Page:Challenge of Facts and Other Essays.djvu/146

 WHAT THE "SOCIAL QUESTION" IS

have before us the idea that no social effect can be produced without an adequate cause; there can be no result which we may not account for, upon suitable study, by the forces which were at work behind it. It is a favorite notion that "ideas" are causes, that "thought" is a force, and that sentiment, or feeling, may control society. Intellectual affections of any kind whatsoever may determine the direction in which force shall be exerted; but they are not forces which are efficient to produce results. It is impossible to stir a step in any direction which has been selected without capital: we cannot subsist men, i.e., laborers, without it; we cannot sustain study or science without it; we cannot recruit the wasted energies of the race without it; we cannot win leisure for deliberation without it; we cannot, therefore, undertake greater tasks, that is, make progress, without it.

It is the possession of an abundance of capital which sets us free to write and wrangle about "social questions"; it is the possession of abundance of capital which enables us to maintain ""progress," and spend largely upon philanthropy, and increase our numbers at the same time. This point is worth a little more elucidation; when we get a social science this will be one of the controlling points of view in it.

The first task of men is self-maintenance, or nutrition; the second is the maintenance of the race. The two tasks are in antagonism with each other, for they are both demands on one source of power, viz., the pro-