Bulls 183 



people prefer the neighbour's ill to their own good, 

 which is an essentially savage preference. 



My plot produces not one mangold less because 

 the produce of my neighbour's plot is more than 

 tripled, and my pleasure is wholly to the good. 

 He and I alike suffer from under-production, 

 neither of us from the over production of the 

 other. Let either of us increase his production 

 tenfold this year, and the other gets not a penny 

 less for his own, because the wide world, and not 

 merely the local market, is competing for our 

 produce in its final form. I shall put no material 

 value for myself on the service I have done my 

 neighbour, because I have not done it for any such 

 gain to myself ; also because I know that my 

 neighbour, in at least nine cases out of ten, will 

 prefer to deny the obligation, lest his admission of 

 my service to him should react to my credit or to 

 my advantage in any way. I am concerned with 

 my neighbour only in my wish to see him a better 

 neighbour, knowing, as I do, that we can have a 

 better country only in better men. 



There were two neighbours, one of them 

 keeping very bad bulls, the other breeding very 

 good ones, and year after year, the man who bred 

 the very good ones offered them to his neighbour 

 at smaller prices than his neighbour paid for the 

 very bad ones, which were bought time after time 

 without any knowledge whatever as to the 

 rubbish in their parentage. This went on for 

 nearly a generation, and in that time, the man 

 who kept the very bad bulls had never once 



