Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1893-04-20

as doomed is that it is an anachronism in
conflict with the present stage of the evo-
lutionary law. We are in the fifth great
stage of human development, and the fifth
stage is that of the mind The function of
man just now is to evolve the principle of
intelligence dwelling within him, and the
mind powers already evolved give him a
control over physical forces sufficient to sup
ply his bodily necessities and leave him
ample leisure for cultivating his intellect,
were that control used for the general good
instead of for the heaping up of unnecessary
wealth in the hands of a limited number.
The majority of our population, especially
in the older countries-the European states
toll with little intermission all their lives
through merely to keep life in their bodies.
They have no leisure for cultivating the in
tellectual powers the artistic faculties, the
imaginative potencies of the human mind.
They ire condemned to life of labor, the
price of which merely purchases for them
the right to live. Thus does the horse earn
his food and his shelter, and with these
generally more consideration for his health
than is bestowed on his fellow drudge, the
man who drives him. The horse needs but
food, shelter and rest; the man needs for
his human evolution leisure for mental
study with unweary body. That is the
right of each child of man born into the
world at this stage of evolution, for our
animal development lies behind u.s. and our
present task is to evolve the human ele-
ment in us--the mind or soul.
Society should therefore be organized for
the production of wealth with the least
possible expenditure of human energy and
the brotherly distribution of the wealth
produced, in order that mans forces may
be directed to the mental development of
the race A society which, like our own,
sets itself against the order of evolution by
shutting the majority of its members away
from the possibility of performing the task
set them by nature, must be crushed under
the relentless and irresistible progress of
that nature which it blindly opposes
While America has not yet touched the
worst conditions of labor, found SO plenti-
fully in Europe, its social organization is
instinct with the same forces, and there
fore ultimately with the same effects. But
being younger and stronger than the Eu-
ropean states, it has more possibility Of
working out fundamental reforms in peace
than Europe seems to possess. In the So
ciety of the future it seems to me that
the sexes will cooperate for mutual service,
each bringing its special powers to the
help of the race, without artificial re-
strictions on either; that marriage
entered into without intellectual and
moral aflinities will be condemned as pros
titution is now, and that it will be
permanent, as intellectual and moral char
acter is permanent; that brutal crime will
have disappeared, and subtler evils will be
met by brotherly compassion, not by vim
dictive penalty; that temperance legisla-
tion will be unknown because drunkenness
will be as impossible as the readoption of
the woad garments of our ancestors; that
-ah, mel but / am thinking of state
much further in the future than the Amer
lea of 1893 ANNIE BESANT, f. I. S.