Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/719

Rh of science, æsthetics, and ethics." The author is not one of those speculators who disparage the work of Herbert Spencer. In the opening of his third chapter we find the following; "It has been pointed out by Herbert Spencer—who seems to have pointed out pretty nearly everything—that ideal men are possible only in an ideal state; and conversely that a perfect social state is possible only when every unit has achieved perfection." He then proceeds to consider the great gain that would result if only all men were "decently honest." He shows how much labor is at present expended in guarding against dishonesty, and how seriously the general happiness is interfered with by these protective measures. The necessity of issuing railway tickets, he observes, arises from the fact that, as things now are, hundreds and thousands of persons would steal railway rides unless they were required to present tickets. Then the tickets have to be dated, punched, and carefully collected to prevent their being used again. "Taking any church," says our author, "probably nine tenths of the 'respectable worshipers' who perform their eminently respectable devotions there every Sunday and thank God that they are children of grace and neither Turks, Jews, Socinians, nor infidels, would have no scruple in cheating a railway company on their way home." There may be, and we trust there is, some exaggeration in this statement, but that there is a large element of truth in it no one who has any extensive knowledge of mankind would be disposed to question. This matter of railway tickets is, however, only one out of many illustrations which the author brings forward of the loss entailed upon society and the diminution of happiness through the defective morality of individuals. Before we can hope to reach or even to sight semi-Utopia there must be a radical change in this respect.

The author next proceeds to discuss the "Servant Question," quoting John Stuart Mill as saying that "there is hardly any part of the present constitution of society more essentially vicious and more morally injurious to both parties than the relations between masters and servants." The word "masters" is to be taken here as including mistresses. The condition of things to which the author particularly refers is that existing in England. Some of its features have been modified in this country, but whether upon the whole we have made any sensible advance toward semi-Utopia as regards the status of the servant class may be doubted. There is more independence on one side, but what is wanted is more humanity on both sides. It would be impossible in semi-Utopia to have one class of human beings whom another class regarded as the necessary instruments of their ease and pleasure, but as cut off from them in every social sense by an impassable barrier. In that happy state, when two human beings come together in any form of association, the thought of each will be how he or she can make the relation fruitful of good in the widest possible sense to the other. People will then no longer hoard their culture and their social advantages, as if to communicate them to others would be to diminish if not destroy their value; but whatever any one has that is good he or she will try to make common. The author's whole discussion of the servant question is full of useful suggestiveness. To those who can not rise in imagination above what is sanctioned by social usage, and to those who are dominated by a selfish passion to hold on to such class privileges as they possess, many of his ideas will appear absurd; but few liberal-minded or sympathetic persons will read these chapters without acknowledging the general force and truth of the author's positions.

Following the chapters on the Servant Question we have a trenchant discussion of Luxury and Waste. Here the author's indignation waxes hot, as well it may. He points out how utterly at war with the canons of true taste all useless and ostentatious luxury is, and to what extent the higher intellectual and moral interests of society are sacrificed to a mere love of display. Here there is much we should be glad to quote, but our limits forbid. The author again defines his position by remarking (page 195): "We can thus clearly perceive the feasibility of an approximation toward semi-Utopia—if only men would be moderately unselfish, unwasteful, and reasonable. It is mainly human nature that has to be changed." We have only in part indicated the contents of this interesting volume, but we have perhaps said enough to show the main lines of