758 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



the great mass of farmers, after starting in life with no other 

 resources than an abundance of energy and a wilhngness to 

 work, have attained only very modest incomes, any losses to 

 which they have been subjected have been more keenly felt 

 than if they had been possessed of more abundant means. 



Our study has thus far been occupied with the economic basis 

 of the farmer's discontent. A satisfactory result, however, requires 

 an appreciation of the far more subtle influences that produce the 

 general condition of restlessness in nineteenth-century society. On 

 final analysis much of the social unrest of the age springs from a 

 longing in the human breast for development, from dissatisfaction 

 with any condition or station in life, however comfortable or lux- 

 urious, that offers no chance to rise, no opportunity to progress. 

 " Man is by nature a discontented animal. Satisfy one of his de- 

 sires and forthwith he feels the sting of another." In short, the 

 ideal of a progressive society, which so thoroughly possesses the 

 Western mind, is in no small degree responsible for social discon- 

 tent. This ideal has been strengthened by the enormous strides 

 society has taken, within the memory of men now living, through 

 the modern development of transportation and communication. 



The civilizations of the Orient, which rest satisfied with the 

 institutions handed down by tradition, whose ideal is that of a 

 static social condition equally good for all time, do not have social 

 agitations. The difference between the static civilizations of the 

 Orient and the dynamic society of the Occident is, it is true, 

 the difference between social contentment and social unrest ; but 

 in the former the masses are content with a degraded state of 

 equality, while in the latter unrest is the ^ mainspring of their 

 progress. Professor Gunton has said : 



If the English in India could make the Hindoo laborer want more things, 

 they could soon civilize him up to their own standard. If the Russian peasants 

 were not content with so little, the development of Russia might run on at 

 equal speed with that of the United States. If our Indians could only be 

 made to want houses and steam machinery and good clothes enough to work 

 for them, the Indian problem would solve itself in a single decade. 



The contented state of the Oriental mind is what renders any 

 amelioration of Eastern civilizations such a hopeless task. 



