SUGGESTIONS ON SOCIAL SUBJECTS. i6i 



which control the government machine. In former days it often hap- 

 pened that * the state ' was a barber, a fiddler, or a bad woman. In 

 our day it often happens that ' the state ' is a little functionary on 

 whom a big functionary is forced to depend." 



In Chapter I — " On a New Philosophy : that Poverty is the 

 Best Policy " — Professor Sumner says : " It is commonly asserted that 

 there are in the United States no classes, and any allusion to classes is 

 resented. On the other hand, we constantly read and hear discussions 

 of social topics in which the existence of social classes is assumed as a 

 simple fact. ' The poor,' * the weak,' * the laborers,' are expressions 

 which are used as if they had exact and well-understood definitions. 

 Discussions are made to bear upon the assumed rights and misfortunes 

 of certain social classes ; and all public speaking and writing consists 

 in a large measure of the discussion of general plans for meeting the 

 wishes of classes of people who have not been able to satisfy their own 

 desires. These classes are sometimes discontented and sometimes not. 

 Sometimes they do not know that anything is amiss with them until 

 the * friends of humanity ' come to them with offers of aid. Some- 

 times they are discontented and envious. They do not take their 

 achievements as a fair measure of their rights. They do not blame 

 themselves or their parents for their lot as compared with that of other 

 people. Sometimes they claim that they have a right to everything of 

 which they feel the need for their happiness on earth. To make such a 

 claim against God or Nature would, of course, be only to say that we 

 claim a right to live on earth if we can. But God and Nature have 

 ordained the chances and conditions of life on earth once for all. The 

 case can not be reopened. We can not get a revision of the laws of 

 human life. We are absolutely shut up to the need and duty, if we 

 would learn how to live happily, of investigating the laws of Nature, 

 and deducing the rules of right living in the world as it is. These are 

 very wearisome and commonplace tasks. They consist in labor and 

 self-denial repeated over and over again, in learning and doing. When 

 the people whose claims we are considering are told to apply them- 

 selves to these tasks, they become irritated and feel almost insulted. 

 They formulate their claims as rights against society — that is, against 

 some other men. In their view they have a right not only to pur- 

 sue happiness, but to get it ; and, if they fail to get it, they think 

 they have a claim to the aid of other men — that is, to the labor and 

 self-denial of other men — to get it for them. They find orators and 

 poets who tell them that they have grievances so long as they have 

 unsatisfied desires. . . . The humanitarians, philanthropists, and re- 

 formers, looking at the facts of life as they present themselves, find 

 enough which is sad and unpromising in the condition of many mem- 

 bers of society. They see wealth and poverty side by side. They 

 note great inequality of social position and social chances. They 

 eagerly set about the attempt to account for what they see, and 



TOL. XXIT. — 11 



