2 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



man, deliverance from the sophistries and absurdities of current 

 social and political discussion becomes easy and inevitable. Its 

 real problems cease to be an endless succession of political de- 

 vices that stimulate cunning and evasion, and countless encroach- 

 ments upon individual freedom that stir up contention and ill 

 feeling. Instead of being innumerable and complex, defying the 

 solvent power of the greatest intellects and the efforts of the most 

 enthusiastic philanthropists, they become few and simple. While 

 their proper solution is beset with difficulties, these difficulties are 

 not as hopeless as the framing of a statute to produce a growth 

 of virtue in a depraved heart. Indeed, no such task has ever been 

 accomplished, and every effort in that direction has been worse 

 than futile. It has encouraged the growth of all the savage traits 

 that ages of conflict have stamped so profoundly in the nervous 

 system of the race. But let it be understood that the real prob- 

 lems of democracy are the problems of self-support and self-con- 

 trol, the problems that appeared with the appearance of human 

 life, and that their sole solution is to be found in the application 

 of precisely the same methods with which Nature disciplines the 

 meanest of her creatures, then we may expect a measure of suc- 

 cess from the efforts of social and political reformers; for free- 

 dom of thought and action, coupled with the punishment that 

 comes from a failure to comply with the laws of life and the con- 

 ditions of existence, creates an internal control far more potent 

 than any law. It impels men to depend upon their own efforts 

 to gain a livelihood; it inspires them with a respect for the right 

 of others to do the same. 



Simple and commonplace as the traits of self-support and self- 

 control may seem, they are of transcendent importance. Every 

 other trait sinks into insignificance. The society whose members 

 have learned to care for themselves and to control themselves has 

 no further moral or economic conquests to make. It will be in 

 the happy condition dreamed of by all poets, philosophers, and 

 philanthropists. There will be no destitution, for each person, 

 being able to maintain himself and his family, will have no occa- 

 sion, except in a case of a sudden and an unforeseen misfortune, 

 to look to his friends and neighbors for aid. But in thus main- 

 taining himself — that is, in pursuing the occupation best adapted 

 to his ability and most congenial to his taste — ^he will contribute 

 in the largest degree to the happiness of the other members of 

 the community. While they are pursuing the occupations best 

 adapted to their ability and most congenial to their tastes, they 

 will be able to obtain from him, as he will be able to obtain from 

 them, those things that both need to supplement the products of 



