384 The Effects of Evolution 



There is no magic about it, no short cut, no royal road. It 

 is not to be learned in " six short and easy lessons." 



Those who are already educated and rich and well-off 

 should remember two things. First, no true man can be 

 truly happy while so large a part of the world is unhappy. 

 For our happiness we need to cultivate general happiness. 

 And, in the next place, no house is safe, however well- 

 furnished, and however gay be the company within, so long 

 as the foundations are insecure. And the foundations of 

 our society to-day are the millions who will not be slaves 

 again, ancl who cannot go on to a manly and prosperous 

 content without our aid. Preach to them only the doctrine 

 of quiet, and take on the airs of masters, and their answer 

 is dynamite. They cannot go back, they will not stand 

 still ; and so we must, if for no higher motive than our own 

 safety, help them to go forward. 



What now can Ave do ? I have left myself little space 

 to tell, and I would need a book to detail and argue it all. 

 But since I am only to hint it, I have plenty of time for 

 that. If my suggestions are living seeds, they will germi- 

 nate after I am done. 



The first thing to be done is this : Society at last recog- 

 nizes its right, and it already has the power, and can use 

 it, to make knowledge compulsory and universal. No boy 

 or girl should be allowed, from this day, to grow up without 

 knowing what kind of a world this is, by what stages hu- 

 manity has advanced to where it is to-day, and so, by what 

 steps it may be expected to go on to-morrow. Men are 

 victims of their conditions, the tools of knaves and other 

 fools, because they are ignorant. The race has gained a 

 certain accumulated stock of verified knowledge. It is 

 this that sets men free and makes them masters of their 

 circumstances. This accumulated stock of knowledge, then, 

 ought to become the common property of man. This is the 

 first thing. 



In the second place, we can do at least a little in the 

 way of destroying the present wide-spread monopolies of 

 the natural resources of the earth, that can never justly be 

 the property of any individual. No man can properly be 

 said to own that which he does not make or produce, such, 

 for example, as land, mines, water-power, coal-beds, etc. 

 But as most of these things are now bound up with addi- 

 tions to, or modifications of, other things that are individual 



