ing to do away with classes altogether; to make a
united and free social state.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Mark 14:7.

[4] Quar. Pub. American Statistical Association, June 1907.

VI

THE ROOT OF THE EVIL

All for ourselves and nothing for other people seems in all
ages to have been the vile maxim of the masters of
mankind.--_Adam Smith._

Hither, ye blind, from your futile banding!
Know the rights and the rights are won.
Wrong shall die with the understanding,
One truth clear, and the work is done.--_John Boyle O'Reilly._

The great ones of the world have taken this earth of ours to
themselves; they live in the midst of splendour and
superfluity. The smallest nook of the land is already a
possession; none may touch it or meddle with it.--_Goethe._

I have by no means exhausted the evils of the system under which we
live in the brief catalogue I have made for you, my friend. If it were
necessary, I could compile an immense volume of authentic evidence to
overwhelm you with a sense of the awful failure of our civilization to
produce a free, united, healthy, happy and virtuous people, which I
conceive to be the goal toward which all good and wise men should
aspire. But it is dreary and unpleasant work recounting evil
conditions; constantly looking at the sores of society is a morbid and
soul-destroying task.

I want you now to consider the cause of industrial misery and social
inequality, to ask yourself why these conditions exist. For we can
never hope to remove the evils, Jonathan, until we have discovered the
underlying causes. How does it happen that some people are thrifty and
virtuous and yet miserably poor and that others are thriftless and
sinful and yet so rich that their riches weigh them down and make them
as miserable as the very poorest? Why, in the name of all that is fair
and good, have we got such a stupid, wasteful, unjust and unlovely
social system after all the long centuries of human experience and
toil? When you can answer these questions, my friend, you will know
whither to look for deliverance.

You said in your letter to me the other day, Jonathan, that you
thought things were bad because of the wickedness of man's nature.
Lots of people believe that. The churches have taught that doctrine
for ages, but I do not believe that it is true. It is a doctrine which
earnest men who have been baffled in trying to find a satisfactory
explanation