5oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



apart to have this effect. It is true that only a too sanguine optimism 

 can see the immediate abolition of war, but it is equally beyond dispute 

 that there are now powerful forces at work in the direction of universal 

 peace. 



Still another optimistic factor of the present is the crusade against 

 alcohol. This is a determined and persistent opposition and in the 

 end will eliminate its use. Hitherto the opposition has been largely 

 sentimental and has been directed not so much against alcohol as against 

 drunkenness. Eecent studies in the psychology and physiology of 

 alcohol lead us to believe that it is a race poison. It is the most deadly 

 form of the downward or recalcitrant action of matter. So far back 

 as history goes it has acted as -one of the most serious impeding forces 

 to the upward progress of the human spirit. It is in spite of alcohol 

 that progress has continued from century to century. It is impossible 

 to estimate the damage it has done to the human race. Its elimination 

 will be a far more difficult problem than the abolition of war. The 

 psychological cause of the universal desire for alcohol lies deeper than 

 has been supposed, and it is only when this cause is understood that 

 successful headway will be made against it. But it is undoubtedly true 

 that alcohol will have to go. The emergence of woman into political 

 and social affairs will add new vigor to the opposition to it and psycho- 

 logical, physiological and sociological studies will solve the problem of 

 method. 



But, now, it may be said, while these optimistic views of life and 

 society are most cheering and suggestive, still they are in a certain way 

 superficial and particularly so as regards the economic outlook for the 

 future. There are deep-lying causes at work, it may be said, which look 

 towards human degeneracy rather than towards human uplift. Our 

 present prosperity is due very largely, for one thing, to the fact that 

 there have been ever to the westward rich unoccupied lands to relieve the 

 congestion of our population and react as an invigorating influence 

 upon our eastern civilizations. These lands are now nearly all occupied, 

 and henceforth, remembering Malthus's doctrine of the increase of 

 population and the law of diminishing returns in agriculture, we may 

 look for trouble. In the United States, it may be said, our present 

 flamboyant prosperity is due to the fact that we are reveling in the 

 wasteful use of a by no means inexhaustible supply of bituminous and 

 anthracite coal, petroleum, natural gas, timber and soil fertility. The 

 end of all these rich supplies can not be far away. If we could per- 

 chance find a substitute for our coal and timber, yet there is no way 

 of supplying the combined nitrogen necessary to renew our soil when 

 the present sources are exhausted. Again, in other directions, it is 

 said, the social forces put into operation by man are Lilliputian and a 

 single convulsion of nature may overthrow them all. Take, for in- 

 stance, our war against contagious diseases. When we have eliminated 

 them, we have destroyed nature's social scavengers and she will take a 



