ESSAYS IN PERSUASION

PART

366

portant wars and no important increase in popu-lation, the economic problem may be solved, orbe at least within sight of solution, within ahundred years. This means that the economicproblem is not—if we look into the future —thepermanent problem of the human race.

Why, you may ask, is this so startling? Itis startling because—if, instead of looking intothe future, we look into the past—we find thatthe economic problem, the struggle for sub-sistence, always has been hitherto the primary,most pressing problem of the human race—notonly of the human race, but of the whole of thebiological kingdom from the beginnings of lifein its most primitive forms.

Thus we have been expressly evolved bynature—with all our impulses and deepest in-stincts—for the purpose of solving the economicproblem. If the economic problem is solved,mankind will be deprived of its traditional pur-pose.

Will this be a benefit? If one believes at allin the real values of life, the prospect at leastopens up the possibility of benefit. Yet I thinkwith dread of the readjustment of the habits andinstincts of the ordinary man, bred into him forcountless generations, which he may be askedto discard within a few decades.

To use the language of to-day—must we notexpect a general “nervous breakdown”? Wealready have a little experience of what I mean—a nervous breakdown of the sort which isalready common enough in England and the