◆¹ But there are other truths, besides particular facts, which I propose to urge on the reader’s attention also. There are general truths, general considerations, and principles: and these too, like the facts, will be found to have this same characteristic—that though many of them are not generally realised, though many of them are often forgotten, and though some of them are supposed to be the possession of this or that party only, they do but require to be fairly and clearly stated, to command the assent of every reflecting mind, and to show themselves as common points from which, like diverging lines, all rational politicians, whatever may be their differences, must start.
◆1 The proposition with which the argument starts is an example of a truth of this kind.
◆¹ The very first principle to which I must call attention, and which forms a key to my object throughout this entire book, will at once be recognised by the reader as being of this kind. The Radical perhaps may regard it as a mere truism; but the most bigoted Tory, on reflection, will not deny that it is true. The great truth or principle of which I speak is as follows.
◆1 The conditions of private happiness are the end of all Government.
◆2 These conditions are principally a question of private income.
◆3 The end of Government is therefore to secure adequate incomes for the greatest possible number.
◆¹ The ultimate end of Government is to secure or provide for the greatest possible number, not indeed happiness, as is often inaccurately said, but the external conditions that make happiness possible. As for happiness, that must come from ourselves, or at all events from sources beyond the control of Governments. But though no external conditions are sufficient to make it come, there are many which are sufficient to drive it or to keep it permanently away; and it is the end of all Government to minimise conditions such as these. Now these conditions, though their details vary in various cases, are essentially alike in all. They are a want of the necessaries, or a want of the decencies of life, or an excessive difficulty in obtaining them, or a recurring impossibility of doing so. ◆² They are conditions in fact which principally, though not entirely, result from an uncertain or an insufficient income. The ultimate duty of a Government is therefore towards the incomes of the governed; ◆³ and the three chief tests of whether a Government is good or bad, are first the number of families in receipt of sufficient incomes, secondly the security with which the receipt of such incomes can be counted on, and lastly the quality of the things which such incomes will command.
◆1 This view not necessarily materialistic, nor unpatriotic:
◆¹ Some people however—perhaps even some Radicals—may be tempted to say that this is putting the case too strongly, and is caricaturing the truth rather than fairly stating it. They may say that it excludes or degrades to subordinate positions all the loftier ends both of individual and of national life, such as moral and mental culture, and the power and greatness of the country: but in reality it does nothing of the kind.
◆1 For income is necessary for mental as well as physical welfare,