230 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tradesmen, accustomed to lie and deceive, tliey will be suffered . . . 

 only as a necessary evil." In the opinion of Xenoplion, " the manual 

 arts are infamous and unworthy of the citizen." Cicero believed com- 

 merce to be " a sordid affair, when it is of little consequence," and 

 " only tolerable at best, when conducted on a large scale and to supply 

 the country with provisions." Despite the maxim of the monks, 

 Lahorare est orare, the same vicious views prevailed during the 

 middle ages. In the militant countries of to-day, especially Russia 

 and Germany, they have hardly begun to pass away. But the forces 

 that operate to divide a nation into warriors and workers operate 

 also to divide each into other classes. Not only is there a hierarchy 

 of the nobility, but also an ecclesiastical and industrial hierarchy. 

 If we have princes, dukes, counts, and barons, we have cardinals, 

 bishops, canons, and the minor clergy. Above the slaves and serfs 

 there are various trade and professional guilds, where pride of occu- 

 pation seeks to make hereditary the barriers it has raised. To em- 

 phasize these distinctions in state, church, and industry, to enable 

 the members of one class to observe the deference due the members 

 of another, titles, costumes, decorations, and the other insignia of rank 

 are invented and made obligatory by law. 



The despotism that cramps and paralyzes social activity, cramps 

 and paralyzes intellectual activity. In the first place, the necessities 

 of war make it impossible as well as useless to give thought to 

 matters that do not contribute to success in battle.* Therefore, the 

 Spartans had neither literature nor philosophy — neither science nor 

 art. Pursuit of these subjects was effeminate; it unfitted men for 

 the better business of fighting. " Instruction in the sciences," said 

 the barbarians that conquered Rome, anticipating a favorite opinion 



* Did space permit, it would be pertinent to show at some length how war diverts at- 

 tention from all subjects not related to it, and how, even when it does not divert attention 

 from them, it colors them. But any student of sociolofiy will discover abundant proof of 

 this truth in the phenomena growing out of the war with Spain. Take, for example, the 

 New York Evening Post of Saturday, May lih, a newspaper that was opposed to the war in 

 its inception and does not favor it now. But it has been forced to yield to the war spirit to 

 such an extent that of the four leading articles on the first page of the supplement, espe- 

 cially designed for general family reading, three relate to war. On the second of the news 

 pages will be fovmd another long article on " the signs of its (war's) permeation of city life," 

 showing how even " confectionery and embroidery (are) affected." On the editorial page 

 will be found still another article on War Books, showing in like manner that the effect of 

 the war on the publishing business " is depressing," and that while " books old and new 

 about Spain and Cuba, about strategy, and the navy and sea power, manuals for the naval 

 reserve, works on tactics arc firm to higher, as the market reports say," " belles-lettres, criti- 

 cism, history, essays, even the novel, are flat and weak, if not stale and unprofitable." In- 

 deed, the student will find in the phenomena in question, including the bitterest intolerance 

 and a startling perversion of the moral sentiments in regard to the taking of life and prop- 

 erty, a complete verification of all the principles that I have set forth in this section of my 

 article. 



