764 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



another war; after the destruction of armies, new conscrip- 

 tions; and they who had toiled so desperately were never nearer 

 to the reward — they could not spend what they had earned, 

 nor repose on their down-beds, nor strut in their chateaux — 

 they deserted him. Men found that his absorbing egotism 

 was deadlv to all other men." 



But the above principle and the colossal personality exem- 

 plifying it have alike been reproduced in every civilized land 

 on varying scales of decreasing greatness, through exploiters 

 of railroads, of factories, of shops, of house building, of natural 

 products, of human labor, down to each local village magnate 

 who attempts to place as many of his neighbors under eco- 

 nomic tribute as he possibly can. And with what result.^ 

 The free healthy country life has more and more been gone 

 from. All flock into towns and cities. There competition 

 is keen; work is not only hard, it is anxious, worrying, and 

 straining for the nerves; morals become relaxed, and religion 

 disappears. 



Even those who remain on or go back to the land find them- 

 selves often in the hands of financial exploiters and middlemen 

 who corner the grain, the cotton, the tobacco in America, 

 the wheat, potatoes, and hay in Britain, the sugar beets and 

 grapes in France, the beets and the fruit crops in Germany. 

 These products then, when in the exploiters' hands, are gam- 

 bled with, prices are inflated, the great poor and middle classes 

 so-called are squeezed, and the cunning squeezer retires laugh- 

 ingly with his ill-gotten gain. The papers, the press, the uni- 

 versities and the churches are nearly all comfortably subsidized 

 in diverse and skillful ways, in order that they may support 

 "the system," and so, when the falsities, the unscientific meth- 



« 



ods, the inhuman unchristian character of it all is exposed by 

 some thoughtful heart and fearless one, a howl from the privi- 

 leged ones goes up that their freedom is being curtailed, that 

 charter-rights are infringed, that the "honest" earnings of 

 the industrious rich are envied by the thriftless poor, that 

 Nature and the God of Nature — whom they imj^iously malign 

 and do despite to — always intended that there should be rich 



