THE CONSTRUCTOR 243 



spirits of the race dream of a society where no man 

 shall die of hunger, and no family mourn a member 

 slain in battle ; when the Golden Age of ancient 

 legend shall be fulfilled on the earth. 



Dealing with these islands, Huxley admits the jus- 

 tice of the " insolent reproach " cast by Buonaparte. 

 On a soil which can feed less than half the popula- 

 tion, we are compelled to be " a nation of shopkeep- 

 ers." The shopkeeping implies buying and selling, 

 and if the goods offered are inferior to those of com- 

 petitors, a ruinous reduction in exports will follow, 

 leaving a large proportion of the population, whose 

 only salvation is by work, with nothing to eat. A 

 further condition must be social stability. There 

 must be healthy homes, a cultivation of thrift, the at- 

 tainment of a fair standard of material comfort, for 

 where la misere reigns there is inefficiency and handi- 

 capping of the worker. And in remarking upon the 

 absence of these conditions in many quarters of great 

 industrial centres from London downwards, Huxley 

 drives home the fact that here, suspending their dif- 

 ferences, "natural science and religious enthusiasm" 

 may work in concord towards one aim. He passes 

 from the importance of State-endowed education, into 

 which no theology shall intrude, to technical training, 

 the cost of which he suggests should be borne by the 

 districts benefited by it. But that is a detail, the im- 



