1883J a Sociological Study. 269 
and “ play” when he liked. Summing up all these consider- 
ations it may be fairly asserted that the handicraftsman 
devotes a greater number of hours in the year to work than 
did his predecessors prior to the installation of the “ factory 
system.” And what does he earn by the greater regularity 
and stringency of his labour? Hallam has shown, in his 
“ Constitutional History of England,” that in the reign of 
Queen Elizabeth the wages of a working man represented 
a greater quantity of the necessaries of life than they have 
ever done since. In other words, the margin between every 
man and actual want is narrower than it was formerly. As 
a matter of course there is much more anxiety. . Nor is the 
case very different in other countries. Dr. Beard says that, 
in the present day, for the vast majority of Americans, the 
great question is not “ How shall we live ? ” but “ Can we 
live at all ? ” 
Is this state of affairs, if duly weighed, a satisfactory 
result, especially in an age which avowedly makes the ac- 
quisition of material wealth almost its sole object, and which 
brands all men not engaged in such pursuit as idlers ? 
What, it may be asked, is the fundamental meaning of that 
cry for “ cheapness ” which is everywhere encountered, and 
which serves as the pretext for so much dishonesty ? Surely 
it means that the resources of the people fall short of their 
needs to an extent hitherto unprecedented. Times have been 
when the reverse proportion held good, and when certain 
classes of people were hence formally debarred by sumptuary 
laws from indulgences and expenses deemed unfitting their 
station. Small need in these days for such regulations ! 
But I may venture to go further : if a man’s whole time 
and powers are taxed — not to say over-taxed — in earning his 
“ living,” he exists to no purpose. He may be likened to a 
machine whose motive power is entirely consumed in over- 
coming friction. This judgment, that a life spent in merely 
earning a livelihood is a life in vain, applies alike to cases 
where such livelihood consists of potatoes and water, in the 
hovel of a Connemara peasant, and to those where it involves 
the rarest wines and the costliest viands ever served up in 
the mansion of a financier. This view may not be fashion- 
able, but that it is capable of being controverted I strongly 
question. Assuming it as true, I ask is life becoming easier ? 
have men to spend less of their time and powers in earning 
a “ living,” and can they reserve more of both for life ? 
Considerations have already been brought forward which 
answer both these questions in the negative. But everyone 
who has looked around at the world will require no reply. 
