Facsimile PDF - Online Library of Liberty

EXPERIMENTAL LEGISLATION AND THE
DRINK TRAFFIC.*
I.
(‘A FOOL, Mr. Edgeworth, i~ one who has never made an
experiment.” Such are, I believo, the exact words of a
remark which Erasmns Darwin addressed to Richard hveU
Edgoworth. They deserve to become proverbial. They have
the broad foundation of truth, and the trenchant disregard
of accuracy in detail which mark an adage. Of course, the
saying at once suggests the question : What is an experiment ?
In a certain way, a,ll people, whether fooh or wise men, are
constantly making experiments. The education of the infant
is thoroughly experimental from the very first, but in a
haphazard and unconscious way. The child which overbalances
itself in learning to walk ie experimenting on the
law of gravity. All successful action is successful experiment
in the broadest sense of the term, and every mistake or failare
is a negative experiment, which deters as from repetition.
Our mental framework, too, is marvellously contrived, so SB
to go on ceaselessly registering on the tablets of the memory
the favourable or unfavourable results of every kind of action.
Charles Babbage proposed to make an automaton chess-player
which 8hOdd register mechanically the numbera of games lost
and gaind in consequence of every possible kind of move.
* ‘‘ Contemporary Beview,” Febmery, 1880, VOL xe pp. 177-192.