Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/350

338 reached a degree of excellence all out of comparison with that of any previous period. How much also poor-relief has extended its scope, increased its means, and improved its methods! The method of poor-relief in itself, however, can boast of no progress. It was and continues to be an indispensable, but always crude, means of contending against poverty. So far as we can speak here of progress at all, it is not to be found within, but rather without, the proper compass of poor-relief. It begins at the moment when poverty is no longer reckoned with as a condition established by the will of God, or as a necessary fact of human existence; and the question is thus raised whether poor-relief itself cannot be absolutely banished from the world by the absolute abolition of poverty itself and, without prejudice to the physical and mental inequalities in natural gifts which divide men, by the removal of that monstrous inequality which exists in the things of this life. From this point of view the problem of poverty is a problem of economics and sociology which investigates the whole relationship of man to man and to nature about him, and whose final aim must be to render to all an equitable share in the treasures that are to be wrung from nature through work, and also, by the creation of universal prosperity, to banish poverty from the world as the very contradiction of such prosperity.

With an insight into this connection of the matter there begins a new conception of social and economic events. We hear at the close of the eighteenth century of the great doctrine of individual freedom. All legal obstacles which set bounds to this movement must fall. It is taught that, as soon as everyone has liberty to unfold his own powers, the greatest possible guarantee of universal prosperity is attained. But the new economic development which, under the banner of steam and electricity, leads the way to a new era of discovery and invention, in reality created colossal riches on the one hand, and appalling poverty on the other. Poverty is not removed, but increased, and in its opposition to riches appears still sharper and more pressing. Man's ability to work has become an article of sale which, according to the law of supply and demand, displays a tendency toward continuous depreciation as population increases. So economic