Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/175

Rh and absorption of rival communities analogous to the assimilation of food, by an animal organism; and, in fine, through, a literal devouring of all the social organisms in her environment which lasted until, like a great parent-cell, she burst into the many smaller cells that constitute the nations of modern Europe.

Turning to "industrialism," as its distinctive features are beginning to show themselves in our modern civilization, we find tendencies almost directly opposite. To begin with, the effort to sustain life by productive labor requires, for its success, that the best energies of each individual should be concentrated on the particular work his capabilities fit him for, and taxed as little as possible by the requirements of society as a whole. Every man must be left to develop himself to the utmost, as the total product of the labor of all can only increase with the efficiency of each. This necessity is soon rendered still more imperative by that early, differentiation in industrial organization which localizes the production of different forms of commodities, and leads to barter; for only in the absence of the capricious meddling of authority can producers of one commodity measure the permanent value of their work in relation to the products of others. Furthermore, that a strong enough motive for the greatest individual exertions may ever exist, the returns of labor must be proportioned to energy expended; and this they never can be when the natural working of cause and effect is set aside by the artificial action of government. The outcome of these facts is the assertion of freedom; the belief, exactly opposed to that of "militancy," that the state exists for the benefit of the individual, and the consequent tending toward popular government.

"Militancy," then, sacrifices the individual to state-preservation. "Industrialism" uses the state as a means to individual betterment. Growing "militancy" produces concentration and increase of governmental power; restriction of the larger human sympathies involved by national enmities; rigidity of class distinctions, and subordination to authority. With growing "industrialism" the sphere of governmental control diminishes; its hold upon individual freedom is relaxed; the common brotherhood of man grows with the intermingling of commercial life, and the class distinctions built up by brute force melt away in the competition of productive energy. The community lives by the separate activities of its units carried on for personal ends, and unimpeded by the unnecessary meddling of central authority. That prosperity under this régime, in its completeness, differs from the prosperity of "militancy," above defined, as daylight from darkness, a moment's contemplation of it will show.