.* They talked in large ways of
policy, and they identified policy and right. And to me they talked in
fatherly ways, patronizing my youth and inexperience. They were the most
hopeless of all I had encountered in my quest. They believed absolutely
that their conduct was right. There was no question about it, no
discussion. They were convinced that they were the saviours of society,
and that it was they who made happiness for the many. And they drew
pathetic pictures of what would be the sufferings of the working class
were it not for the employment that they, and they alone, by their
wisdom, provided for it.

* Before Avis Everhard was born, John Stuart Mill, in his
essay, ON LIBERTY, wrote: "Wherever there is an ascendant
class, a large portion of the morality emanates from its
class interests and its class feelings of superiority."

Fresh from these two masters, I met Ernest and related my experience. He
looked at me with a pleased expression, and said:

"Really, this is fine. You are beginning to dig truth for yourself. It
is your own empirical generalization, and it is correct. No man in the
industrial machine is a free-will agent, except the large capitalist,
and he isn't, if you'll pardon the Irishism.* You see, the masters
are quite sure that they are right in what they are doing. That is the
crowning absurdity of the whole situation. They are so tied by their
human nature that they can't do a thing unless they think it is right.
They must have a sanction for their acts.

* Verbal contradictions, called BULLS, were long an amiable
weakness of the ancient Irish.

"When they want to do a thing, in business of course, they must wait
till there arises in their brains, somehow, a religious, or ethical, or
scientific, or philosophic, concept that the thing is right. And then
they go ahead and do it, unwitting that one of the weaknesses of the
human mind is that the wish is parent to the thought. No matter what
they want to do, the sanction always comes. They are superficial
casuists. They are Jesuitical. They even see their way to doing wrong
that right may come of it. One of the pleasant and axiomatic fictions
they have created is that they are superior to the rest of mankind in
wisdom and efficiency. Therefrom comes their sanction to manage the
bread and butter of the rest of mankind. They have even resurrected the
theory of the divine right of kings--commercial kings in their case.