we have our share?
He didn't make the capital that's in this business, and he didn't have
anything to do with making his rich father; and the money his father
made, when you come down to it, was squeezed from men like us. If the
world is supposed to be run by reason, and reason says the majority
ought to rule, why shouldn't each one of us have an equal share with
him?
I'm thinking of myself, of course, the same as everybody else--first,
last and all the time--and in that way I'd be a lot better off, but that
doesn't prevent what I want from being reasonable.
Without saying it, in so many words, is it not plain that I am merely
following in a way that an ordinary mind might understand, the creed
which science has recommended as the underlying motive for all
conduct--self-interest and the rule of reason.
Doubtless a very highly developed scientific intellect might declare
that my reason is not sufficiently enlightened; but it has received a
high school education, and looked about at what other people are doing,
and formed the scientific habit of sticking to the facts. Isn't that
about as much as Enlightened Reason could expect of me?
* * * * *
Now if you happen to be another type of workman, less affected by the
modern scientific conclusions concerning life, you might reply as
follows:
"I feel very contented and humbly grateful to the Lord for all the
benefits he has given us. I am well and strong, I have a better home,
and better wages, and squarer treatment than workmen ever received in
any country in the world. I can make enough to provide modestly and
comfortably for my wife and children, which after all is the main thing
for my happiness. It is not for me to pass judgment on the life of our
employer, or his inheritance, or the life of his father before him, or
the great scheme of human existence which is behind and beyond it all.
It is enough for me to accept such things, as the wish of an all-wise
Creator."
Of these two opposing points of view, which appears to be the one that
has been spreading and gaining in the world to-day--in America and
England, Italy, France, Spain and other countries? Which one is
dependent upon the fundamental feelings of faith and aspiration, which
have always found shelter in a religion of some sort--and which one may
be traced, almost directly, to a crude interpretation of the progress
and dictates of modern science?
And let it be not
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