ft
off. This capacity is peculiar to men; the fact can not be repeated too
often.

It is untrue to say that _A_ started his life aided exclusively by the
achievements of (say) his father, for his father's achievements depended
on the achievements of _his_ immediate predecessors; and so on all the way
back through the life of humanity. This fact, of supreme ethical
importance, applies to _all_ of us; none of us may speak or act as if the
material or spiritual wealth we have were produced by us; for, if we be
not stupid, we must see that what we call _our_ wealth, _our_
civilization, everything we use or enjoy, is in the main the product of
the labor of men now dead, some of them slaves, some of them "owners" of
slaves. The metal spoon or the knife which we use daily is a product of
the work of many generations, including those who discovered the metal and
the use of it, and the utility of the spoon.

And here arises a most important question: Since the wealth of the world
is in the main the free gift of the past--the fruit of the labor of the
dead--to whom does it of right belong? The question can not be evaded. Is
the existing monopoly of the great inherited treasures produced by dead
men's toil a normal and natural evolution?

Or is it an artificial status imposed by the few upon the many? Such is
the crux of the modern controversy.

It is generally known that the invention of the steam engine and other
combustion engines which release sun-power for mechanical use, has
revolutionized the economic system; for the building of engines in the
scale of modern needs, it is necessary to concentrate a great number of
living men in one place, to build factories, to set up machines used in
producing the engines, and all this requires the use of vast amounts of
money. That is why this era is called the capitalistic era. But it is
necessary to stop here and analyse the factors of value in the engine to
be made and in the money used for the purpose of making use of the
stored-up energies of the sun. We have found that the major part of the
engine and all factors connected with its production are the combined
power of dead men's labor. We have found that wealth or capital and its
symbol, money, are also, in the main, the bound-up power of dead men's
labor; so that the only way to obtain the benefit in the release of
sun-power, is by using the product of the toil of the dead. It is further
obvious that only the men or organizatio