The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-03-31

from the beginning" The rivalry of ex-
istence must continue, humaniZed as to
conditions, it may be, but immutable and
inevitable to the end.
The author touches upon the rise and
decline of the well-known doctrine of
laissez- faire, and devotes considerable
space to consideration of modern social
ism and the philosophy of Marx, who, he
declares, evinces a grasp of the present
situation to which few of his critics have
attained Marx conception OF society as
it should be he claims to be condition in
which the laws that have operated from
the beginning should suddenly be inter
rupted and finally suspended. But the
state toward which we are travelling is not
one in which these laws will be suspended.
1--WE are moving, and shall merely con-
tinue to move by orderly stages to the goal
toward which the face of society has in
reality been set from the beginning OF our
civilization"
The next step of the authors argument
brings us within sight of that goal. 1t is
an amazing step, which he indicates by the
postulate that our human evolution is not
primarily intellectual, but religious in
character. Since the revival of learning in
Europe, he declares, there has been clear
tendency to compare the intellectual de-
velopment of the old civilizations, as the
Greeks, with ours, to the disparagement OF
the latter. This, while it is justly con-
coded that our civilization is the highest in
kind and degree that the human race has
so far reached.
Judged by the standard of intellectual
development alone, we OF the modern
European races have. in fact, nc claim
whatever to consider ourselves in advance
of the ancient Greeks, all the extraordin-
airy progress and promise of the modern
world to the contrary. The author sees it
as the teaching of evolutionary science
that there is only one way in which the
rationalistic factor in human evolution
can be controlled, namely, through the
fundamentally of religious systems.
Under rationalistic regime, even should
Herbert Spencer's dream of the perfect
civilization be realized, there will be moth
ing left for that civilization but decay.
Just what ultimate fate awaits the social
order under a religious system, or even
what that religious system is to be, the
author does not discuss. There are, he
shows, two great events to be accomplished
in the twentieth century. First, the West
ern peoples will arrive at social develop
ment under which men shall enter upon
the rivalry of life on conditions of social
equality. Then these peoples will proceed
to fill up the rest of the inhabitable globe,
by virtue of racial superiority, the absorb
ing tendency toward other Gnferior) races,
always held in check by the altruistic
spirit. IN tnlS way, ne states, England
has opened up India, Egypt and other
countries to the world. So must Africa,
Central and South America and the other
lands yet unoccupied by the Western
civilization.
The conclusion of the whole matter, as
outlined by the author, seems lamentably
weak, resting upon the splendid premises
in the earlier chapters, but the book as a
whole is one of the most remarkable con-
tributions we have had to the economic
literature of the age. While it is not, as
has been claimed for it, can epoch-making
book" it is a valuable collaboration of
facts upon social progress, and is unequaled
in the fairness, the iberality and foresight
edness with which it treats, even while dis
carding as inutiie, the modern socialistic
movement. New York and London
Macmillan & Co. For sale by the Dodge
Book and Stationery Company