ngman's
function take hold of the masses and inhibit the suggestion of
socialism. Merely granting the external claims, giving to the factory
girls increasing chance for amusement, means to deceive them. The more
such longings are satisfied, the more they must grow and become a
craze which sharpens the feeling of dissatisfaction. This desire for
superficial joys, for sensual amusements and cheap display is nothing
but a suggested habit, which imitation creates in a period of waste.
If a time of simplicity were to come, not only the longing for these
prizes would become silent, but the prizes themselves would appear
worthless. Liberate the workingman from his distrust of the present
social order; let him feel deeply that his duties are not enforced
slavery but a solemn offering to human progress, which he gives in
glad cooeperation in the spirit of ideal belief. At the same time stop
the overestimation of the outer enjoyments, and cultivate the
appreciation of the lasting values, and our time of unrest will come
to inner harmony. But do not believe that this can ever be done, if
those who are called to be the leaders of the social group are not
models and do not by their own lives give the cue for this new
attitude and new valuation. As long as they outdo one another in the
wild chase of frivolity and seek in the industrial work of the nation
only a stronghold for their rights and not a fountain spring of
duties, as long as they want to enjoy instead of to believe, this
inner change can never come in the community. The psychologist can do
nothing but to predict that no other scheme, no outer reform, no new
plan of distribution, can bring a real change, as every calculation
which works with outer means to secure happiness must remain a
psychological illusion. The change from within is the only promise and
the only hope.

III

THE INTELLECTUAL UNDERWORLD

The public conscience of the social world has been stirred in recent
days by the dangers which threaten from an antisocial world that lurks
in darkness. The sociologists recognize that it is not a question of
vicious and criminal individuals, but one of an antisocial atmosphere,
of immoral traditions and surroundings, through which crime flourishes
and vice is fostered. They speak of a social underworld, and mean by
it that whole pitiable setting in which the gangs of thieves and the
hordes of prostitutes