4o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the mechanical equivalent of heat, so long they fail to realize the full 

 inwardness of the situation. And as a rule they do fail. The 

 duties, penalties and sanctions pictured in the Utopias they paint are 

 all too weak and tame to touch the military-minded. Tolstoy's pacifi- 

 cism is the only exception to this rule, for it is profoundly pessimistic as 

 regards all this world's values, and makes the fear of the Lord furnish 

 the moral spur provided elsewhere by the fear of the enemy. But our 

 socialistic peace-advocates all believe absolutely in this world's values; 

 and instead of the fear of the Lord and the fear of the enemy, the only 

 fear they reckon with is the fear of poverty if one be lazy. This weak- 

 ness pervades all the socialistic literature with which I am acquainted. 

 Even in Lowes Dickinson's exquisite dialogue, 2 high wages and short 

 hours are the only forces invoked for overcoming man's distaste for 

 repulsive kinds of labor. Meanwhile men at large still live as they 

 always have lived, under a pain-and-fear economy — for those of us who 

 lived in an ease-economy are but an island in the stormy ocean — and 

 the whole atmosphere of present-day utopian literature tastes mawkish 

 and dishwatery to people who still keep a sense for life's more bitter 

 flavors. It suggests, in truth, ubiquitous inferiority. 



Inferiority is always with us, and merciless scorn of it is the keynote 

 of the military temper. " Dogs, would you live forever ?" shouted 

 Frederick the Great. "Yes," say our Utopians, "let us live forever, 

 and raise our level gradually." The best thing about our " inferiors " 

 to-day is that they are as tough as nails, and physically and morally 

 almost as insensitive. Utopianism would see them soft and squeam- 

 ish, while militarism would keep their callousness, but transfigure 

 it into a meritorious characteristic, needed by " the service," and re- 

 deemed by that from the suspicion of inferiority. All the qualities 

 of a man acquire dignity when he knows that the service of the col- 

 lectivity that owns him needs them. If proud of the collectivity, his own 

 pride rises in proportion. No collectivity is like an army for nourish- 

 ing such pride ; but it has to be confessed that the only sentiment which 

 the image of pacific cosmopolitan industrialism is capable of arousing 

 in countless worthy breasts is shame at the idea of belonging to such a 

 collectivity. It is obvious that the United States of America as they 

 exist to-day impress a mind like General Lea's as so much human 

 blubber. Where is the sharpness and precipitousness, the contempt for 

 life, whether one's own, or another's? Where is the savage " yes " and 

 " no," the unconditional duty ? Where is the conscription ? Where is 

 the blood-tax? Where is anything that one feels honored by belong- 

 ing to ? 



Having said thus much in preparation, I will now confess my own 

 utopia. I devoutly believe in the reign of peace and in the gradual 

 2 " Justice and Liberty," New York, 1909. 



