84 HUXLEY MEMORIAL LECTURES 



force in the world, tend constantly, through sheer 

 want of method and wisdom, to degrade a great 

 part of the people, and to promote the shiftless- 

 ness of the idle, and the multiplication of the 

 unfit. These things brood in the hearts of all 

 who try to look with unblinded eyes on modern 

 society. And there comes among us a constant 

 stream of would-be reformers, who see the evil 

 and have a nostrum of their own to cure the ills 

 of the world. As in the Middle Ages men sought 

 a philosopher's stone, the touch of which would 

 turn all substances to gold, so these social 

 alchemists recommend some hastily adopted salve 

 as sovereign for all the ills of society. When 

 their remedy takes the form of the foundation of 

 some socialist society, at all events it is an experi- 

 ment from the failure of which mankind may learn 

 much. But if such experiments are to be first 

 tried on whole nations, it is terrible to think what 

 misery and destruction will be caused. 



The only true course is for practical experi- 

 ments to follow in the wake of systematic know- 

 ledge. Systematic knowledge cannot give us 

 ideals; they must arise within, and cannot be 

 gained by study of fact and condition. But un- 

 less the ideals are pursued with a knowledge of 

 history and of human nature the result can only 

 be disappointment and disaster. 



It seems to me that in our days everyone who 

 desires extensive changes in the frame of society 

 calls himself a socialist. As a result the most 



