330 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 37. 



ness and theft of materials made many a 

 house the scene of crime and want and disor- 

 der. Superstition ruled, and envy swayed 

 the workers. Ignorance under the old sys- 

 tem added to the squalor of the homes of 

 the workers under it, even making the hut 

 an actual den, shared in too many instances 

 by the swine of the family. The home of 

 the agricultural laborer was not much bet- 

 ter; in fact, in Great Britain and France he 

 has to a great degree continued in his ig- 

 norance and in his degraded condition. 



' ' One of the positive results of the fac- 

 tory system has been to enable men to 

 secure a livelihood in fewer hours than of 

 old. This means intellectual advancement, 

 for, as the time required to earn a living 

 grows shorter, civilization progresses. * * * 

 The fact that the lowest grade of operative 

 can now be employed in factories does not 

 signify more ignorance, but a raising of the 

 lowest to higher employments. This pro- 

 cess is constantly narrowing the limits of 

 the class which occupies the lowest step in 

 the progress of society. This mission 

 alone stamps the system as an active ele- 

 ment in the moral elevation of the race. 

 The factory system does not tend to intel- 

 lectual degeneracy." 



The arguments thus far adduced have all 

 been one-sided in showing that an increase 

 in civilization and in refinement follows an 

 increase in wealth. There is another side 

 to the question. A portion of the laboring 

 masses are dissatisfied. This side is ably 

 treated in this month's issue of the North 

 American Review, by Eev. J. S. Zahm, C. 

 S. C, entitled ' Leo XIII. and the Social 

 Question.' I quote as follows : 



" In lieu of the old organic regime the 

 French Eevolution substituted the reign of 

 individualism. Unlimited competition, free- 

 dom of labor, the preponderance of capital 

 and the general introduction of machinery 

 vishei'ed into existence the fourth estate pro- 

 letarians, or wage-earners — and with it the 



social question. The organism became a 

 mechanism, and fi-om its excesses proceeded 

 the evils from which we now suffer. As 

 matters at present stand, we have two 

 inimical forces, standing face to face ; on 

 one side, the modern state, with its army 

 and its police ; on the other, sociaUsm and 

 organized labor with its battaUons and its 

 long pent-up grievances. 



" Never before was humanity confronted 

 with such a danger. Three centuries of re- 

 naissance of pagan law and a century of 

 laissez-faire and laissez-passer have atomized 

 society and divided the human family into 

 two opposing camps — on one side the 

 tyranny of the law and of the employer ; on 

 the other, renewed servitude and virtual re- 

 bellion — everywhere hatred, lack of equili- 

 brium, egotism and overt struggle. 



" Formerly after the struggle between 

 employer and employee was over, rest and 

 peace were to be found in the workshop or 

 in the home, whereas to-day the struggle 

 has reached our very hearthstones. It per- 

 sists in a dull and sullen manner, when it 

 does not break forth openly, and it is ever 

 compassing the ruin of society because it is 

 incessantly destroying all chance of domestic 

 happiness. Never before, indeed, has the 

 social question knocked in so thi-eatening a 

 manner at the doors of the civil order." 



Mr. Zahm charges machinery, which is 

 engineering, with being one of the chief 

 causes of social troubles. He says farther: 



" It may truly be said that the social 

 question arises from a five-fold revolution : 

 the revolution in machinery; the revolu- 

 tion in political economy ; the revolution 

 in religion ; the revolution in the state, and 

 the revolution brought about by the general 

 movement of humanitJ^ 



" Machinery, or rather the abuse of ma- 

 chinery, was the first to eflect a transform- 

 ation in the economic order. It is not 

 without reason that Lasalle styles it ' the 

 revolution incarnate' — Die verkoerperte Revo- 



