406 - THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
the mechanical equivalent of heat, so long they fail to realize the full 
inwardness of the situation. And as a rule they do fail. The 
duties, penalties and sanctions pictured in the utopias they paint are 
all too weak and tame to touch the military-minded. Tolstoy’s pacifi- 
cism is the only exception to this rule, for it is profoundly pessimistic as 
regards all this world’s values, and makes the fear of the Lord furnish 
the moral spur provided elsewhere by the fear of the enemy. But our 
socialistic peace-advocates all believe absolutely in this world’s values ; 
and instead of the fear of the Lord and the fear of the enemy, the only 
fear they reckon with is the fear of poverty if one be lazy. This weak- 
ness pervades all the socialistic literature with which I am acquainted. 
Even in Lowes Dickinson’s exquisite dialogue,? high wages and short 
hours are the only forces invoked for overcoming man’s distaste for 
repulsive kinds of labor. Meanwhile men at large still live as they 
always have lived, under a pain-and-fear economy—for those of us who 
lived in an ease-economy are but an island in the stormy ocean—and 
the whole atmosphere of present-day utopian literature tastes mawkish 
and dishwatery to people who still keep a sense for life’s more bitter 
flavors. It suggests, in truth, ubiquitous inferiority. 
Inferiority is always with us, and merciless scorn of it is the keynote 
of the military temper. “Dogs, would you live forever ?” shouted 
Frederick the Great. “Yes,” say our utopians, “let us live forever, 
and raise our level gradually.” The best thing about our “ inferiors ? 
to-day is that they are as tough as nails, and physically and morally 
almost as insensitive. Utopianism would see them soft and squeam- 
ish, while militarism would keep their callousness, but transfigure 
it into a meritorious characteristic, needed by “the service,” and re- 
deemed by that from the suspicion of inferiority. All the qualities 
of a man acquire dignity when he knows that the service of the col- 
lectivity that owns him needs them. If proud of the collectivity, his own 
pride rises in proportion. No collectivity is like an army for nourish- 
ing such pride; but it has to be confessed that the only sentiment which 
the image of pacific cosmopolitan industrialism is capable of arousing 
in countless worthy breasts is shame at the idea of belonging to such a 
collectivity. It is obvious that the United States of America as they 
exist to-day impress a mind like General Lea’s as so much human 
blubber. Where is the sharpness and precipitousness, the contempt for 
life, whether one’s own, or another’s? Where is the savage “ yes” and 
“no,” the unconditional duty? Where is the conscription ? Where is 
the blood-tax? Where is anything that one feels honored by belong- 
ing to? 
Having said thus much in preparation, I will now confess my own 
utopia. I devoutly believe in the reign of peace and in the gradual 
2 Justice and Liberty,” New York, 1909. 
