252 PART V. -WORKING STAGE. 



the nations will be bountf to each other by innumerable ties, 

 when an inter-national parliament and administration will be 

 established, when inter-national courts of law will possess the 

 status of our national law courts, and when war between nations 

 will be as inconceivable as war between towns. In fact, as 

 intra-national consolidation proceeds, war is abolished within 

 the nation, and when the relations between different countries 

 will have been consolidated, war will have ceased altogether. 

 Such considerations evidence that those who believe in the 

 lasting continuance of warfare fallaciously postulate, because 

 of indefiniteness of thought, that feuds have only occurred be- 

 tween nations and that the closely cooperating nations of the 

 future will be reflexes of the practically self-contained nations 

 of yesterday. Viewing the problem, therefore, in the proper 

 perspective, we learn that war is bound to disappear. 



115. Or, again, study the problem of the abolition of 

 poverty. To read any of the many inspired and inspiring 

 Utopias, one marvels that they have not been realised long ago. 

 We have only to socialise the means of production and of ex- 

 change, so the story runs, and everybody will possess more 

 than sufficient of the good things of life, whilst his or her hours 

 of labour will very nearly reach the vanishing point. The plan 

 is so enticing that it should not even meet with the opposition 

 of the rich who assuredly demand no more than a super- 

 abundance of desirable commodities and an ample allowance 

 of leisure, and still we do not appear to be approaching the 

 sanctified soil of the promised land. The fact is that definite- 

 ness of thought is wanting in many of our social reformers. 

 The well-to-do perceive no prospect of obtaining more than 

 they need in the socialist State, and therefore seek to frustrate 

 its advent. As we point out in Conclusions 6, 17, and 20, with 

 the views current as to how material satisfaction is to be ob- 

 tained, the socialist State must inevitably fail. It cannot offer 

 each individual .^50,000 a year, or its equivalent in kind, nor 

 permit him to draw up his own time table, nor provide each 

 person with a small army of secretaries, stewards, butlers, 

 lackeys, valets, housemaids, cooks, gardeners, chauffeurs, and 

 other attendants. So long, in fact, as men think as they do 

 at present concerning the sources of happiness, they would seek 

 to exploit the socialist State as they do the contemporary State, 

 with the inevitable result that the socialist State would de- 

 teriorate no sooner than it was instituted until it reached some 

 condition of disequilibrium resembling the States of to-day. It 

 is of no avail for the worker earning two pounds a week to 

 protest that he will be abundantly satisfied when he is in receipt 

 of what may be valued at six pounds a week. He nurses an 

 illusion, as the social facts prove, for in our day each class, 

 whatever its income, seeks as a rule to "better" itself. The 

 minimum required for arriving at the beatific state presupposes 



