634 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



arrest each, other's action entirely or in part, reaction follows in 

 the form of irritation, passion, and vengeance, to which the French 

 Revolution and other popular outbursts bear ample testimony; 

 and these excitations of the inner man are exactly equal to the 

 social forces in antagonistic equilibrium, and it is this form of 

 energy which now gives rise to the warring tendencies and bit- 

 terness of classes. 



But look at our legislation. Its presumed object is to move the 

 whole social body upon higher planes of progress ; yet it essays to 

 urge forward this vast and intricate structure by the impact of 

 quickening laws, by the concentration of social forces into certain 

 lines ; and to these ill-considered attempts can we attribute the 

 present incoherent social state. The social organism fails to ad- 

 vance as a whole because power is converted into speed, and thus 

 applied it has torn the social body into several parts. Capitalists 

 and laborers, millionaires and i3aupers, moralists and criminals, 

 are being urged upon separate lines with varying momentum, the 

 acceleration of speed at the expense of power finally resulting in 

 urging one tenth part of the population ten paces in advance of 

 the masses, when, but for this transmutation of power into speed, 

 the whole body of the people would have advanced one step to- 

 gether. If the few continue this heedless progress at the expense 

 of the many, the separation will be more and more pronounced ; 

 and the wider the gap thus made, the more severe and disastrous 

 will be the concussion in the day of readjustment. 



Through the laws of force we learn that, when individuals or 

 social groups pull together, the resultant is equal to the sum of 

 their separate effects ; but if they pull in opposition to each other, 

 the resultant is found in the difference of their separate effects, 

 and, should they be equal in power, equilibrium would ensue and 

 no work could be accomplished. 



Yet in spite of this unvarying law of nature, relentless war is 

 being waged between the classes, causing social unrest and indus- 

 trial turmoil ; and, having been taught that in the ballot resides 

 the remedy for all real and fancied evils, each class clamors for 

 legislation, not to conserve the ends of justice, but to increase 

 their own power or decrease that of the opposition, and thereby 

 secure the object of their strife. Politicians discerning this inco- 

 herency of the body politic, are quick to take advantage of it by 

 appealing to every selfish interest, hoping thereby to gain the 

 honor and emoluments of place. In the mass of State and na- 

 tional laws daily enacted it would appear as if the American citi- 

 zen, or society at large, is utterly disregarded. Of laws we have a 

 surfeit, but they are aimed at voting groups and fail to compre- 

 hend the good of all : pension bills for soldiers, river and harbor 

 bills for river and coast constituencies, protective tariff laws for 



