Civilization and Decay 355 



Mr. Adams does not believe that any individual 

 or group of individuals can influence the destiny 

 of a race for good or for evil. All of us admit 

 that it is very hard by individual effort thus to make 

 any alteration in destiny ; but we do not think it im- 

 possible; and Mr. Adams will have performed a 

 great service if he succeeds in fixing the eyes of the 

 men who ought to know thoroughly the problems 

 set us to solve, upon the essential features of these 

 problems. I do not think his diagnosis of the dis- 

 ease is in all respects accurate. I believe there is 

 an immense amount of healthy tissue as to the ex- 

 istence of which he is blind ; but there is disease, and 

 it is serious enough to warrant very careful exam- 

 ination. 



However, Mr. Adams is certainly in error in 

 putting the immense importance he does upon the 

 question of the expansion or contraction of the cur- 

 rency. There is no doubt whatever that a nation 

 is profoundly affected by the character of its cur- 

 rency ; but there seems to be equally little doubt that 

 the currency is only one, and by no means the most 

 important, among a hundred causes which profound- 

 ly affect it. The United States has been on a gold 

 basis, and on a silver basis; it has been on a paper 

 basis, and on a basis of what might be called the 

 scraps and odds and ends of the currencies of a dozen 

 other nations; but it has kept on developing along 

 the same lines no matter what its currency has been. 

 If a change of currency were so enacted as to 

 amount to dishonesty, that is, to the repudiation of 



