Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/520

508 customs which shall make it impossible for large classes to contract themselves into an intolerably painful or injurious status; or for individuals to enter into contracts, however personally advantageous, which will in effect tend to produce such a result for the other parties concerned. . . . And in an age which has accomplished such marvels in the way of self-adjusting machinery and compensating balances as the present, it should not be impossible to assign the limits within which individual liberty of action must be confined in order to secure to the individual himself the supreme good of dwelling in a community without victims.

"The course natural to the multitudes is to make things, to contract marriages of affection, to revere the wisdom of the wise, who succeed in interpreting those laws of heaven and earth which regulate the satisfaction of human instincts. And the pursuance of this course holds out, unless human nature has altered in 5000 years, the best prospect of social and economic welfare to the multitudes of the West, as well as to the ancient nations, versed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and the learning of the Chaldeans."