V IN HUMAN SOCIETY 215 



pleasures within reach are reduced to bestiality 

 and drunkenness; in which the pains accumulate 

 at compound interest, in the shape of starvation, 

 disease, stunted development, and moral degrada- 

 tion; in which the prospect of even steady and 

 honest industry is a life of unsuccessful battling 

 with hunger, rounded by a pauper's grave. 



That a certain proportion of the members of 

 every great aggregation of mankind should con- 

 stantly tend to establish and populate such a 

 Slough of Despond as this is inevitable, so long 

 as some people are by nature idle and vicious, 

 while others are disabled by sickness or accident, 

 or thrown upon the world by the death of their 

 bread-winners. So long as that proportion is re- 

 stricted within tolerable limits, it can be dealt 

 with; and, so far as it arises only from such causes, 

 its existence may and must be patiently borne. 

 But, when the organization of society, instead of 

 mitigating this tendency, tends to continue and 

 intensify it; when a given social order plainly 

 makes for evil and not for good, men naturally 

 enough begin to think it high time to try a fresh 

 experiment. The animal man, finding that the 

 ethical man has landed him in such a slough, re- 

 sumes his ancient sovereignty, and preaches an- 

 archy; which is, substantially, a proposal to re- 

 duce the social cosmos to chaos, and begin the 

 brute struggle for existence once again. 



Any one who is acquainted with the state of 



