and the bare necessities of human life. And the seemingly materialistic
enthusiasm which will gradually transform our semi-bestial civilization
is no less poetic or religious than any Eastern aloofness or Tolstoian
simplicity. Poetry is not all rhyming couplets: religion is not all for
the intellectually or artistically incompetent. So, a world in which
twenty per cent. of humanity did not slowly starve to death would not
necessarily be less worthy of admiration. Nor would religion disappear
if every one were healthy, unless religion means the result of
neurasthenia or dyspepsia or premature ageing. No doubt there is some
exaggeration in this element of the common social ideals. Not even a
poor man lives on bread alone; and it is indeed possible to have a
perfectly well-fed society which would be quite barbarous. But we must
regard the fine flower of culture as purchased at too high a price if,
for the sake of a few connoisseurs and courtiers not to say bourgeois
plutocrats, the majority in every nation must lack a bare human life.
Some declare that the division between nations is more important than
that between the rich and the poor. It may be so; but the only reason
must be that what the few have, the many, however dimly, may hope to
share or may be induced to think they do share. Humanity is infinitely
gullible. But in every nation there is rising a murmur which may yet
become an articulate cry.

The writers of modern Utopias in their detailed conception of what is
desirable may speak only for themselves; but it is a sign of the common
enthusiasm that they all attach so much importance to organization and
to physical health. This indicates that we all, in every nation, look
forward, however vaguely, to a society in which human life shall be less
difficult for the majority to obtain. We speak sometimes of the
redistribution of leisure--August Bebel made it one of the chief
articles of his creed. But this as an ideal does not indicate any desire
that the dock-labourer should have time to loaf in a club, or his wife
time to play bridge, except in so far as time to loaf is an opportunity
for some other employment than the mere struggle for food. There is
nothing inevitable in a situation which makes the development of most of
the human faculties a privilege of a few and an impossibility for the
greater number. Nor is it correct to suppose that the half-starved and
the ill-clothed should be satisfied with being 'virtuous