Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/770

 Of the effect of his remedy upon the material, social, and moral welfare of society Mr, George is very hopeful. Under its action he sees production bounding forward with giant strides; the great agencies, which man has called into being to help him subdue the earth, no longer of doubtful good. By the power of these "slaves of the lamp of knowledge" he sees wealth increased on every hand, and distributed to each according to his labor. He sees these great forces elevating society from its very foundations. Each would have enough and to spare. Men would no longer seek vainly for the opportunities to labor. Competition would no longer be one-sided. "Into the labor market would have entered the greatest of all competitors for the employment of labor, a competitor whose demand can not be satisfied until want is satisfied—the demand of labor itself." All raised above want and the fear of want, human life would expand in new directions and under the impulse of new ideals. The worship of wealth is but the expression of the fear of want. All men struggle to place themselves above want and the possibility of it. What men struggle for they admire, and to win the admiration and approbation of their fellows, if not the strongest, is at least one of the strongest, passions of human nature. With the passing away of this fear of want, however, will come a declining admiration of wealth, self-seeking diminish, seeking the good of others increase. And there need be no fear that, with declining need to devote his powers to getting subsistence, man will stagnate. "Man is the unsatisfied animal." For him are all the powers of the heavens and the earth. Beyond material needs there are spiritual needs.

That love of knowledge which has given us our sciences, of the beautiful which has given us our art and literature, will in the future as in the past appeal to and excite our highest powers. Whatever may have been the need of the stimulus given by the fear of want, it no longer exists. Humanity now needs but to be assured of the fruits of its labor to go upon the heights. It needs but this to realize the dream born of material progress—to make for itself the golden age:

"Youth no longer stunted and starved; age no longer harried by avarice; the child at play with the tiger; the man with the muck-rake drinking in the glory of the stars! Foul things fled, fierce things tame, discord turned to harmony! For how could there be greed where all had enough? How could the vice, the crime, the ignorance, the brutality, that spring from poverty and the fear of poverty, exist where poverty had vanished? Who should crouch where all were freemen; who oppress where all were peers?"

Such the promise Mr. George holds out to society if it but consent to "render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's"—to give to labor and capital their reward. If it consent not, he raises his voice to warn it that it must crush the worm that is gnawing at its vitals, if it be not destroyed. If labor get not its reward, the gulf between the