The Ideal State 295 



ever-present desire to save others from suffering of any 

 kind. 



The abolition of the gold standard and the conse- 

 quent impossibility of gratifying the desire of gain 

 would ere long result in the complete annihilation of 

 greed or the vice of acquisitiveness. Through disuse, 

 one of the morbid developments of a primeval instinct 

 would cease to exist. And with its extinction there 

 would largely disappear the " impulse unto crime " ; 

 theft and burglary would die from want of incentive, 

 and our prisons and penal settlements would rapidly 

 empty. With the State regulation of the sale of al- 

 cohol, and at a further stage its total prohibition, the 

 present incentives would cease to operate altogether. 

 Any criminal developments which might appear would 

 be of the nature of insane impulses, requiring treat- 

 ment in our mental hospitals. A gradual diminution of 

 the inmates of these institutions would be a certain 

 result of a perfect environment, not only from the 

 purely material and physical condition of things, but 

 the spirit of love everywhere pervading would create 

 an atmosphere of joy and peace which would bring rest 

 to the souls of the weary and distraught. Two of the 

 chief causes of lunacy are alcohol and syphilis ; as we 

 have indicated, both are preventable by strong legisla- 

 tive enactment, and when once this has been accom- 

 plished we will be entitled to look for a reduction of at 

 least fifty per cent in the number of our insane. Of the 

 remainder — occurring in people of neurotic tempera- 

 ment who have suffered from disease such as influenza, 

 which has a marked depressant effect on the nervous 

 system — we can look forward to the elimination of all 

 such. The admirable environment which we have 

 secured for all, and the consideration extended to 

 everyone suffering from nerve strain or exhaustion, 

 the removal of anxiety as to ways and means, and 



