Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 81.djvu/362

356 mightiest, as well as the most monstrous, of the culture forms that have yet influenced the race. No language rolls the "r" sufficiently to pronounce "war" as it should be pronounced.

These old forces of civilization—war, religion, poetry—have been harmonious coworkers; only a few unpleasant incidents to record in the happy family. Whether war for religion's sake, or religion in the cause of war, or poetry in praise of war and its heroes, or poetry in the service of religion, the forces have not often pulled against each other, but, in the main, together, and the paths in the various fields have not been divergent, but convergent. Homer, Achilles, Moses, David, Cæsar, Mohamet, Charlemagne, Dante, Shakespeare are all artists upon the same canvas.

In a large sense, science and industrialism are not two forces, but a single force. Industrialism is merely science in action, or militant science. But in reality this distinction is a large one. To make industrialism from science, one must add other elements—such, for example, as ambition for power, a greed for exploitation, or a lust for money, or any combination of these. Of course industrialism could not have developed except from the soil of science.

The brief history of industrialism is interesting. I shall divide it into three periods. In the beginning the exploitation of labor was, perhaps, the dominant quality. Now the exploitation of labor was nothing new in the world, for it dates back to the time of the first slave. What I mean is that after a long period of partial emancipation in which the common man had gained a certain power of individual assertion and independent existence, industrialism came along and built up the necessary great groups of dependent industrial workers. The exploitation of labor was on a new scale and done almost consciously as in slavery. Then, as industrialism grew and science pointed out more and more what the new movement really meant, the exploitation of labor became more nearly secondary to the exploitation of nature or of natural resources. To take in private possession and hold against the people the natural wealth of a country was, perhaps, not altogether a new thing, but the machines, the processes, the transportation, the organization, the communication that science developed made the exploitation possible and abundantly worth while. Next there entered the third and greatest period, namely, the period characterized by the exploitation of the middle classes. Now here is one of the greatest discoveries of our times. The so-called middle classes are almost solely the product of industrialism. The modern industries of a country and the commerce resulting therefrom are the only forces that have anywhere built up a large middle class. The best ways to tap the savings of this class, although just discovered, are now pretty well worked out. The American industrial trust, the German syndicate, the new-style