COMMERCIALISM 71 



something is this term commercialism, eluding definition, hut evidently 

 including all that is evil. It is the spirit of business. To denounce 

 commercialism is the duty of every " high thinker " ; the defender of 

 business men can rarely obtain fair hearing. If in modest position, 

 he is liable to be treated with mingled pity and contempt ; if in respon- 

 sible position, he is likely to learn that he is biased by self-interest ; if 

 a college officer, he is cast out of court at once as a hireling, because 

 at some time or other a business man has done something for the col- 

 lege. The " high thinkers " can be described only by Job's reply to 

 his similarly self-sufficient and equally ill-informed friends — " No 

 doubt but ye are the people and wisdom shall die with you." 



These critics of our day in their denunciation of commercialism 

 are merely plagiarists of not very high order. The ancient Persians 

 avoided commerce as a baneful pursuit, fatal to integrity; the Eoman 

 held commerce in slight esteem and mocked the gold-worshipping 

 Athenians with the sneer, GrcEcia semper mendax. Yet those peoples, 

 seeing so clearly the mote in their neighbor's eye, were blind to the 

 beam in their own; while they despised the arts of peace they saw no 

 sin in the arts of war, the wiles of diplomacy or the treachery of con- 

 flict. One can understand the Persian's position, but it is difficult to 

 understand how an educated Eoman could fail to recognize that his 

 nation's culture had been absorbed from Grecian colonies on the Italian 

 coasts. The Eoman contempt for merchants was ingratitude matched 

 only by that of some would-be philosophers of our time. For, be it 

 remembered, civilization and commerce are twin sisters, never antag- 

 onistic, but always advancing hand in hand. 



The world's greatest debt is due to civilizations born on the Nile 

 and on the Euphrates, six or seven thousand years ago, both of them 

 commercial. The Babylonians, inhabitants of the lower Euphrates 

 area and intermediaries of commerce between India and the Mediter- 

 ranean peoples, attained to a civilization prior to 2500 B.C. apparently 

 comparable to that of Great Britain in the eighteenth century. It was 

 marked by studies in science, by literature, by a noteworthy system of 

 laws and by prosperity of the common people as well as of the rich. 

 It dominated the whole of southwestern Asia and by 1500 B.C. its 

 language had become that of the court even in Egypt and Asia Minor. 

 Wlien the course of commerce was diverted to the Eed Sea and Alex- 

 andria, the glory of the Euphrates departed, to return only for a little 

 when commerce revived under the caliphs of Bagdad. 



Close intercommunication and the interchange of products along 

 fifteen hundred miles of the Nile, conjoined with a vast caravan and 

 sea trade with Arabia, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, as intermediaries 

 of the whole region drained by the upper Niles, led to the development 

 in Egypt of a civilization whose remains are even more notable than 



