458 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



an axe, and, "witli a view to diminish or destroy the power of the stick 

 to perform work, chopped it into several pieces ; whereupon, each 

 piece immediately began to bring as much water as one had formerly 

 done ; and in the end not only the magician but the whole world was 

 deluged and destroyed. 



The proposition, that *' all transitions in the life of society, even 

 those to a better stage, are inevitably accompanied by human suffer- 

 ing," is undoubtedly correct. It is impossible, as an old-time writer 

 (Sir James Stewart, 17GT) has remarked, to even sweep a room with- 

 out raising a dust and occasioning temporary discomfort. But those 

 who are inclined to take discouraging and pessimistic views of re- 

 cent economic movements, seem not only to forget this, but also to 

 content themselves with looking mainly at the bad results of such 

 movements, in place of the good and bad together. So it is not diffi- 

 cult to understand how a person like the Russian novelist Tolstoi, a 

 man of genius, but whose life and writings show him to be eccentric 

 almost to the verge of insanity, should, after familiarizing himself 

 with peasant life in Russia, come to the conclusion " that the edifice of 

 civil society, erected by the toil and energy of countless generations, 

 is a crumbling ruin." But the trials and vicissitudes of life as Tolstoi 

 finds them among the masses of Russia are the result of an original 

 barbarism and savagery from which the composite races of that 

 country have not yet been able to emancipate themselves ; coupled 

 Avith the existence of a typically despotic government, which throttles 

 every movement for increased freedom in respect to both person and 

 thought. But these are results for which the higher civilization of 

 other countries is in nowise responsible and can not at present help, 

 but the indirect influence of which will, without doubt, in time power- 

 fully affect and even entirely change. No one, furthermore, can 

 familiarize himself with life as it exists in the slums and tenement- 

 houses of all great cities in countries of the highest civilization ; or in 

 sterile Newfoundland, where all nature is harsh and niggardly ; or in 

 sunny Mexico and the islands of the West Indies, where she is all 

 bountiful and attractive, without finding much to sicken him with the 

 aspects under which average humanity presents itself. But even here 

 the evidence is absolutely conclusive that matters are not worse, but 

 almost immeasurably better than formerly ; and that the possibilities 

 for melioration, through what may be termed the general drift of 

 affairs, is, beyond all comparison, greater than at any former period. 



The first and signal result of the recent remarkable changes in the 

 conditions of production and distribution, which in turn have been so 

 conducive of industrial and societary distui-bances, has been to greatly 

 increase the abundance and reduce the price of most useful and desir- 

 able commodities. If some may say, *' What of that, so long as dis- 

 tribution is impeded and has not been correspondingly perfected?" 

 it may be answered, that production and distribution in virtue of a 



