152 PERILS. — SOCIALISM. 



the last half century, and this is probably true, but it 

 has not prevented a rapid growth of socialism in Europe ; 

 and the fact that American workmen are better off than 

 European, will not prevent its spread here. De Tocque- 

 ville observed and wondered that the masses find their 

 position more intolerable the more it is improved. This 

 is because the man improves faster than his condition ; 

 his wants increase more rapidly than his comforts. A 

 savage, having nothing, is perfectly contented so long 

 as he wants nothing. The first step toward civilizing 

 him is to create a want. Men rise in the scale of civili- 

 zation only as their wants rise; and, wherever a man 

 may be on that scale, to awaken wants which cannot be 

 satisfied is to provoke discontent as surely as if comforts 

 were taken from him. Macaulay argues that the nine- 

 teenth century is the golden age of England, rather tlmn 

 the seventeenth, because then ' ' noblemen were destitute 

 of comforts, the want of which would be intolerable to a 

 modern footman, and farmers and shop-keepers break- 

 fasted on loaves the very sight of which would raise a 

 riot in a modern workhouse," and especially because 

 few knights had ' ' libraries as good as may now per^Detu- 

 ally be found in a servants' hall, or in the back parlor of 

 a small shop-keeper."^ The evidence of progress is 

 found not so much in the fact that the footman has a 

 library as that he wants it. There has been a wonderful 

 ' ' leveling up ' ' of the common people, and their wants 

 have risen accordingly. It is very true that within a 

 century there has been a great multiplication of the 

 comforts of life among the masses; but the question is 

 ivhether that increase has kejjt j)cice with the multiplica- 

 tion of ivants. The mechanic of to-day who has much, 

 may be poorer than his grandfather, who had little. A 

 rich man may be poor, and a poor man may be rich. 

 Poverty is something relative, not absolute. I do not 

 mean simply that a rich man is poor by the side of one 

 richer. That man is poor who lacks the means of sup- 



» History of England, Chap. III. 



