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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



by yet baser motives, is the story of 

 nineteenth-century politics. 



In spite, however, of such self- 

 betrayal, things have improved even 

 for the self -betrayed not, of course, 

 as they might have done, but still 

 they have improved. If we compare 

 the beauty of our modern cities and 

 the multiplied conveniencies and de- 

 cencies of modern life with the con- 

 dition of things existing fifty years 

 ago, we shall see that the average 

 citizen lives in a world that is a 

 much pleasanter and more desirable 

 abode than that in which his gi*and- 

 father's years were passed. At very 

 small expense he can do a hundred 

 things and share a hundred pleas- 

 ures and advantages that either were 

 totally inaccessible to his grand- 

 father, or were only to be obtained 

 at almost prohibitive cost. Whether 

 the man of to-day is on that account 

 happier than was his ancestor is an- 

 other question ; all we maintain is 

 that he has at least the means of 

 enjoyment and self-improvement 

 placed within his reach in much 

 more liberal measure. It is needless 

 to say that all such changes for the 

 better have been due, in the first 

 place, to the great advance that has 

 been made during the present cen- 

 tury in scientific knowledge, and, in 

 the second, to a certain enlargement 

 of view and increased liberality of 

 sentiment that have been the accom- 

 paniments of that advance. To say 

 that the benefits of scientific discov- 

 ery and invention have been mo- 

 nopolized by the rich would be to 

 fly in the face of the most obvious 

 facts. To the rich have doubtless 

 been opened up new channels for 

 extravagant expenditure ; but the 

 most substantial benefits of increased 

 knowledge have been reaped by 

 those of average means and by the 

 poor. 



The true road to that improved 

 condition of human society which 



socialists are so desirous of bringing 

 about lies, we have always held, 

 through a heightened and strength- 

 ened individualism. One great ad- 

 vantage of approaching the problem 

 from this side is that individualism 

 does not imply a call for any form 

 of state action. It means an awak- 

 ened sense of individual worth, a con- 

 sciousness of individual rights, the 

 exercise of individual self control, 

 the elevation of individual aims and 

 ambitions. The socialist wants to 

 make men other than they now are 

 by legislation. The individualist 

 says that men might be other than 

 they now are without legislation; at 

 the same time he makes no ol Sec- 

 tion to any legislation which springs 

 from an actual necessity of the body 

 politic, and which, without taking a 

 needlessly wide sweep, holds out a 

 remedy for a specific evil. He ob- 

 jects on principle to legislation whicla, 

 for example, undertakes to repress 

 drunkenness by forcing all men to 

 be total abstainers. The sweep here 

 is too wide, the law undertaking, not 

 only to repress a specific evil, but to 

 interfere on a vast scale with the 

 liberties of persons who have in no 

 way merited such interference. The 

 cardinal doctrine of individualism is 

 that each man is primarily respon- 

 sible for making the best conditions 

 of life he can for himself, and that 

 he is the better for being held to 

 this responsibility. Some writers de- 

 claim on the injustice of demanding 

 a degree of virtue in the poor which 

 is never practiced by the rich. It is 

 not a case of demand, however; it is 

 a case of counsel. If there are prac- 

 tices injurious to health, if there are 

 useless modes of expenditure and 

 degrading forms of amusement, he 

 surely is neither an enemy nor an 

 unsympathizing critic of the labor- 

 ing classes who would urge them to 

 avoid these things, and, by doing so, 

 to stand forth in a nobler than any 



