Any wide difference in
fortune does practically amount to a specific difference, which renders
the members of either species more or less suspicious of those of the
other, and seldom fertile _inter se_. The well-to-do working-man can
help his poorer friends better than we can. If an educated man has money
to spare, he will apply it better in helping poor educated people than
those who are more strictly called the poor. As long as the world is
progressing, wide class distinctions are inevitable; their discontinuance
will be a sign that equilibrium has been reached. Then human
civilisation will become as stationary as that of ants and bees. Some
may say it will be very sad when this is so; others, that it will be a
good thing; in truth, it is good either way, for progress and equilibrium
have each of them advantages and disadvantages which make it impossible
to assign superiority to either; but in both cases the good greatly
overbalances the evil; for in both the great majority will be fairly well
contented, and would hate to live under any other system.
Equilibrium, if it is ever reached, will be attained very slowly, and the
importance of any change in a system depends entirely upon the rate at
which it is made. No amount of change shocks--or, in other words, is
important--if it is made sufficiently slowly, while hardly any change is
too small to shock if it is made suddenly.
Pages:
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370