Page:Adams - Essays in Modernity.djvu/81

Rh so often reduce the struggling shopman below the level of even a healthy bestiality. Pity indeed played its part in me the more actively that I had no idea of another world than this in which these hapless ones should be compensated by a dispensation of the grim justice Jesus meted out in the parable of Dives and Lazarus. Dives in his lifetime receives his good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but by and by Lazarus is to be comforted, and Dives in anguish. If I could only have discovered pity,' proceeded Daniel, 'on which to found Socialism, then I should have regretfully realised that Socialism was a dream. But when justice showed me that it also, in its strictest shape, was an integral part of this basis, the matter entered a new phase. I need not, I expect, tell you about this in any detail,' he said; 'you know the scientific basis of Socialism as well as I do.'

'I am not sure of that,' said Hastings. 'Let us come to some agreement on that before you go further; for it is important. To me Capital is simply withheld wages—a formula as absolute in its way as the main formula of Evolution. More and more, as it seems to me, is it becoming clear to us all that, in the domain of social science, Karl Marx's definition of Capital holds precisely the same place as Darwin's definition of Natural Evolution in the domain of science. When well-known writers on social topics,