Human dissatisfaction practically disappeared. The elderly people
were the great grumblers; but when they were honourably pensioned by
society, as they passed the age limit for work, the great majority
ceased grumbling. They found themselves better off in their idle old
days under the new regime, enjoying vastly more pleasure and comforts
than they had in their busy and toilsome youth under the old regime.
The younger generation had easily adapted itself too the changed
order, and the very young had never known anything else. The sum of
human happiness had increased enormously. The world had become gay
and sane. Even the old fogies of professors of sociology, who had
opposed with might and main the coming of the new regime, made no
complaint. They were a score of times better remunerated than in the
old days, and they were not worked nearly so hard. Besides, they
were busy revising sociology and writing new text-books on the
subject. Here and there, it is true, there were atavisms, men who
yearned for the flesh-pots and cannibal-feasts of the old alleged
"individualism," creatures long of teeth and savage of claw who
wanted to prey upon their fellow-men; but they were looked upon as
diseased, and were treated in hospitals.
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