reason why the individual who saves a part of his income and accumulates a fund of wealth should not be permitted to transmit it to his widow and orphans. How wide the circle of relatives should be who should be allowed a legal claim on the inheritance is another question. Undoubtedly it should be much narrower than is at present permitted. Since one of the strongest motives to accumulation is the desire to provide for the members of one's own family, and since accumulation is socially desirable, there is a positive reason why the right of transmission by inheritance should be sustained. One effect of the destruction of this right would be to encourage lavish consumption and discourage accumulation. Each man who loves to gratify himself would be tempted, somewhat more strongly than he is at present, to say, as soon as he had accumulated a competence, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." If he could not leave anything to his family, they would be just as well off if he were to consume his fortune as if he were to save it. Under such conditions, unless the law were evaded by gifts during the lifetime of the accumulator, capital, which is tools, would tend to grow scarce or increase less rapidly, industries to contract or to expand less rapidly, the effective demand for labor to decline and wages to fall, while interest would rise in response to the scarcity of capital.

The point of view of succeeding generations. Thus far we have considered the problem exclusively from the standpoint of the generation which accumulates wealth, forgetting succeeding generations. If, now, we consider the matter exclusively from the standpoint of succeeding generations, forgetting the generation which accumulated the wealth in question, the whole situation has a different look. From this new point of view we shall notice, first, that certain individuals—the inheritors of wealth-start in the race of life with a sum of capital in addition to their natural powers, while others start with nothing but their natural powers. It is obvious that the inheritors have an advantage in the race, and therefore it is also obvious that it is not a fair race.

What is fair competition? It is perhaps desirable at this point to consider the meaning of the word "fair" as applied to any form of competition. In a foot race, for example, the competition is sometimes said to be fair when all the runners are given an even start and given an equally good track on which to run. Of course there

will be great differences in the speed of the different runners, and it is certain that there will be great unevenness among the runners at the end of the race, even though they were all even at the start and all had equally good outward conditions. Inequality of results, when it can be attributed exclusively to inequality of power and not to an uneven start or any outward advantages or disadvantages, may, from this point of view, be considered fair.

Equal results. In other cases there is a deliberate attempt to predict the relative speed of the various runners and to arrange a series of handicaps in order that the race may be as nearly even at the end as possible. In this case they are deliberately given an uneven start in order that there may be an even finish, or a finish as nearly even as the handicap committee can arrange. If the handicaps are intelligently and fairly calculated, this kind of race also is said to be fair.

An even start. The same principles would apply to economic competition. If all the competitors were given an even start and if all were given a fair field with no favors, it would be called, from one point of view, fair competition. On the other hand, if it were possible to arrange a series of handicaps, giving each of the weaker competitors an advantage commensurate with his weakness, such a competition might also be said to be fair. The competitors would be given an uneven start and uneven advantage in order that they might be as nearly even as possible at the end of the race.

Handicaps. But it must be remembered that a system of handicaps must be intelligently arranged, otherwise it becomes outrageously unfair. If instead of giving some outward advantage to the slower runner it were given to the swifter runner, and the prizes awarded on the basis of the results of such a race, every sentiment of fairness would be outraged. And in the field of economic competition, if the handicaps were arranged in inverse order to the power of the competitors, everyone would say that it was unfair. Again, if the handicaps were arranged in a haphazard fashion, without any regard to the power of the competitors, so that the stronger were as likely as the weaker to be given an outward advantage, the case would be only a little better. No one would even pretend that it was a fair competition. This is exactly what happens to economic competition under the system of inherited wealth. From this point of view, forgetting the other, there can scarcely be two opinions on the subject.

Inheritances ought not to be allowed, because they make competition unfair. The strong competitor is quite as likely as the weak to be given the advantage of a fund of capital with which to start the race of life.

Compromising the two points of view. These two points of view, from which such opposite conclusions are reached, may be harmonized, or compromised, by considering the family rather than the individual as the unit of society, and considering the family as a permanent unit unaffected by the brevity of individual lives. We should then assume that economic competition takes place between families rather than between individuals. And the family being a permanent rather than a transitory unit, the race or the competition cannot be considered as having a beginning or an end. What is called the inheritance of wealth is, therefore, not to be considered as giving an individual an unearned advantage in competition so much as keeping in the possession of the family the advantage which it has already earned.

In proportion as one is in the habit of thinking in terms of the family rather than of the individual and of emphasizing the solidarity and perpetuity of the family and the unity of its interests, in that proportion will one emphasize the first point of view and minimize the arguments which are used against the inheritance of wealth. But in proportion as one is in the habit of thinking in terms of the individual rather than the family, or of thinking of the family as a temporary biological unit (beginning with marriage and ending with death) existing for the purpose of producing children and bringing them to maturity, in that proportion will one naturally emphasize the second point of view and minimize the arguments in support of the inheritance of wealth. Before considering the merits of the two conceptions of the family it is safe to record the fact that the undoubted tendency of popular opinion is away from the conception of the family as a solid and perpetual social unit and toward that of the family as a temporary, biological unit. There are even evidences of a tendency toward the purely individualistic conception which eliminates the family as an institution, though recognizing the necessity of a mating of males and females for the propagation of the species.

CHAPTER VII

THE QUALITY OF THE PEOPLE

What kind of people are we? However wisely the economic activities of the people may be controlled by government, morals, and religion, and however sound and rational their economic institutions may be, much will depend upon the quality of the people themselves. In fact, all these agencies in a democratic country will themselves be determined by the quality of the people. A wise and benevolent despot might conceivably give degraded people a much better government than they would ever originate, and he might even encourage a sounder system of morals than they would ever practice if left to themselves; but democratic people have no one to depend upon but themselves, and if they are of poor quality, there is no hope for them, because their system of control and their economic institutions are likely to be of poor quality.

How much civilization can we stand? There is a story of an aged savage who had lived since his early youth under civilized conditions, but who in his old age returned to his native tribe, saying that he had tried civilization for forty years and it was not worth the trouble. Much of the philosophy of civilization is contained, or at least implied, in his remark. Civilization consists largely in taking trouble. Civilized people are a great deal of trouble to themselves; and civilization will never seem worth the trouble to anyone whose mind is so constituted as to be incapable of taking trouble without great fatigue and irksomeness. It is more trouble to plan for the future than to live on the impulse of the moment; it is more trouble to save seed corn than not to save it; it is more trouble to invest one's income in productive enterprise than to consume it all as one goes along,-in short, it is more trouble to think, to plan, to exercise self-control, to direct one's conduct with a

view to one's needs ten or twenty years hence than to live wholly in the present, allowing the future to take care of itself. Of course it works better in the long run to take trouble of this kind. People who are willing to take this kind of trouble become civilized; people who do not, remain savages.

To one kind of person, with low mentality and little moral self-control, the alternatives present themselves of taking trouble every day with a view to his interests in the distant future and of refraining from taking trouble and facing hardship in the distant future. Which alternative he will choose will depend on the kind of man he is. If the hardships of the future seem less burdensome than the fatigue of taking trouble in the present, he will not take the trouble but will accept the hardships of the future. Such a man will never become civilized, or if he ever does become civilized he will ultimately decide, as did our aged savage, that it is not worth the trouble, and he will, therefore, relapse into savagery. On the other hand, an individual of higher mentality and moral self-control, when facing the same alternatives, will choose the other one. Taking trouble is not so very burdensome to such a person. Thinking, planning, subordinating the whim of the moment to the larger interest of the future, are easy to such a man. He will naturally, therefore, choose that alternative and will, almost automatically, become civilized. In the long run, therefore, the fate of our civilization will be determined by the kind of people we are, which will determine the kind of choices we make when facing alternatives of the kind mentioned.

Why man rules over the rest of the animal creation. In attempting to discuss the quality of the people we are not necessarily entering upon a discussion of the whole field of physiology, psychology, and morals. There are certain outstanding qualities which man possesses in greater degree than the brutes, which civilized man possesses in greater degree than the savage, and which, in any civilized community, the more successful classes possess in greater degree than the less successful. There are other qualities, such as the sense of smell and