possible account, and to work strenuously and heartily
in whatever position he has been placed. It is because I cannot help
thinking that when we attack competition in general terms, we are, too
often, blinding ourselves to those homely and often-repeated, and, as I
believe, indisputable truths, that I have ventured to speak to-day,
namely, on the side of competition--so far, at least, on the side of
competition as to suggest that our true ideal should be, not a state,
if such a state be conceivable, in which there is no competition, but a
state in which competition should be so regulated that it should be
really equivalent to a process of bringing about the best possible
distribution of the whole social forces; and should be held to be,
because it would really be, not a struggle of each man to seize upon a
larger share of insufficient means, but the honest effort of each man
to do the very utmost he can to make himself a thoroughly efficient
member of society.

SOCIAL EQUALITY.

The problem of which I propose to speak is the old dispute between
Dives and Lazarus. Lazarus, presumably, was a better man than Dives.
How could Dives justify himself for living in purple and fine linen,
while Lazarus was lying at the gates, with the dogs licking his sores?
The problem is one of all ages, and takes many forms. When the old
Puritan saw a man going to the gallows, "There," he said, "but for the
grace of God, goes John Bradford". When the rich man, entering his
club, sees some wretched tatterdemalion, slouching on the pavement,
there, he may say, goes Sir Gorgius Midas, but for--what? I am here and
he there, he may say, because I was the son of a successful
stock-jobber, and he the son of some deserted mother at the workhouse.
That is the cause, but is it a reason? Suppose, as is likely enough,
that Lazarus is as good a man as Midas, ought they not to change
places, or to share their property equally? A question, certainly, to
be asked, and, if possible, to be answered.

It is often answered, and is most simply answered, by saying that all
men ought to be equal. Dives should be cut up and distributed in equal
shares between Lazarus and his brethren. The dogma which embodies this
claim is one which is easily refuted in some of the senses which it may
bear, though in spite of such refutations it has become an essential
part of the most genuine creed of mankind. The man of science says,
with perfect truth, that so far fro