378 The Effects of Evolution 



all eager travelers towards the "Coming Civilization" not 

 to piit too much trust in Mr. George's guide-board.* 



3. Let us turn next to Count Tolstoi's ideal country. 

 As I survey it from the outside, and see there no science, 

 no philosophy, no literature, no art, no music, no society, 

 in spite of the fact that there is to be no more fighting and 

 that everybody is to have something to eat, I confess that 

 it looks to me singularly uninteresting. I am obliged to 

 own that, even for the sake of escaping many evils, I do not 

 want to go there. I will even go further and say that, if 

 the world ever gets to be the realization of his dream, I 

 shall be more than ever interested in flying-machines, in 

 the hope that they may furnish means for emigration to 

 some other planet. With the exception of the peace that 

 he hopes for, his picture looks to me singularly like the old 

 world in its condition of original barbarism. 



And then, even thovigh this were not true, the fact that 

 from the very beginning the world has been moving in i)re- 

 cisely the opposite direction, would seem to be a somewhat 

 discouraging circumstance. Count Tolstoi believes in God. 

 Now, God is either too weak to help himself, — in which 

 case there is not much hope, — or else he does not hold the 

 Count's views ; for, as I have said, for so long a time as we 

 know anything about it, under the government of this same 

 God, the whole drift of things has been the other way. I, 

 for one, do not think there is much use in trying to fight 

 against the whole tendency of the universe. So, whatever 

 we may think of Tolstoi the novelist, I cannot regard his 

 road towards the " Coming Civilization " as an open one. 



4. Another dream is that of Industrial Co-operation. 

 From the beginning there has been competition ; and under 

 competition has been reached whatever gain the world has 

 made. But it is easy to make this battle of competition 

 appear an ugly and anti-social one. And then, at first sight, 

 it looks as though the profit that goes to the capitalist and 

 the middle-man might be saved and turned over directly to 

 labor. 



But let us look at it in another way. This ugly fact of 

 battle, of competition, works badly only for producers or 

 dealers in the same line of goods, and it works badly for them 



*Bnt, gr.antinp: all this to l)e true, still his "Single-tax" idea may be an im- 

 proveiiient on our present methods. I have not studied this sufficiently to feel 

 sure of my ground. 



