IDEALS OF SOCIAL REFORMERS 21 7
forced on an indifferent or hostile majority by a determined minority, there would be a reaction, a repeal, and a great and wise measure would go down to the record of posterity discredited and abolished after trial. Therefore let us counsel patience, not for the sake of the people who might get hurt in a scrimmage, but for the sake of the cause and its ultimate success. Steady progress, measure by measure, is best, feeling our way from step to step with sure-footed Anglo-Saxon caution, keeping our feet on the ground, and not going off in a French balloon of abstract principles and logical schemes.
Right here is a sphere of influence for members of the Brotherhood and others of their kind. We are mostly members of the classes that have money, culture, and power, and have inside influence with those classes. By our influence we can weaken their selfish resistance to the progress of justice, induce them to make piecemeal concessions, and so work off in steady progress the steam which, if accumulated, would burst the boiler.
Fifthly, lastly and chiefly, many social reformers are prac- tical materialists. In Germany and other continental coun- tries socialists are mostly avowedly materialists. Socialist political economy and materialistic philosophy are there like the two sides of the same cloth. Christian people in Germany seem to regard it as a demonstrated certainty that a Christian work- ingman will shipwreck his faith if he becomes a socialist. Things are not so bad in this country, but of practical material- ism we have enough. We see it in the disproportionate emphasis on the economic side of sociology. Many social reformers do not seem to be aware that there is anything in sociology except taxation, finance, and monopolies. They regard the social body as one of those humble creatures that have no organ except an alimentary canal. How to increase and regulate the production of material goods is the main question with them.
Now it is desirable that men acquire refined tastes and habits, and these presuppose an abundant production of economic goods. It is still more desirable that the goods produced be justly dis- tributed. But the main thing is not more goods, but more
