58 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



shirkers, of "whom there are always a certain number even in the 

 best-regulated establishments. 



It is a favorite observation with writers on social and political 

 economy that the world is continually passing through periods of 

 " social evolution " ; one of the latest and most popular of these 

 authors (Benjamin Kidd) calls the present time " the most re- 

 markable epoch in the history of human thought." Portents of 

 impending changes in the established order of things, affecting 

 the very foundations of society and the welfare of mankind, are 

 frequently revealed to the innate perceptions of such writers ; and 

 it would seem from some of these — more especially the German 

 authors — that the industrial world is now upon the verge of a 

 social cataclysm, out of which a new civilization, the resultant 

 of many opposing forces, would be evolved. Such prophecies 

 (like Benner's) have hitherto apparently obeyed the "law of 

 averages " with respect to the proportion of hits and misses ; yet 

 new forecasters of future social conditions, who believe that they 

 perceive shadows of " combing events " cast before, continue to 

 decipher these signs according to their introspective vision rather 

 than through the light of past experience. 



The fundamental principle of the Malthusian theory, that 

 population tends to increase in geometrical progression and that 

 the supply of food and other necessaries of life can only be in- 

 creased in arithmetical progression, tersely expressed the social 

 problem of Malthus's generation ; but the subsequent wresting 

 from Nature of virgin soil of vast extent in India, Russia, America, 

 and other parts of the globe, affording feeding ground for count- 

 less flocks and herds, together with facilities for plowing, sow- 

 ing, and reaping unlimited crops through the aid of modern agri- 

 cultural machinery, and the modern methods of rapid distribution, 

 changed all the former conditions, rendering the law inoperative 

 during the century which has elapsed since its promulgation. 

 Some of the more recent prophecies have proved equally abor- 

 tive, and others are likely to share the same fate in the near 

 future. 



The growth of socialism in Europe during the past quarter of 

 a century is one of the " signs of the times " which is just now 

 affording a fruitful field for such speculations. If we permit 

 ourselves to view the present state of civilization through the 

 spectacles of some of these theorists, or if we countenance the 

 foreign socialistic propaganda, we must, it seems to me, close our 

 eyes to countless evidences of truly wonderful progress which 

 has been made by the wage-earning class in America during this 

 period in mental, moral, and material welfare. The operative of 

 to-day is not only the peer but the superior of his predecessor in 

 all the qualifications that form the mental gauge by which we 



