104 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



merits which communities have made in settHng new countries and 

 in reducing the relatively unproductive wilderness to a fruitful basis 

 for life, relative comfort, and even what the framers of the Declaration 

 of Independence, with wise restraint, called "the pursuit of happiness." 

 In this connection it traces the growth of the varied institutions 

 which constitute the articulated skeleton of society which supports 

 the flexible social and economic life which clothes it with flesh and 

 blood, making of it a living body; subject, however, unfortunately, 

 to all the diseases which afiflict these marvellous living mechanisms. 

 Among the transitional forms through which the developing com- 

 munity passes, we have the change from a condition of predominantly 

 rural to one of predominantly urban life. Here we trace the rise of 

 the artisan and trading classes, the development of industry on a 

 large scale, and the consequent emergence of those dread factors, 

 the capitalist, the financier, the railway king, and all those high and 

 mighty potentates of wealth, who can buy their way into almost any- 

 thing, and even occasionally out of it again. Indeed, so complex has 

 become this modern industrial- and financial texture of society, and so 

 far-reaching its relations, that even the controlling factors in it have 

 lost trace of the real relations and connections of the parts with each 

 other. Taking advantage of this general ignorance of relations, 

 several new factors, with the avowed purpose of promoting their 

 sectional interests, have undertaken to deny stoutly what have been 

 long accepted as at least fundamental relations. They come forward 

 with sweepingly radical propositions for readjusting values and con- 

 nections, the effect of which shall be to eliminate all the more success- 

 ful economic magnates, and, even without the formality of selling all 

 they have, to give it to the poor. 



Now the only satisfactory appeal in all such cases between those 

 who would retain and those who would abolish the present economic 

 and social orders, is the appeal to history. How did these complex 

 structures grow up ? What changes have they undergone in the pro- • 

 cess ? And, so far as may be gathered from the past, what would be 

 the reaction in the case of sudden and radical changes at the various 

 stages in the process ? 



Not only therefore does a properly conceived presentation of 

 historical facts afford an indispensable basis for the satisfactory answer 

 to any intellectual questions which arise, as to the growth and present 

 structure of modern society, but it affords the only satisfactory data 

 for testing the relative truth of the rival analyses of industrial and 

 political societies of the present day, and the consequent value of 

 practical economic and political programmes which depend upon 



