Mechanism of Human Association xv 



ment of society, all our advance on the material 

 side, the management of matter, may go for 

 nothing, or conceivably even worse than nothing. 



It is conceivable, for instance, as an ingenious 

 novelist has suggested, that our researches in 

 radio-activity might give us the secret of atomic 

 disintegration so as to make a cent's worth of 

 rock equivalent in value as a source of energy to a 

 train load of coal — to multiply the wealth of the 

 world a thousand times — and the result of it to be 

 merely more poverty of the many, and luxury and 

 dangerous power on the part of the few. 



The great need, therefore, is an understanding 

 of the nature and mechanism of human associa- 

 tion, a realization of its more fundamental laws. 

 It does not help us to take the position that the 

 present defects of society are the result of a 

 "plot" on the part of a powerful few and that if 

 their rule be broken, a new earth would come into 

 being next Tuesday morning. If we ask ourselves, 

 "What would happen if the reins of government 

 were seized by a group of very radical and ad- 

 vanced Socialists or Syndicalists, or other social 

 reformers?" we are obliged to reply that nothing 

 at all would happen; things would go on very 

 much as usual. It has occurred more than once 

 in Europe that wild revolutionaries have achieved 

 power and they generally end by accomplishing 

 less than their more conservative colleagues and 

 becoming more reactionary. 



They were obliged to realize that society, 



