Page:The Complete Works of Henry George Volume 3.djvu/254

This page needs to be proofread.

62 THE CONDITION OF LABOB.

ositions) see in the social and industrial relations of men not a machine which requires construction, but an organism which needs only to be suffered to grow. We see in the natural social and industrial laws such har- mony as we see in the adjustments of the human body, and that as far transcends the power of man's intelli- gence to order and direct as it is beyond man's intelli- gence to order and direct the vital movements of his frame. \W$ see in these social and industrial laws so close a relation to the moral law as must spring from the same Authorship, and that proves the moral law to be the sure guide of man where his intelligence would wander and go astray. Thus, to us, all that is needed to remedy the evils of our time is to do justice and give freedom. This is the reason why our beliefs tend toward, nay are indeed the only beliefs consistent with a firm and reverent faith in God, and with the recogni- tion of his law as the supreme law which men must follow if they would secure prosperity and avoid destruc- tionS This is the reason why to us political economy only serves to show the depth of wisdom in the simple truths which common people heard gladly from the lips of Him of whom it was said with wonder, "Is not this the Carpenter of Nazareth ? "

And it is because that in what we propose the secur- ing to all men of equal natural opportunities for the exercise of their powers and the removal of all legal restriction on the legitimate exercise of those powers we see the conformation of human law to the moral law, that we hold with confidence that this is not merely the sufficient remedy for all the evils you so strikingly portray, but that it is the only possible remedy.

Nor is there any other. The organization of man is such, his relations to the world in which he is placed are such that is to say, the immutable laws of God are such,

�� �