Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/503

Rh the advance in the position of woman. Third, the gradually lessening frequency of war and its possible abolition. Fourth, the agitation against alcohol.

So free are we from fear that we do not realize the bondage of men in former times to both supernatural and political tyranny. Virgil represents Æneas as pulling up a little bush and finding clots of blood clinging to the roots, whereupon his terror was so great that his hair stood on end and his voice stuck in his throat. Fear is the greatest source of human suffering. Until comparatively recent times nature has been something unknown and the unknown has been a source of constant terror. It is believed to be full of supernatural and possibly hostile agencies. Devils and demons and indignant deities, an angry and jealous God, possible future and retributive punishments, earthquakes, and eclipses, all have contributed to make the life of man miserable. This burden of woe has now been lifted. Another view of nature prevails. Man has cast off fear and finds himself master of nature and perhaps of all her forces, while in religion the gospel of love is casting out the dread monster of fear. But it is not alone fear of supernatural agencies that we have escaped, but also fear of political tyranny and of sudden political upheavals connected with despotic governments and social instability. Few of us appreciate the profound security that we now enjoy, security of life, property and reputation.

The wonderful advance in the domestic and social position of woman and her corresponding happiness sounds a strong optimistic note in the present. In Queen Elizabeth's time a married woman and all her possessions almost belonged to her husband, very much as did his horse. He could take away her property or her wages or even pound her with a stick. Gradually she has secured the right to her own property, to her own earnings, and to her own children, and is now rapidly gaining the right to hold office, the right to an equal voice in public affairs and the right to equality of industrial opportunity. Woman's suffrage, for instance, partial or complete, is a fact in large portions of the United States, in New Zealand, New South Wales, South and West Australia, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and other countries.

Another ground of optimism is found in the decreasing frequency of war. The cruelty of war, the physical and mental suffering, and the immediate and remote social consequences, all together represent only a part of its ultimate evils. In his little book on "The Human Harvest," David Starr Jordan has shown how war in the past has operated to produce human degeneracy by removing the best and strongest men and leaving at home the sick and the maimed, the lazy and inefficient, the slaves and the commonest laborers to become the fathers of the next generation. Now the conditions are different. Even in the event of a war in this country, the conditions are such that no serious depopulation could happen and in Europe wars are already too far