PROTECTION A DEADLY ENEMY. I03 



Whether the aim be to extend the beneficent influences 

 of religion, or whether we seek to make this abode of 

 man fairer, and brighter, and better through increase in 

 the morality and virtue of its denizens, or, if we con- 

 sider only the purely utilitarian aspect of the question, 

 it is imperative that man's efforts toward the production 

 of wealth shall result in a success that overlaps the satis- 

 faction of the mere felt wants of an existence. But we 

 require conditions which will do most to give to the 

 greatest number these blessings of onward progress ; 

 better that the aggregate of wealth be less, if in the max- 

 imum there must be great inequality. The whole history 

 of man supports the foregoing contention. The greatest 

 progress has been where effort has been crowned with 

 abundant returns. Through these successes in produc- 

 tion power has been borne to the possessor, opportunities 

 have become possible for the storing of wealth, abundant 

 and profitable consumption, leisure for thought, for indi- 

 vidual development. 



Bastiat is correct in his claim that progress everywhere 

 is, in fact, possible only through the increase of result as 

 compared with effort. As effort is at the minimum as to 

 the infinitude of result, so is power increased. Retro- 

 gression must of necessity follow the diminishing of the 

 results of effort, until society is reduced to barbarism, 

 ruin, and annihilation. 



As Bastiat says : Do we not see everywhere that men in 

 the management of their own interests strive by all means 

 to remove obstacles in order that they may bring effort 

 down to the minimum, and are, on the other hand, en- 

 deavoring by every recourse to secure the maximum of 

 result, by the use of machinery, by invention, by the 

 shortening and improving of routes of travel and of 



