Page:Challenge of Facts and Other Essays.djvu/174

Rh The first consequence worth noticing, then, as following from the possession of exuberant social power, is that the elasticity and vitality of the society are high and that it can afford to take political and social risks. The field for social experimentation is very wide; as the society is going ahead all the time, its circumstances and surroundings are changing all the time. The "wisdom of the past" easily comes to be a by-word; prescription and precedent are odious, for they appear, not as protection and support, but as trammels. The sacrifice of past achievements goes on constantly and deserves no regret because the gain of the new creations is so very great. Is there any merit of men or institutions in this state of facts? There certainly is not. The men are easily wise when ignorance bears scarcely any penalties; the institutions easily win the credit of social effectiveness when their evil results, if they have any that are evil and hindering, are lost and overwhelmed in the great onward tide of power. If the real social tide is one of swelling and expanding creation or renovation, what can stop it? What can do it any great harm? How do we know, then, whether a given institution is assisting the advance or is hindering it? We certainly can get no light on that point by simply noting that the institution in question constitutes a part of the social aggregate which is moving on.

Another consequence of exuberant social power is that the sort of liberty which consists in pursuing one's own will without restraint becomes in a large measure possible, and that, of course, men are educated to believe in that kind of liberty. That kind of liberty is only possible in a society which possesses a large surplus of social power, very widely distributed — in that case each man is free with respect to nature, and then all