t that men might act better, are forced,
unless we are fanatical simpletons, to consider how they are likely to
act; so in this matter of the wealth that is carried in men's minds, we
have to reflect that the too absolute predominance of a class whose wants
have been of a common sort, who are chiefly struggling to get better and
more food, clothing, shelter, and bodily recreation, may lead to hasty
measures for the sake of having things more fairly shared, which, even if
they did not fail of their object, would at last debase the life of the
nation. Do anything which will throw the classes who hold the treasures
of knowledge--nay, I may say, the treasure of refined needs--into the
background, cause them to withdraw from public affairs, stop too suddenly
any of the sources by which their leisure and ease are furnished, rob
them of the chances by which they may be influential and pre-eminent, and
you do something as short-sighted as the acts of France and Spain when in
jealousy and wrath, not altogether unprovoked, they drove from among them
races and classes that held the traditions of handicraft and agriculture.
You injure your own inheritance and the inheritance of your children.
You may truly say that this which I call the common estate of society has
been anything but common to you; but the same may be said, by many of us,
of the sunlight and the air, of the sky and the fields, of parks and
holiday games. Nevertheless that these blessings exist makes life
worthier to us, and urges us the more to energetic, likely means of
getting our share in them; and I say, let us watch carefully, lest we do
anything to lessen this treasure which is held in the minds of men, while
we exert ourselves, first of all, and to the very utmost, that we and our
children may share in all its benefits. Yes; exert ourselves to the
utmost, to break the yoke of ignorance. If we demand more leisure, more
ease in our lives, let us show that we don't deserve the reproach of
wanting to shirk that industry which, in some form or other, every man,
whether rich or poor, should feel himself as much bound to as he is bound
to decency. Let us show that we want to have some time and strength left
to us, that we may use it, not for brutal indulgence, but for the
rational exercise of the faculties which make us men. Without this no
political measures can benefit us. No political institution will alter
the nature of Ignorance, or hinder it from producing