372 The Effects of Evolution 



a wonderful picture, and one wishes it might be realized 

 in so short a time as that which the book calls for. If 

 only ideal states of society could be voted into existence, I 

 would gladly start out on a campaign in favor of this. 



But the practical difficulty always is that the real people 

 in the world are not the kind of people that the scheme 

 requires, and they will not behave as you want them to, 

 even for the sake of carrying out the most brilliant project. 

 They are very much like the ducks in Mr. James Eussell 

 Lowell's story. I think he first told it to illustrate some 

 such point as this. He says that his barber, having a 

 scientific turn of mind, and having heard of the transmu- 

 tation of species, got hold of the brilliant idea of changing 

 the cheap and common duck into canvas-backs. These latter, 

 being very expensive, he intended to sell for a high price 

 and so make his fortune. Having learned, perhaps from 

 Buckle, that almost everything depends on what one eats, 

 he conceived the idea that by feeding his common ducks on 

 celery he could work out his transformation and then retire 

 from his humble trade. So he invested his small earnings 

 in ducks and celery and fancied himself on the eve of suc- 

 cess. But when Mr. Lowell next saw him he wore the 

 downcast expression of one not altogether satisfied with 

 the universe. And when asked as to his experiments, he 

 put the result of his experience into words, — " I invested all 

 my savings in ducks and celery. And now I don't know 

 whether it would have turned them into canvas-backs or 

 not, for the darned things wouldn't eat it." 



That is just the trouble with many social theories. We 

 work out on paper some clear and easy way of bringing in 

 the millennium ; but, alas ! when we offer it to the people, 

 — the real people in the streets and not the imaginary ones 

 on paper, — "the darned things" wont behave as the suc- 

 cess of our theory requires. 



I need not stop to mention Fourier and Karl Marx, the 

 Shakers, the Oneida Community, and Brook Farm; the 

 specimens I have given are enough for our purpose. They 

 are all a priori experiments, not the natural results of 

 growth. It will be noted also that some of the dreamers 

 look towards Anarchy, the extreme of Individualism, while 

 others look in precisely the opposite direction, towards So- 

 cialism. But all of them, anarchistic or socialistic, have 

 this one fatal defect in common, — that they are dreams, in 



