PREFACE xi 



and the inevitable overwork of the better sort? 

 And even on the fascinating hypothesis that calm 

 may be re-established and the world converted into 

 a vast workshop controlled by love and moderation, 

 how shall we prevent the sexual instinct, acting 

 without foresight or restraint, from flooding the 

 world with millions of hungry mouths as a terrible 

 charge upon society and a constant danger to the 

 general peace ? And if, after all, Malthus's theory 

 prove true ? What will our future statesman do 

 with the excess of population when, with America 

 and Africa glutted with European emigrants, there 

 remain no virgin soils to plough, no mines to be 

 exploited ? 



And turning our attention to the march of civil- 

 isation itself, will not the aurea mediocritas, to 

 which society aspires, enervate the mental faculties, 

 .undermining the energy for scientific investigation ? 

 Will not collective capital be timid, and lack the 

 dash, on romantic and supreme occasions, of 

 individual capital? Will glory, the passion of 

 philosophic and scientific genius, prosper in the 

 grey and subdued atmosphere of the commonweal ? 

 When injustice is banished, will not the best spring 

 of the mental evolution of humanity perhaps have 

 ceased to act? Pain is itself a great moulder of 

 character, and incites to heroic deeds. When 

 misery and misfortune are reduced to a tolerable 



