Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/149

began to show signs of wear. It did not satisfy every need. It did not meet every emergency. Its assumptions can never be displaced from the motives in history, but they cannot explain events when considered absolutely and alone. The progress of man is not solely inspired by his pocket, nor by the soil upon which he lives, although these things must always be factors. The hill tribe must have different characteristics from the plain tribe. The exploited people must come into frequent conflict with their exploiters. A wealthy class of disfranchised people must knock at the gates of citizenship demanding admission. But in these conflicts every human quality must have been awakened and must act as allies. Moreover, looking into the future, as true education spreads and comfort becomes more real, the more materialist motives are bound to diminish in their importance in relation to the intellectual and moral ones. If self-respect were a widespread virtue in England to-day, the conflict of the House of Lords with the House of Commons would be much more disastrous to the former than it will be if the economic interests involved are the only incentives to the contest. It is the mind of man, with its ideals, its sense of right and wrong, and its aspirations which makes economic poverty and injustice a serious grievance and gives them that explosiveness which makes them a cause of revolution. We now see all this, and in marshalling the motives which make for change, and which accomplished what change