How painful is the conclusion that it is dubious whether all
the machines and inventions of mankind 'have yet lightened the day's
labour of a human being.' They have enabled more people to exist,
but these people work just as hard and are just as mean and
miserable as the elder and the fewer.
But it will be said of this passion just as it was said of the
passion of activity. Granted that it is in excess, how can you say,
how on earth can anyone say, that government by discussion can in
any way cure or diminish, it? Cure this evil that government
certainly will not; but tend to diminish it--I think it does and
may. To show that I am not making premises to support a conclusion
so abnormal, I will quote a passage from Mr. Spencer, the
philosopher who has done most to illustrate this subject:--
'That future progress of civilisation which the never-ceasing
pressure of population must produce, will be accompanied by an
enhanced cost of Individuation, both in structure and function; and
more especially in nervous structure and function. The peaceful
struggle for existence in societies ever growing more crowded and
more complicated, must have for its concomitant an increase of the
great nervous centres in mass, in complexity, in activity.
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