beneficent operation, not that which is
his ethical due, for that we can never determine, nor would it be for
the general welfare that each should receive his due, but that which
each can receive without injury to Society.

It is certain that each will get less as the ages go by unless by our
human ingenuity we can make production keep pace with population. At
present, production greatly varies in different parts of the world,
and the condition in each country is indicated by the amount of leisure
possible to the average man. As population increases, leisure must
decrease. If we work in a crowded community but eight hours per day,
some will die among the weaker who would have lived if all had worked
nine hours. The best index of the economic condition of any country is
the amount of leisure which can be enjoyed by the average man without
noticeable increase of mortality among the least efficient. The
mortality tables have not yet been studied in their relations to this
subject, but in time they will be. In Australia, mostly unsettled, the
eight hour day is easy. If enforced in China the mortality would be
awful. But then China has great but untouched natural resources to be
developed by machinery devised elsewhere, and whose development will
decrease mortality, while at the same time, at least for a long period,
permitting more leisure. These conditions tend to equalize themselves
throughout the world and in time the contest between humanitarian
instincts and economic pressure will reach a world-wide equilibrium
through the operation of natural law. What will happen then I do not
know. Neither can any of us know.

What we do know is that in each generation the aggregate of human
happiness will be in a direct ratio with production per capita, up to
the limit of the ability of the earth to produce food. We also know that
the rate of production per capita will increase or decrease in a direct
ratio with the amount of human energy devoted to production and not
wasted in conflict, whether individual, class or international.

Each generation must work out its own problems in its own way. As
population grows denser, individual freedom must more and more give
way to collective restraint and direction. We in the cities have less
freedom than those of the country, and the greater the city the more the
individual impulse must be subordinated to collective control.

But we must never attempt to supplant individual selfishness,