Industrial freedom. [volume] (Edison, Wash.) 1898-1???, 1898-10-22
Socialism From a
metaphysical POlntOf View
ALTRUISM AS A FACTOR IN
EVOLUTION.
BY w. C. B. RANDOLPH.
(Continued.)

CcSSlIleS VI INC people, dil VI diio"-
ing for infinite enlargementa as future
ages roll on, it mercilessly closes all
the gates of the avenues of en-
ployment by it's combinations of col
lossal capital and skill, and its ever
increasing improvements in machi-
merry to displace human labor. Now
while we can easily predict the death
of the individualistic system on ac-
count of it's economic delinauencies,
observe, have not excused its moral
shortcomings.
1t would be difficult to construct an
industrial system better calculated
to corrupt a people than the present
individualisticc competitive, anti-altru-
istic system. 1t might have been ex-
pressly built to set every man against
his neighbor. No man can love his
competitors in business in any real
and true sense and eXemplify it in
business conduct. The competitive
field is choked with the thorns of hate,
even as the battlefield is strewn with
the dead and dying.
'But," the apologist says, "these
sad blemishes on the present order of
things are a necessary consequence
on account of the inherent mean
ness of fallen human nature" l
say no.
Human development is admittedly
very far short of what it may be and
RIO doubt will be, but this is the an
swer to that: Systems, institutions
and customs are man-made things.
Anything that is 40 comprehensive as
an industrial system has been created
by the strong and continuous thought
force of countless minds, ex-
tending over thousandsof years, and,
though Leuilt peace inca. is, when fin
ished, complete system, 4 very real
thing and extremely tenacio.s of life.
The state is a. mental entity. It,
like everything else, has its Ives,
its period of being useful. but agiin,
like every useful thing, IL survives
it's useful period and afterwards be-
comes terrible evil. A man, gener-
ally speaking, is a reservoir of con-
structive energy, diffusing blessings
and comforts by his strength and in
telligence; but thisis only true of the
Young and mature man; the old man
creates nothing, he becomes a burden,
economically.
In Madam Blavatsky's "Select Doc
trine" she speaks of cycles overlap
ping each other.
To Illustrate: If new cycle is due
A. d. 2000, its smaller beginnings
will be observed by the more intelli-
gent long before the year 1000 ar
rives, and similarly if that cycle is
to end in the yeor 5000 its lingering
effect may be traced long after that
time. mingling with and modifying
the first workings of the succeeding
cycle. This is true of the individual
istic system. Its death knell has
struck. 1t will die because people
are beginning to see that the broad
and beneficent principle of altruism
can be introduced in industry and the
whole aspect of society will be meta
morphosed. Human beings are alrea-
dy sufficiently evolved to work by a
better system. The individual system
must ever be held responsible for
most of the mean things that men do.
The situati ons they are placed in
cause them to act as they do, at least
to great extent. Some men wear
nice suit of clothes every day in the
week, and are consequently fresh and
sweet smelling: others are obliged to
work in trenches, in sewers, etc, and
must therefore be sweaty and dirty lat
any rate when at work. Their differ
ent circumstances make the contrast.
A man besmeared from head to heels
with oil may not necessarily he greasy
by nature, he may have only got a
Job pumping at an oil we'll.
Suppose water should become scarce
in this city, people would be very
saving of it; let it become scarcer
and they would hesitate to give you
a drink. Suppose the supply almost
entirely gone and you see men cheat,
fight and Stay their fellows to get wa
ter. This condition of scarcity of
water changes their conduct toward
each other.
/ really believe that mems conduct
would undergo radical change by
change in the industrial conditions
from that of competitive to the co
oper ative or altruistic.
Altruism being only the best rela-
tions of individuals to each other, a
system built on altruism must be
right. If altruism is ethically cor
rect it must be economically success
full. If this be not so then ethics has
no relation to conduct. and is a myth.
Enlightened selfishness is term used