from the Standpoint of Science 53 



spirit takes the form of a strong feeling of 

 the importance of organizing the nation as a 

 whole, of making its social and economic 

 conditions such that it is able to do its work 

 in the world and meet its fellows without 

 hesitation in the field and in the market, then 

 it seems to me a wholly good spirit indeed, 

 one of the highest forms of social, that is, 

 moral instinct. 



So far from our having too much of this 

 spirit of patriotism, I doubt if we have 

 anything like enough of it. We wait to 

 improve the condition of some class of 

 workers until they themselves cry out or 

 even rebel against their economic condition. 

 We do not better their state because we 

 perceive its relation to the strength and 

 stability of the nation as a whole. Too often 

 it is done as the outcome of a blind class war. 

 The coal-owners, the miners, the manu- 

 facturers, the mill-hands, the landlords, the 

 farmers, the agricultural labourers, struggle 

 by fair means, and occasionally by foul, 

 against each other, and, in doing so, against 

 the nation at large, and our statesmen as a 

 rule look on. That was the correct attitude 



