THE SCIENTIFIC AGE. 819 



continually reverting revolutions of the social conditions of popular 

 life ; but it would be hopeless to try to stop the stream of this devel- 

 opment, or to turn it back. It must necessarily follow its predestined 

 course, and those countries and peoples will be least affected by its dis- 

 turbing influence, and will be the first to participate in the benefits of 

 the scientific age, which do the most to bring it on. But that the com- 

 ing age will really present better conditions to mankind, and will heal 

 again the wounds that it makes, notwithstanding the unavoidable in- 

 conveniences of the transition to new modes, is recognizable from 

 many signs. 



Is not the generally apparent lowering of the prices of all the 

 necessaries of life and products of labor with a simultaneous, vastly in- 

 creased consumption, an indubitable evidence that the human labor 

 required to provide them has become less as well as lighter than be- 

 fore ? And that the tendency of the development is such that men in 

 the future, will have to labor a much shorter time to provide for their 

 needs ? Does not also the fact, evident at the same time, that wages 

 are not falling in a corresponding degree with prices, show that the 

 lot of the working-classes will be a continuously improving one as the 

 scientific age advances ? Cheaper production of necessaries means the 

 same thing as higher wages. Higher wages, and shorter hours of 

 work ! This louder and louder sounding demand of the so-called 

 working-classes will be realized, therefore, as the natural result of 

 scientific progress. For, except for crises and states of transition, 

 no more will be made than is used, and the average time of work will 

 of necessity diminish with the augmented speed and ease of production. 



Another generally evident fact is the reduction of interest. To 

 discern the significance of this fact, we must keep in view that capi- 

 tal — the savings of wages, as political economy calls it — is the stand- 

 ard of value of all wealth. His own or borrowed capital enables a 

 man to obtain the usufruct of the labor of other men, If capital were 

 really abolished, as fanatical and mistaken men are trying to have 

 done, mankind would fall back into a condition of barbarism in which 

 every one would be relegated to the work of his own hands for the pro- 

 vision of necessaries. But the demand for capital can not keep pace 

 with its increase, because the arrangements for the production of goods 

 are growing more facile, simpler, and cheaper. There is, therefore — 

 always allowing for the transitional variations and violent disturbances 

 of natural progress — a larger average accumulation of capital than can 

 be usefully applied ; or, in other words, an overproduction of capital 

 is taking place, which must find, and is, in fact, already finding, its 

 expression in a reduction of the rates of interest. The value of the 

 savings of former labor, or of capital, will, therefore, continue to de- 

 cline in comparison with the labor of the present, and must in the 

 course of time be annihilated. 



For the other and seemingly the most weighty objection of the 



