202 EOOT MATTERS IN SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS. 



the atticLide of the gifted and eloquent M. de Lamennais that 

 drew from Bastiat the following just rebuke, which applies 

 equally to writers of Mr. Henry George's class : — ^ " In all this 

 we see only fallacious declamation which serves as the basis 

 of dangerous conclusions ; and we cannot help regretting that 

 an eloquence so admirable should be devoted to giving popular 

 currency to the most fatal errors." 



The possible annihilation of our race, like those races that 

 have gone, has weighed upon the thoughtful and pitiful in all 

 ages, but nowhere does tuis feeling find nobler expression than 

 in the words of the most thoughtful and tender of living 

 poets : — 



" Are God and Nature then at strife. 

 That Nature lends such evil dreams : 

 So careful of the type she seems, 

 So careless of the single life ? 

 ' So careful of the type !' but no_, 



From scarped cliff and quarried stone 

 She cries, ' A thousand types are gone ; 

 I care for nothing ; all shall go ; 

 Thou makest thine appeal to me ; 

 I bring to life, I bring to death, 

 The spirit does but mean the breath ; 

 I know no more.' And he— shall he, 

 Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair 

 Such splendid purpose in his eyes, 

 Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, 

 And built his fanes of fruitless prayer, — 

 Who trusted God was love indeed. 

 And love Creation's final law. 

 Though Nature, red in tooth and claw, 

 With ravine shrieked against his creed — 

 Who loved, who suffered countless ills, 

 Who battled for the true, the just. 

 Be blown about the desert dust, 

 Or seal'd within the iron hills ? 

 No more ! A discord. A monster then a dream, 

 Dragons of the prime 

 That lure each other in their slime 

 Were mellow music, match'd with him, 

 O life, as futile then as frail — 

 O for thy voice to soothe and bless 

 What hope of answer or redress, 

 Behind the veil, behind the veil !" 

 Thus the poet's refuge is in the after life. But have we no 

 hope of amelioration in the present. Yes, we do hope. But 

 all our hopes may prove fruitless if we do not bravely face the 

 real di£S.culty, 



The substitution of the providential preventive check (the 

 moral check of Malthus) to over-population, for the hitherto 

 prevailing misery or repressive check is the one escape for 



1. Bastiat. " Harmonies of Political Economy." (Part ii., p. 90). 



