not be made really or apparently so eligible as the
situation of the independent labourer of the lowest class.'[46] The _a
priori_ argument is admirably illustrated by instances, reported by the
sub-commissioners or given in evidence before the Commission, indicating
that labouring men will not exert themselves unless they are offered the
alternative of starvation or rigorous confinement, though no attempt is
made to estimate the proportion of the working population of England
whose character and conduct is represented by each instance.

[46] _First Report of the Poor Law Commission_, 1834 (reprinted 1894),
p. 187.

This _a priori_ deduction, illustrated, but not proved by particular
instances, is throughout so clear and so easily apprehended by the
ordinary man that the revolutionary Bill of 1834, which affected all
sorts of vested interests, passed the House of Commons by a majority of
four to one and the House of Lords by a majority of six to one.

The Poor Law Commission of 1905, on the other hand, though it contains
many members trained in the traditions of 1834, is being driven, by the
mere necessity of dealing with the mass of varied evidence before it,
onto new lines. Instead of assuming half consciously that human energy
is dependent solely on the working of the human will in the presence of
the ideas of pleasure and pain, the Commissioners are forced to tabulate
and consider innumerable quantitative observations relating to the very
many factors affecting the will of paupers and possible paupers. They
cannot, for instance, avoid the task of estimating the relative
industrial effectiveness of health, which depends upon decent
surroundings; of hope, which may be made possible by State provision for
old age; and of the imaginative range which is the result of education;
and of comparing all these with the 'purely economic' motive created by
ideas of future pleasure and pain.

The evidence before the Commission is, that is to say, collected not to
illustrate general propositions otherwise established, but to provide
quantitative answers to quantitative questions; and instances are in
each case accumulated according to a well-known statistical rule until
the repetition of results shows that further accumulation would be
useless.

In 1834 it was enough, in dealing with the political machinery of the
Poor Law, to argue that, since all men desire their own interest, the
ratepayers would elect guardians who would,