Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/762

742 is progress, there will be a certain portion of the labor and capital of a country which will be in a state of flux. Mobility of capital and labor is, in fact, a condition of industrial evolution, just as the unstable equilibrium of matter is a condition of all evolution. It is a condition of the growth and development of the human body that part of the cells of which it is composed to-day shall be thrown out of work tomorrow.

The equanimity of our study of political economy is always disturbed by its manifest inequalities and misfortunes. We plainly see and deeply lament the inequality in the apportionment of land and capital, and vainly try to remedy it. But is there not quite as great inequality in the apportionment of industrial powers? And where is the remedy? Which of us, by taking thought, can add a cubit to his stature? Can the Government by its force, or the economist by his advice, do it for us? And if they lack the power to make us industrially equal, what else can they do for us that will make up for this lack? Is there not here the greatest of all the advantages of one human being over another?

Would not, in fact, the equality of land and capital merely emphasize the other and confessedly irremediable inequality? The drudges who make a poor living work as hard, and their work wears as painfully on their nerves, as can be said of the competent who without land or capital are able to make a good living. Are they then to be given a good living for little or unimportant work? Not until some way is found to highly reward the man who does little because he is incapable, without encouraging the capable man to do little because he is lazy.

So much for inequality. But inequality is not the only misfortune. Aside from the fact that industry is not organized to its best advantage, is it not also apparent and regretableregrettable [sic] that under any organization we are a race of sad bunglers; and that so much of the work of sustaining social life must be done by those who are bunglers even in comparison with their fellow-beings? And what is the remedy for this?

We are growing out of it, and may still grow out of it, as also out of the inequality. And this fact that most of our progress must be growth need not discourage us from doing what we see can be done to promote the progress; our doing so will constitute a part of the process of growth. But we can do it better if we recognize that another part of the process is beyond our control, if not entirely beyond our aid; for then we shall be better able to judge when we are working in the right direction, and to make our work help rather than hinder that of the overruling Power which is pushing us on to our destiny.