If it is to society as a whole that the able man owes his energy, his talents, and the products of them, it is to society as a whole that the idle man owes his idleness, the stupid man his stupidity, and the dishonest man his dishonesty; and if the able man, who produces an exceptional amount of wealth, can with justice claim no more than the average man who produces little, the man who is so idle that he shirks producing anything may with equal justice claim as much wealth as either.

His constitutional fault, and his constitutional disinclination to mend it, are both of them due to society, and society, not he, must suffer.
If we attempted to organise a community in accordance with such a conclusion as this, we should be getting rid of all connection between conduct and the natural results of it, and divorcing action from motive altogether.

Such is the conclusion to which Mr.Webb's argument would lead us; and the absurdity of the argument, as applied by him to moral claims and merits, though more self-evident, is not any more complete than the absurdity of similar arguments as applied to the individual generally in respect of his productive powers, and the amount of produce produced by them.

The whole conception, in short, of the individual as merged in the aggregate has no relation to practical life whatever.

For the practical man the individual is always a unit; and it is only as a unit that it is possible practically to deal with him.