ld a civilization around mankind, to
use its talent and to satisfy its needs. There would be no more empty
taboos, no erecting of institutions upon abstract and mechanical
analogies. Politics would be like education--an effort to develop, train
and nurture men's impulses. As Montessori is building the school around
the child, so politics would build all of social life around the human
being.

That practical issues hang upon these investigations can be shown by an
example from Mr. Wallas's book. Take the quarrel over socialism. You hear
it said that without the private ownership of capital people will lose
ambition and sink into sloth. Many men, just as well aware of present-day
evils as the socialists, are unwilling to accept the collectivist remedy.
G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc speak of the "magic of property" as
the real obstacle to socialism. Now obviously this is a question of
first-rate importance. If socialism will destroy initiative then only a
doctrinaire would desire it. But how is the question to be solved? You
cannot reason it out. Economics, as we know it to-day, is quite incapable
of answering such a problem, for it is a matter that depends upon
psychological investigation. When a professor says that socialism is
impracticable he begs the question, for that amounts to assuming that the
point at issue is already settled. If he tells you that socialism is
against human nature, we have a perfect right to ask where he proved the
possibilities of human nature.

But note how Mr. Wallas approaches the debate: "Children quarrel
furiously at a very early age over apparently worthless things, and
collect and hide them long before they can have any clear notion of the
advantages to be derived from individual possession. Those children who
in certain charity schools are brought up entirely without personal
property, even in their clothes or pocket handkerchiefs, show every sign
of the bad effect on health and character which results from complete
inability to satisfy a strong inherited instinct.... Some economist ought
therefore to give us a treatise in which this property instinct is
carefully and quantitatively examined.... How far can it be eliminated or
modified by education? Is it satisfied by a leasehold or a life-interest,
or by such an arrangement of corporate property as is offered by a
collegiate foundation, or by the provision of a public park? Does it
require for its satisfaction material and visibl