THE QUESTION OF THE MAXIMUM
For any social movement or development there must be a maximum limit
beyond which it cannot proceed. That civilization which does not
advance must decline, and so, when the maximum of development has
been reached in any given direction, society must either retrograde
or change the direction of its advance. There are many families of
men that have failed, in the critical period of their economic
evolution, to effect a change in direction, and were forced to fall
back. Vanquished at the moment of their maximum, they have dropped
out of the whirl of the world. There was no room for them.
Stronger competitors have taken their places, and they have either
rotted into oblivion or remain to be crushed under the iron heel of
the dominant races in as remorseless a struggle as the world has yet
witnessed. But in this struggle fair women and chivalrous men will
play no part. Types and ideals have changed. Helens and Launcelots
are anachronisms. Blows will be given and taken, and men fight and
die, but not for faiths and altars. Shrines will be desecrated, but
they will be the shrines, not of temples, but market-places.
Prophets will arise, but they will be the prophets of prices and
products. Battles will be waged, not for honor and glory, nor for
thrones and sceptres, but for dollars and cents and for marts and
exchanges. Brain and not brawn will endure, and the captains of war
will be commanded by the captains of industry. In short, it will be
a contest for the mastery of the world's commerce and for industrial
supremacy.
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