THE "REDUCTION TO. INIQUITY." 43
the Duke of Argyll has publicly called attention to it, I thus publicly apologize.
The Duke declares it has not been his aim to argue. This is clear. I wish it were as clear it had not been his aim to misrepresent. He seems to have written for those who have never read the books he criticizes. But as those who have done so constitute a very respectable part of the reading world, I can leave his misrepresentations to take care of themselves, confident that the incredible absurdity he attributes to my reasonings will be seen, by whoever reads my books, to belong really to the Duke's distortions. In what I have here to say I prefer to meet him upon his own ground and to hold to the main ques- tion.* I accept the " reduction to iniquity."
Strangely enough, the Duke expresses distrust of the very tribunal to which he appeals. " It is a fact," he tells us, " that none of us should ever forget, that the moral faculties do not as certainly revolt against iniquity as the reasoning faculties do against absurdity." If that be the case, why, then, may I ask, is the Duke's whole article addressed to the moral faculties ? Why does he talk about right and wrong, about justice and injustice, about honor and dishonor ; about my " immoral doctrines " and " prof- ligate conclusions," "the unutterable meanness of the gigantic villainy" I advocate? why style me "such a Preacher of Unrighteousness as the world has never seen," and so on ? If the Duke will permit me I will tell him, for in all probability he does not know he himself, to paraphrase his own words, being a good example of how men who sometimes set up as philosophers and deny laws
- It is unnecessary for me to say anything of India further than
to remark that the essence of nationalization of land is not in the collection of rent by government, but in its utilization for the benefit of the people. Nor on the subject of public debts is it worth while here to add anything to what I have said in " Social Problems."
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