Up to the
present, social evolution has been a blind and aimless, blundering
thing. The time has come for a change. Man has risen from the
vitalized slime of the primeval sea to the mastery of matter; but he
has not yet mastered society. Man is to-day as much the slave to his
collective stupidity, as a hundred thousand generations ago he was a
slave to matter.
"There are two theoretical methods whereby man may become the master
of society, and make of society an intelligent and efficacious device
for the pursuit and capture of happiness and laughter. The first
theory advances the proposition that no government can be wiser or
better than the people that compose that government; that reform and
development must spring from the individual; that in so far as the
individuals become wiser and better, by that much will their
government become wiser and better; in short, that the majority of
individuals must become wiser and better, before their government
becomes wiser and better. The mob, the political convention, the
abysmal brutality and stupid ignorance of all concourses of people,
give the lie to this theory.
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