand? In the social relation that arises in the co-operation of capital and human labour-power, there are three elements to be distinguished: the enterprising activity, which must rest on the basis of individual ability in some one person or group of persons;--the relation of the "enterpriser" to the worker, which must be a "relation in right";--and the production of an object which acquires a commodity value in the circuit of economic life. For the "enterprising" activity to find its scope in a healthy way in the social order, there must be forces at work in social life which afford men's individual abilities the best possible mode of manifesting themselves; and therefore there must be one province of the body social which secures a person of ability free occasion for the employment of his abilities, and makes it possible to leave the estimation of their value to other people's free and voluntary understanding. It is obvious, that the social activities, which a man is enabled to exercise by means of capital, fall within that domain of the body social which takes its laws and administration from the spiritual life. If the political State interferes to influence these personal activities, then it is unavoidable that its influence should involve a disregard of individual abilities. For the political State is necessarily based on what is similar and equal in all men's claims in life; and it is its business to translate this equality into practice. Within its own domain, the State must ensure every man having a fair chance to make his personal opinion tell. For the work the State has to do, the question of understanding or not understanding individualities does not come in; and therefore whatever the State does towards realising its own principles ought not to have any influence upon the exercise of men's individual abilities. Nor should it be possible for the prospect of economic advantage to determine the exercise of individual ability where capital is needed. Many persons in weighing the pros and cons of capitalism lay great stress upon this economic advantage. In their opinion, it is only through the incentive which this gives to individual ability that individual ability can be induced to exert itself; and they refer, as "practical men" to the "imperfections of human nature," with which they claim to be well acquainted. No doubt, in that social order, under which the present state of things matured, the prospect of economic advantage has come to play a very important part, and is in no small measure the very cause of that state of things, of which we are now feeling the effects,