a of
"Practical Ethics" was to outline in elaborate detail a complete
scheme of constitutional changes which would make it impossible for
the "boss" to control the government. I think I must have been born
with a charm against #bourgeois# thought, for the good professor never
fooled me an instant; I remember I used to smile at the idea of how
quickly the "boss" would brush through his constitutional cobwebs. The
reforms required an elaborate campaign of publicity--and of course
long before they could be put into practice, the politicians would be
ready with devices to make them of no effect.

Soon after this, my ethical professor resigned and went to hunting
spooks. I don't want to be unfair to him; I know that he is a
determined and courageous man, and it seems possible that he may
really have bagged some spooks. All I wish to point out here is the
method he uses in seeking to persuade the heedless rich to support the
spook-hunting industry. The very same argument as we got from the
University of Geneva and the University of Toronto! Says our head
spook-hunter:

There has been no belief that exercised so much power upon
the poor as that in a future life. The politicians, men of
the world, have known this so well as to postpone the day of
political judgment by it for many years.

And again:

The Church, having lost all its battles with science, and
having abandoned a strenuous intellectual defense of its
fundamental beliefs, has lost its power over the poor and
the laboring classes.... The spiritual ideal of life has
gone out of the masses as well as the classes, and nothing
is left but a venture on a struggle with wealth.

And again, more menacingly yet:

The rich will learn in the dangers of a social revolution
that the poor will not sacrifice both wealth and
immortality.

What is to be done about this? The question answers itself: Step up,
ladies and gentlemen, and empty your purses into the Psychical
Research hat! So that we may accumulate statistics as to the cost of
milk and honey in Jerusalem the Golden!

You read what I had to say about Bootstrap-lifters, and the Wholesale
Pickpockets' Association making use of their incantations. You admired
my ability to sling language, but not my taste; and you certainly did
not think that I would back my rhetoric with facts. But what do these
quotations mean, unless they mean what I have said? Are n