the man with
the biggest muscle and the toughest skin. He wielded a stout club, and
what he wanted, he took. His system of operation was simple and direct.
You have money, you have cattle, you have a wife--I'm speaking of
the times that were. I am stronger than you. I take them. Simplicity
itself!"

"But very unjust," she protested.

"Our sense of justice is due to our education," he continued. "If we are
taught to believe that a certain thing is just, we believe it is just.
I am convinced that there is no sense of justice inherent in humanity;
whatever sense we have is the result of education, and the kind of
justice we believe in is the kind of justice to which we are educated.
For example, the justice of the plains is not the justice of the cities;
the justice of the vigilance committee is not the justice of judge and
jury. Now to get back to our subject. When Baron Battle Ax, back in
the fifth or sixth century, knocked all his rivals on the head and
took their wealth away from them, I suppose there was here and there an
advanced thinker who said the thing was unjust, but I am quite sure the
great majority of people said things had always been that way and always
would be that way. But the little minority of thinkers gradually grew
in strength. The Truth was with them. It is worthy of notice that the
advance guard of Truth always travels with minorities. And the day came
that society organized itself to say that the man who uses physical
force to take wealth from another is an enemy of society and must not be
allowed at large.

"But we have passed largely out of the era of physical force. To-day, an
engineer presses a button and releases more physical force than could be
commanded by all the armies of Rome. Brain power is to-day the dominant
power. And just as physical force was once used to take wealth without
earning it, so is brain force now used to take wealth without earning
it. And just as the masses in the days of Battle Ax said things had
always been that way and always would be that way, just so do the masses
in these days of brain supremacy say things have always been that way
and always will be that way. But just as there was a minority with an
advanced vision of Truth in those days, so is there a minority with an
advanced vision of Truth in these days. You may be absolutely sure that,
just as society found a way to deal with muscle brigands, so also it
will find a way to deal with brain brigands. I co