ot
even aimed at, because it was thought inevitable that in a social
organism there must be subordination and a hierarchy of functions.
Essentially, and in the sight of God, all are equal, or, rather, the
essential differences between man and man are absolutely independent of
social status. In a few years Lazarus may be in heaven and Dives in
hell. Beside this equality of moral opportunity and tremendous
inequality in self-chosen destiny, the status of master and servant
seemed of small importance; it was a temporary and trivial accident.
Accordingly, in feudal times, as to-day in really Catholic communities,
feelings of injustice and social bitterness were seldom aroused and
class differences take on a more genial colour. In spite of the
lawlessness and brutality of the Middle Ages it is probable that men
were happier then than they are now.

The French Revolution, which was a disintegrating solvent, pulverised
society, and was impotent to reconstruct it. Yet under the industrial
regime which followed it in this country, the nation was conscious of
its unity. The system was the best that could have been devised for
increasing the population and aggregate wealth of the country; and even
those who suffered most under it were not without pride in its results.
The ill-paid workman of the last century would have thought it a poor
thing to do a deliberately bad day's work.

I am not praising either the age of feudalism or the 'hungry forties' of
the nineteenth century. In the latter case especially the sacrifice
exacted from the poor was too great for the rather vulgar success of
which it was the condition. But to call that age the period of
individualism, and our own generation the period of socialism, is in my
opinion a profound mistake. In Germany, too, the real socialists are not
the 'Spartacist' scoundrels who have betrayed and ruined their country,
but the bureaucracy with their _Deutschland ueber Alles_. If I were a
little more of a socialist, I could almost admire them, in spite of all
their crimes.

The landed gentry (and in honesty I must add the endowed clergy) are a
survival of feudalism, as the capitalist is a survival of industrialism.
Both have to a large extent survived their functions. The mailclad
baron, round whose fortified castle the peasants and others gathered for
protection, has become the country gentleman, against whom the
indictment is not so much that his only pursuit is pleasure, as that his