A CHAPTER 
 
 FROM THE STORY 0? 
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 THEOPHILUS BRA
 
 THERE can be no 
 Hop* of progress or 
 freedom for the 
 people without the un- 
 restricted and complete 
 enjoyment of the right 
 of free speech, free press 
 and peaceful assembly. 
 
 Gift of 
 
 IRA B. CROSS 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 A*- 
 
 \
 
 A CHAPTER 
 
 FROM THE STORY OF 
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 BY 
 
 THEOPHILUS BRASS 
 
 ASHLAND, MASS. 
 
 WILLIAM P. MORRISON 
 1916
 
 Copyright, 1916, by 
 WILLIAM P. MORRISON 
 
 :..-: 
 
 THE THORNTON PRESS 
 WINTHROP, MASS.
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 in 
 n 
 en 
 
 233473
 
 PREFACE 
 
 During the last decade writers upon the higher life of 
 man who claim to have transcendental sanctions for their 
 theories whether frankly conservative or ostensibly radical have 
 been growing in courage and have even proclaimed that the 
 positive and agnostic attitude of the last century is a thing 
 permanently of the past. 
 
 During the same period the utterances of politicians of a 
 certain type have disclosed a growing distrust of democracy. 
 The distrust has, naturally, been implied rather than expressed, 
 and has evinced itself mainly in more or less covert sugges- 
 tions that we accept a new definition of democracy. We are 
 still to have government for the people it is said but by 
 experts instead of by the people; and by corporate experts 
 not at all responsible to us or by government experts only 
 indirectly so, or by both. 
 
 Is there any connection between the two tendencies? And 
 is either or both to be regarded as in the line of progress? Or 
 are they to be regarded as reactions from a previous upward 
 swing to be followed later by another advance? 
 
 In the following conversation some suggestions are made 
 that may help to answer these questions.
 
 CHARACTERS 
 
 THE OCCASION: The dinner given by Miss Parsons on the 
 9th of June, 190 at her residence on Essex Neck. 
 THE PEOPLE 
 
 Miss PAULINE PARSONS, the hostess, an heiress of crystal mind 
 and tender heart, said to be betrothed to Prince Friedrich 
 of Hohenblenheim. 
 
 MRS. MERLIN, her aunt and chaperon. 
 
 MRS. OLIVIA ORTON, another aunt, a believer in supermen. 
 
 MRS. LURTON, a timorous liberal. 
 
 MRS. HARDY, a mystic. 
 
 Miss BARBARA FLEMING, a clever butterfly. 
 
 Miss ELSINGHAM, rich and philanthropic; a conservative. 
 
 Miss ELSACK, a lecturer on feminism and eugenics. 
 
 MR. SOUNDER, a pragmatist. 
 
 MR. RANSOM, a transcendental idealist of the Hegelian type. 
 
 PROFESSOR HARDY, a transcendental idealist of the Kantian 
 type. 
 
 MR. BARLOW, Miss Parsons' new business secretary, an agnos- 
 tic positive idealist. 
 
 COMMODORE LURTON, a liberal business man. 
 
 MR. CONDOR, a captain of industry. 
 
 MR. CRANDALL, a conservative lawyer, interested in the opera- 
 tions of the banking house of Bemis < Co.; an idealist 
 except in the matter of making his living. 
 
 MR. ROBERT LOVERING, a liberal lawyer. 
 
 MR. CHARLES Bo YD, Miss Parsons' cousin; a partisan admirer 
 of Mr. Barlow. 
 
 PROFESSOR MANN, a biologist. 
 
 PROFESSOR WALTHALL, an economist. 
 
 MR. A. PUFFINGTON PUFF, essayist, lecturer and novelist; a 
 social lion. 
 
 THE CIRCUMSTANCES: In view of Miss Parson's approaching 
 departure from America for good, a powerful group of 
 financiers headed by Bemis $ Co., have concluded that 
 the Parsons' mill property is a melon ripe for cutting,
 
 and have laid their plans to buy it, incorporate and sell 
 it to the public. But Miss Parsons, who comes of fighting 
 forbears, objects and has given her secretary the task of 
 devising means of resistance and a plan to share profits 
 with her employees.
 
 A CHAPTER FROM THE STORY OF 
 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 "Am I surrounded by pragmatists, Mr. Barlow? Are you 
 a pragmatist, too?" asked Miss Fleming. 
 
 "No. I'm not. I'll keep your communications open on 
 this side. Go on and pound him. I've been listening. You 
 have him beaten if you push your advantage," he replied 
 with laughing encouragement. 
 
 "Have I really? Do you think I had the better of the 
 argument ?" 
 
 "You certainly had." 
 
 "But I've fired my last shot." 
 
 "Then make a general charge along the whole front." 
 
 "Mercy! That sounds most militant. I'm afraid," said 
 Barbara mendaciously. 
 
 "I mean just sum up what you have been saying. Tell 
 him pragmatism is an old vice which we are steadily trying 
 to shake off, not a new virtue to be embraced that it is 
 intellectual anarchy founded on the false premise that man 
 and each man is the center of the universe but a Machiav- 
 elian anarchy fomented to save authority from responsibility 
 to law. That a good definition of intellectual progress would 
 be getting rid of pragmatic that is perspective points of 
 view and pragmatic dogmas." 
 
 Mr. Barlow was aware of his tendency to make speeches 
 and had made many resolutions to refrain but in the presence 
 of temptation he invariably forgot his resolutions. 
 
 "Oh, but the pragmatists deprecate the use of abstrac- 
 tion, dogma and all that sort of thing!" objected Barbara. 
 "You see I like to take the opposite side from that of the 
 person with whom I am conversing. Do you think that is a 
 sign of intellectual instability?"
 
 10 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 "Not at all you simply assume an attitude of philosophic 
 doubt," said Mr. Barlow smiling approvingly into the girl's 
 eager eyes. It was at this moment that Pauline turned her 
 eyes towards them for the second or third time. With each 
 inspection she had become more disturbed. It seemed to her 
 as if Mr. Barlow and Miss Fleming were carrying on a most 
 desperate flirtation. 
 
 "I'm not surprised at Barbara. She is a regular coquette. 
 But I am surprised at him. I thought he was more cool- 
 headed than to allow himself to be fooled by the first pretty 
 girl that makes eyes at him. But then he's not used to girls. 
 I ought not to have seated her next to him. Mercy, though! 
 I don't see why I should bother. I don't have to constitute 
 myself his guardian just because he's my secretary. He's 
 old enough to take care of himself. But then he doesn't know 
 how heartless girls can be. I wonder what they find so inter- 
 esting to talk about. There! Just look at that! He's as 
 bad as she is." 
 
 Mr. Barlow's smile was particularly appreciative just 
 then for the girl's eyes were looking soulfully into his. Miss 
 Fleming was indeed a coquette. With all her higher educa- 
 tion she was still an essential woman. Man was her rightful 
 
 Prey- 
 Pauline could see Mr. Barlow's smile. But she could see 
 his smile only the smile she had come to regard as her per- 
 sonal property. She could not see his eyes for they were 
 looking down into Miss Fleming's. Hence she could not see 
 that there was missing in them a meaning that was never 
 missing when they looked into hers. Pauline's slim fingers 
 clutched nervously the delicate lace fan in her lap. 
 
 "Mr. Barlow!" said Miss Fleming appreciatively. "What 
 a nice compliment!" 
 
 Then she gave a rippling laugh and tapped him on the 
 arm with her fan. 
 
 The one in Pauline's lap poor thing had to suffer in 
 consequence. 
 
 "How times have changed, Mr. Barlow," said Miss Fleming. 
 "If a man had said that to my grandmother she would have 
 thought him a queer stick. But I like it. We like it. We 
 like men to take us seriously. Now to return to our discus- 
 sion. Isn't man the center of the universe to man?" 
 
 "Yes in so far as his needs as they develop are his guide
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 11 
 
 to the best form in which to express the truth as it is dis- 
 covered. But he is not the center of the universe as an 
 isometric fact; nor are his needs dogmatically preconceived, 
 to be taken as the criterion of positive, substantive truth or 
 even of the best way of expressing it in 'shorthand.' ' 
 
 "There! You use the word dogma again. But the prag- 
 matist abjures dogma even scientific dogma," laughed Bar- 
 bara. "Does he not?" 
 
 "It's one thing to swear off on dogma and another to be 
 a total abstainer," said Mr. Barlow. "What is a dogmatist? 
 One is he who has a preconceived theory of things, constructed 
 without regard to things as they seem or with regard to 
 things as they seem but with and upon the assumption of a 
 known relation of phenomena to a postulated Absolute. A 
 scientific hypothesis however bold is very different. It must 
 fit, explain, be consistent with things as experienced up to 
 date known facts. It cannot outlive a single contradictory 
 fact. It is constantly put to the touchstone of new facts 
 to be, in consequence, strengthened in belief, modified or thrown 
 upon the scrap heap. Another kind of dogmatist is one who 
 holds on to a once scientific hypothesis after it should be 
 consigned to the scrap heap. The anthropocentric conception 
 of the universe was once scientific as science was then. It 
 fitted all the facts as men know them. As adverse facts accu- 
 mulated as isometric views of the universe gradually qualified 
 perspective views, the dogmatists some of them just ignored 
 them others fell back upon anthropocentric theories of the 
 universe based upon postulates of the relation between phe- 
 nomena and an assumed Absolute. Now comes another faction 
 of the same cult who claim to hanker after facts. But it seems 
 that they hanker after those facts only which support desira- 
 ble propositions. Empirical pragmatists we have had with us 
 always. They have been the main obstacles to progress since 
 the beginning. But now comes the dogmatic pragmatist with 
 his so-called scientific method of eliminating undesirable prop- 
 ortions. First determine whether a proposition is fruitful or 
 not, he says. On that determination will depend whether it is 
 true or not. But since there is no certain way of determining 
 the fruitfulness of a proposition without first determining 
 whether it is true of the greatest possible probability I 
 think I am warranted in speaking of pragmatic dogma."
 
 12 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 "You arc one of the Rocky Mountain toughs, evidently, Mr. 
 Barlow," commented Miss Fleming. 
 
 "No nor one of the tenderfeet either. I claim to be just 
 a harmless frontiersman." 
 
 "Frontiersman! Splendid! I seem to see what you mean. 
 But tell me about him. Professor James forgot the frontiers- 
 man." 
 
 "Dealers in the dilemma often do forget. The frontiers- 
 man refuses to admit that he has to choose between 'going by 
 facts' and Agoing by principles.' He 'goes by facts' but draws 
 principles from them. He 'goes by principles' but by princi- 
 ples based on facts. He is neither an empiricist nor a ra- 
 tionalist but a rational empiricist." 
 
 "Is not a proposition true just in so far as it is fruitful?" 
 demanded Mr. Sounder, Miss Fleming's late antagonist. 
 
 "Possibly just in so far as it is fruitful but just in so 
 far as it is true it is at least potentially fruitful," replied Mr. 
 Barlow. "If you can prove that a proposition is neither fruit- 
 ful nor potentially fruitful you prove, perhaps, that it has no 
 practical truth. But it does not follow that a proposition that 
 is alleged to be fruitful is true or that a proposition that is 
 alleged to be barren is not true. Your philosophy is based 
 at best on a syllogism of four terms." 
 
 "But, Mr. Barlow," said Miss Fleming, "I understand that 
 pragmatism has mainly to do with propositions that cannot in 
 their nature be decided on intellectual grounds propositions 
 about which there is no evidence chiefly propositions of 
 morals and religion." 
 
 "As to morals, Miss Fleming, if there is no evidence there 
 is no duty we have only the spur of feeling without the bridle 
 of knowledge," answered Mr. Barlow. "As to religion as to 
 any proposition upon which there really is no evidence the 
 pragmatic method is quite proper. But do the pragmatists 
 confine themselves to that class of propositions? James in 
 'Pragmatism' deals largely with questions as to which there 
 is at least some evidence." 
 
 "But you cannot brush away the notion of fruitfulness so 
 easily as you seem to think, Mr. Barlow," resumed Mr. 
 Sounder. "You must admit that science 'frames her proposi- 
 tions with great arbitrariness' having in mind that they must 
 be made fruitful. Pragmatists simply emphasize the settled 
 habit of science."
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 13 
 
 "What you say of science is true, Mr. Sounder," said the 
 secretary. "But you pragmatists do not simply emphasize 
 you expand the habit of science into something quite different 
 and quite improper. To describe a state of facts in some de- 
 gree of completeness may require five hundred words or ten 
 thousand words and from that up to a full description of the 
 known universe. But we have not time to do that nor is it 
 necessary where everybody has a single eye to gaining the 
 truth. We may and do describe a state of facts in a short 
 sentence perhaps, the statement to be taken in connection with 
 the tacit context understood to be part of it. The scientific 
 spirit requires us to use that short statement of the facts which 
 is most fruitful fruitful in the sense of simplifying, clarify- 
 ing truth, banishing confusion, connecting the state of facts 
 with the whole body of truth. But the pragmatist pads the 
 word fruitful out into the sense of melioristic having a bene- 
 ficial effect upon the souls of men. He does not stop even 
 there. Having translated fruitfulness in form into meliorism 
 he goes on to adopt meliorism as a criterion of substantive 
 truth itself as controlling not merely the form of description 
 but also the state of facts we are attempting to describe. But 
 however we describe them the facts remain the same they 
 just are. We cannot bend the facts to our needs, we must 
 bend our needs to the facts. Science does not distinguish be- 
 tween good truth and b.id truth. To say that there is any 
 truth that we dare not know is to preach a philosophy of 
 cowardice." 
 
 "But that is just what James says about facts," exclaimed 
 Mr. Sounder. "He says somewhere in his 'Pragmatism' for 
 instance, that sensations 'are neither true nor false; they 
 simply are. It is only what we say about them, only the names 
 we give them, our theories of their source and nature and re- 
 mote relations, that may be true or not.' And in his chapter 
 on The Notion of Truth he says 'the "facts" themselves mean- 
 while are not true. They simply are. Truth is the function of 
 the beliefs that start and terminate among them.' ' 
 
 "Yes, I have all that in mind," said Mr. Barlow. "The 
 whole chapter on 'The Notion of Truth,' barring some flashes 
 which taken without the context might be objected to, is ex- 
 cellent but not the special property of pragmatists. More- 
 over it is an excellent illustration of the inarticulateness and 
 unreality of your method. It seems to give Professor James
 
 14 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 great pleasure to know that facts, still, just are while he 
 proceeds to substitute fear for reason in the interpretation of 
 them." 
 
 "Fear and cowardice are harsh words, Mr. Barlow." 
 
 "But there is some dignity in fear I withdraw the word 
 cowardice," replied the secretary. "If you do not found your 
 melioristic theory of truth on fear, it seems to me you are 
 thrown back on some such triviality as aesthcticism or culture 
 collecting or religious feeling of a higher type but still of 
 the same general kind that thrives only in the light of stained 
 glass windows." 
 
 "Illustrate, Mr. Barlow!" demanded Barbara. 
 
 "On what other ground does Professor James advance 
 meliorism as a reason for postulating the freedom of the will 
 than fear that man if he comes to believe in determinism will 
 lose his sense of dignity and responsibility and so morally 
 perish? And does he not reject the theory of evolution 
 having first repeated that old libel that it leads to materialism 
 on the ground that if he believes in evolution, he will have 
 to share Mr. Balfour's melodramatic gloom over the universal 
 death to follow?" 
 
 "But these are metaphysical problems, are they not?" 
 asked Mrs. Orton across the table. "James so classifies them 
 in his 'Pragmatism.' ' 
 
 "But how can you say that the belief in a mechanical evo- 
 lution is not materialistic?" asked Mr. Crandall who sat next 
 to Mrs. Orton on her right. Mr. Crandall was an idealist 
 except in the matter of earning his bread. 
 
 "At any rate it is mechanical without soul," suggested 
 Miss Elsingham, from Pauline's end of the table. 
 
 "Isn't Mr. Balfour's gloomy picture of the end of dissolu- 
 tion warranted?" asked Mrs. Lurton. The Commodore's lady 
 had a heart full of love for her fellows. Though inclined to be 
 liberal in her beliefs she had clung stubbornly to her faith in 
 the spiritual reality of those mansions in the skies which would 
 some day shelter the poor and needy. 
 
 "Do you mean to say that you cannot do as you want, 
 Mr. Barlow?" This from Miss Elsack, the lecturer and writer 
 on feminism and eugenics. She had never found any difficulty 
 in believing in both moral eugenics and free will. 
 
 "But Professor James's book does not pretend to be a 
 contribution to science," asserted young Professor Hardy,
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 15 
 
 from Mrs. Merlin's end of the table. "It is a discourse upon 
 philosophy." 
 
 "Just what do you mean by empirical pragmatism, 
 Barlow?" asked Bob Levering, who sat directly opposite Mr. 
 Barlow. 
 
 At this bombardment of queries, Mr. Barlow, who had 
 been entirely oblivious of the fact that others than Miss Flem- 
 ing and Mr. Sounder were listening to him, cast a startled 
 look around the table. Once more he regretted his propensity 
 to make speeches. 
 
 "It is strange, Miss Parsons," said Professor Mann, "how 
 mature men can take the serious interest Mr. Barlow seems 
 to take in fundamental speculation." 
 
 "It is strange, Professor," agreed Pauline, "if the funda- 
 mentals are floated in the air. But if they are founded upon 
 solid ground it seems to me that a reasoned theory must help 
 a man's work." 
 
 "You surprise me, Miss Parsons," and the Professor looked 
 his surprise. "I have no time for fundamentals and I had 
 supposed that you were of the kind to urge taking hold of 
 the work at hand and letting the idlers philosophize." 
 
 "I certainly do not approve of philosophising at the ex- 
 pense of the work at hand," said Pauline. "But my observa- 
 tion is that even the busiest people inevitably construct their 
 philosophies between strokes but too much upon the authority 
 of these very idlers. Perhaps a few strokes would not be 
 missed and the time well spent in rounding up the results of 
 their own thought." 
 
 "But what is the good of it?" 
 
 "Well, it seems to me that if a man's philosophy is hap- 
 hazard his influence in the world will be haphazard; if it is 
 unreal he may be a positive drag. If a man's philosophy fits 
 itself to real life and has a clarifying effect you will find him 
 always pushing the work of the world forward instead of 
 sometimes forward and sometimes backward." 
 
 During this colloquy between Pauline and Professor Mann 
 the bombardment of Mr. Barlow continued. 
 
 "This is splendid!" cried Barbara in high spirit. "We 
 will have a regular debate. But one question at a time, please. 
 I shall appoint myself moderator of the meeting; because it 
 was I who discovered Mr. Barlow. I foresee that this is 
 going to be the most enjoyable dinner ever."
 
 16 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 "The idea !" said Pauline to herself. "My secretary !" 
 
 Then she remembered that Miss Fleming did not know 
 that Mr. Barlow was her secretary. Pauline had never been 
 in the habit of introducing Phoebe Lenham as her secretary. 
 She had decided to adopt the same course as to Mr. Barlow. 
 Outside of the immediate family only Bob and Constance 
 Levering, Charles Boyd and Mr. Crandall knew of Mr. Bar- 
 low's status. Pauline had not told even Mrs. Orton that he 
 was her secretary. Her aunt was not always considerate of 
 the feelings of those whom she considered subordinates and 
 the time had been too short to explain Mr. Barlow's danger 
 points. 
 
 Mrs. Orton was a believer in supermen not merely in 
 the Nietzschean men of blood and iron but in all big men 
 who made little men drill in regiments. 
 
 "Anyway she has not discovered the man," added Pauline 
 to herself. 
 
 "Now, Mr. Barlow," said Barbara crisply, "tell us is 
 the theory of evolution a metaphysical speculation? And 
 is the question of free will a metaphysical speculation?" 
 
 "There must be others here who are better able to answer 
 these questions," protested Mr. Barlow. 
 
 "No not at all. It's easy to see you know what you are 
 talking about," insisted Barbara. "Besides, if we had every- 
 body putting in his answer we should have just a lot of 
 loose talk as we so often have when we discuss such subjects 
 as these. Come, Mr. Barlow." 
 
 "And why not answer my question about pragmatism 
 before we leave that topic, Barlow?" asked Bob. 
 
 "Address the chair, please," quoth Barbara. "However, 
 I think Bob's is a good suggestion. But the answer must 
 be final on that branch of the subject." 
 
 All eyes were turned upon Miss Parsons' secretary. He 
 glanced towards the head of the table. But it happened 
 that Mr. Puff had chosen that moment to inform Pauline that 
 an American could not listen long to the smoking-room talk 
 of the London clubs without feeling ashamed of the influences 
 his country had had on political methods over there if mem- 
 bers were paid no gentleman could afford to enter politics. 
 
 So Mr. Barlow could not catch Miss Parsons' eye.
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 17 
 
 II 
 
 "Well, then, Miss Fleming, I will do the best I can," he 
 said. "I mean by empirical pragmatists, Levering, those 
 who from time immemorial have been in the habit of confusing 
 the issue, talking off the point, arguing about words instead 
 of the ideas conveyed by them, in general kicking up a dust 
 to hide the truth, without going through the formality of 
 seeking a fundamental, philosophical or scientific warrant for 
 loose thinking to convenient ends." 
 
 "Now, Mr. Barlow the theory of evolution and meta- 
 physics," prompted Barbara when he had come to a stop. 
 
 He glanced again towards the head of the table. This 
 time he caught Pauline's eye, but there was no message in it 
 either of approval or disapproval. 
 
 "It seems to me, then," he began with an air of resigna- 
 tion, and not a little disturbed at the lack of expression in 
 Miss Parsons' eyes, "that the best guide to clear thinking 
 ever devised was the division of man's intellectual activities 
 into two main fields : the inquiry as to what are, if any, the 
 laws of appearance phenomena; and the inquiry what is the 
 Ultimate and Absolute Reality behind appearance. The first 
 is the domain of science or of philosophy if you mean by 
 philosophy, as Spencer does, completely unified science. The 
 second field is the domain of the old philosophy ontology 
 and metaphysics and of religion. Now to put the theory of 
 evolution the theory of orderly progress throughout the do- 
 main of phenomena within the domain of metaphysics seems 
 to me the grossest kind of confusion in thought, Mrs. Orton. 
 If I am wrong if this is clear thinking then my mental 
 equipment is unfit for discussion with those who so classify 
 our speculations." 
 
 "You are perfectly correct, Barlow," said Bob. "The 
 theory of evolution, however speculative, is wholly a matter of 
 science even if it is bad speculation and of course I do not 
 believe that it is bad." 
 
 "Then as to determinism, or as James calls it, inaccu- 
 rately, fatalism, and free will," continued Mr. Barlow, "if 
 this is a metaphysical question then the question whether
 
 18 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 there are any sciences of the higher life of man is a meta- 
 physical question. And here, Miss Elsack, we come to the 
 answer to your inquiry. Of course I can do as I want. Not 
 only that but I cannot do anything else. My will the name, 
 not of a faculty, but of a process, the process of turning 
 desire into action is absolutely under the control of my 
 preponderating desires. If there is anything 'free' it is desire, 
 not will. If human desires are free, Mrs. Orton, it is useless 
 to study them as if they can be reduced to fruitful order. 
 Ethics, economics, psychology and all kindred studies become 
 empty pastimes. Prohibitive law is effective only because it 
 happens so. Punishments may any day be regarded as prizes 
 and prizes as punishments. About human conduct that is 
 just the output of several hundred million kaleidoscopic wills 
 working under no common principles and, severally, under 
 no continuing principles, without order without any past that 
 counts causeless and without reactive effect, you can frame 
 no answerable questions. Politics and slap-jack you may 
 class together." 
 
 "Then do we mean just nothing at all when we speak of 
 one having a strong will," asked Miss Elsack. 
 
 "We mean an immense deal. We mean roughly that he 
 knows what he wants and is sufficiently steadfast in his sterner 
 desires to act along more or less consistent lines." 
 
 "And by one with a weak will that his desires do not 
 stay put long enough to keep him plugging at it?" added 
 Barbara. "He is never sure that any particular game is 
 worth the candle." 
 
 "Excellent!" exclaimed Mr. Barlow, looking appreci- 
 atively into her animated face. 
 
 Pauline's little hands worked nervously with the fan in 
 her lap. 
 
 "If you are going to be moderator you must not take 
 sides, Barbara," said Charles. 
 
 "Order!" exclaimed Barbara. Then she resumed. 
 
 "Now, Mr. Barlow, tell Miss Elsingham and Mr. Crandall 
 why it is a libel to speak of the theory of evolution as ma- 
 terialistic or mechanical." 
 
 Mr. Barlow laughed a little nervously and cast another 
 inquiring glance toward the head of the table. He felt that 
 for a "social surplus" he was tarrying too long in the lime 
 light. But Pauline's face though cold and irresponsive held
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 19 
 
 no veto in it. In fact a slight smile the society woman's 
 ever-ready veil was taken by her secretary as giving him 
 her permission to proceed. 
 
 "If you mean by mechanical a theory of orderly progress, 
 Miss Elsingham," he said, "the term is proper enough. But 
 if you insist on the term without soul having in mind a 
 scheme of finished monotony, stagnation so far as human in- 
 terest and human opportunity is concerned, you must remem- 
 ber that though man is compelled to work the machine it 
 would not work without man. As to the term materialistic 
 
 "Oh, I don't see that about the working of the machine," 
 interrupted Miss Elsingham. 
 
 "Nor I. It's just fatalism nothing else if the will is 
 not free to change to construct," concurred Mr. Crandall. 
 
 "And there is no novelty in the world!" from Miss Elsack. 
 
 "No, fatalism " began Mr. Barlow, answering Mr. Cran- 
 dall. 
 
 "Now, Barbara that isn't fair. You should not allow 
 Mr. Barlow to answer these last questions first," said Mrs. 
 Lurton. 
 
 "Have patience. Mr. Barlow will answer them all in 
 due time," promised Barbara. 
 
 "I'm afraid you're riding for a fall if you pin your 
 faith to my ability to answer all these questions, Miss 
 Fleming." 
 
 "Come, Mr. Barlow, you won't go back on me now after 
 I've appointed myself moderator?" she challenged. 
 
 "Well, then, I think we have to look at it in this way, 
 Mr. Crandall," said Mr. Barlow. "When a new belief fastens 
 itself upon one it initiates some change in one's character. 
 One will act differently after the new belief is established 
 than before. If the new belief is that human conduct has its 
 inexorable laws, and this new belief only half understood, 
 causes a man to relax his efforts, to let down, to think that 
 things will happen anyway, whether he acts or not, he be- 
 comes a fatalist. If, on the other hand, this new belief 
 stimulates a man to act appropriately to the end to be gained, 
 knowing that without the cause the effect will not happen, 
 he embraces something so different from fatalism that it may 
 be said to be the antithesis of fatalism." 
 
 "Illustrate, Mr. Barlow, I have to have concrete exam- 
 ples," said Miss Elsingham.
 
 20 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 "The fatalist says the fates have decreed whether I shall 
 feast tomorrow or not. Therefore it makes no difference 
 whether or not I work today. His mistake is in believing 
 that fate decrees effects without their causes. He forgets 
 that if fate has decreed that he shall feast tomorrow it has 
 also decreed that he shall work today or some other cause 
 that if by his not working today, it appears that fate has 
 decreed that he was not to work today then it may also 
 turn out that it has decreed that he shall not feast tomorrow. 
 But the sole effect upon a man of a clear understanding of 
 causation as applied to conduct is that if he would feast 
 tomorrow, then there must be a cause appropriate to the 
 effect such as work today. And similarly, if he desires that 
 men shall be politically wise he will understand that it cannot 
 be accomplished by eliminating political exercise. He will 
 frown at all specious plans for good government which is not 
 also responsible government. And so as to all questions of 
 conduct. It is the believer in free will rather " 
 
 "But the fatalist may think that though he does not work 
 today, some one else may provide the feast tomorrow," sug- 
 gested Professor Hardy with a patronizing smirk. He had 
 overheard Mrs. Merlin telling Mr. Ransom that Mr. Barlow 
 was her niece's new secretary. He had also observed Pauline's 
 cold little smile and had drawn from it a different inference 
 than the secretary's. 
 
 "Mr. Hardy, this is an interesting discussion. We have 
 no time to consider every grotesque meaning you can give to 
 words," snapped Barbara. "Try and grasp the idea which 
 is that fate does not decree effects without causes." 
 
 "I'm afraid the Professor's objection must be taken as an 
 example of empirical pragmatism," laughed Bob Lovering. 
 
 "Still Mr. Hardy's question does seem to suggest the 
 temporizing tendency of fatalism," ventured Miss Elsack diffi- 
 dently shifting her glance from Barbara's face. She was not 
 afraid of an audience but she was conscious of standing in 
 some awe of Miss Fleming. 
 
 "The man Professor Hardy introduces is not a fatalist," 
 interposed Mr. Barlow appealing apologetically to Miss 
 Fleming and thereby causing Pauline's fingers to clutch her 
 fan again. "He acknowledges, at least unconsciously, that 
 there must be conditions precedent to his feasting, only he 
 prefers to trust to the bounty of others instead of his own
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 21 
 
 labor. So far as he is conscious of any philosophy he is 
 a dcterminist but his earmark is indolence and he would be 
 indolent, probably, whatever his philosophy." 
 
 "Now you were going to say something about the believer 
 in free will, Mr. Barlow," suggested Barbara. 
 
 "I was going to say that it is the believer in free will 
 rather than the determinist who must feel the usclessness of 
 effort because of the trivial consequences of effort its short 
 range. See the different effects the two beliefs must have 
 upon a man who has had a long run of bad luck, as we call 
 it. To the man who denies causation in human affairs, it is 
 just luck he believes in chance there is nothing to do but 
 hope for better luck he may flounder around and make a 
 fuss but he can have no faith in the far-reaching effects of 
 conduct since there can be no effects that impinge upon the 
 will of others or react upon his own will thereby binding 
 them. Most likely he becomes a hopelessly discontented mem- 
 ber of society without any thought of remedy. The most he 
 can hope to effect is a temporary palliative. But the believer 
 in the reign of causation over human conduct regards his 
 so-called bad luck as a consequence of his lack of adjustment 
 to his environment. There must be something the matter with 
 him or something the matter with human institutions. If he 
 concludes that the trouble is with his own conduct the con- 
 clusion must have a characteristic effect upon his future con- 
 duct. If he concludes that the trouble is with human institu- 
 tions he becomes a more or less active agitator for their 
 change. Whatever his quality as an agitator whether guided 
 by gross selfishness or by an enlightened self-interest he is 
 not, at any rate, a fatalist. It is the man who believes in 
 free will who is the more likely to play the part generally 
 given to the fatalist. And so it seems plain to me at least 
 that though men are compelled by their desires to work 
 the machine it will not work unless men work it just because 
 without causes there are no effects. Men do construct, they 
 do create, but not out of nothing. With better knowledge 
 and wider sympathies they recreate the past. There is the 
 novelty, Miss Elsack not the kaleidoscopic novelty that 
 might come of free and irresponsible wills but the orderly 
 novelty of articulated construction. As a matter of fact 
 practically all men especially almost all civilized men live 
 and work in the belief in cause and effect as the highest law
 
 22 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 of conduct each man individually impelled by the belief thai 
 if his personal efforts cease his personal results will not accrue 
 and that if he misses opportunity that particular opportunity 
 will never come again other opportunities may come that 
 certain one will have gone by forever. He knows that what he 
 wants he must set about getting." 
 
 "All except happiness he knows that the best way to 
 attain happiness is not to set about getting it," suggested 
 Mr. Ransom with sly amusement. 
 
 It seemed to be a hit and there was a general laugh. Mr. 
 Ransom's pronouncements upon ethical theory were accepted 
 by his many admirers as finality. 
 
 "At least, I presume you are an evolutionary hedonist 
 and swallow the paradox with the rest of hedonist doctrine," 
 added tjiis new disputant. 
 
 Mr. Barlow seemed for the moment silenced. 
 
 "I think we must postpone Mr. Barlow's reply to your 
 suggestion, Mr. Ransom, until after he has disposed of the 
 libel- of materialism and of Mr. Balfour's gloomy picture," 
 said Barbara. 
 
 "I think I will answer Mr. Ransom now if you don't 
 mind, Miss Fleming," said Mr. Barlow with another deferen- 
 tial look that too, was not lost upon Pauline. Then he added 
 with a laugh, "since it seems that there is no escape for me 
 in the end." 
 
 "Very well, Mr. Barlow if it is more convenient," per- 
 mitted Miss Fleming. 
 
 "Then, Mr. Ransom, it seems to me that we attain happi- 
 ness by going after it just as we obtain other things. We 
 enjoy the happiness that comes from the indulgence in wine by 
 drinking wine. We enjoy the delight of contemplating our own 
 good deeds by doing good deeds, and we attain the greatest joy 
 of all, the sympathetic joy in the happiness of others brought 
 about by our action, by giving happiness to others but just in 
 so far as we are conscious of giving happiness to others for 
 the purpose of enhancing our own happiness we lose the finest 
 flavor of that greatest joy of all. We obtain the finest flavor 
 by doing the things which cause it. So if we are conscious 
 of trying for the result we do not get the result because 
 that is not. the way to get it. That is all there is to the 
 paradox. It seems to me that your implication that evolu-
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 23 
 
 tionary hedonists must admit that it is an exception to 
 
 causation is ill-founded." 
 
 "Still the fact remains that if you set about getting the 
 
 highest happiness you do not get it," persisted Mr. Ransom. 
 
 "Words however cleverly manipulated will not explain away 
 
 the fact or alleged fact." 
 
 "You state the fact incorrectly," answered Mr. Barlow. 
 
 "If you consciously set about getting that which is a result 
 
 of unconscious, spontaneous effort you will not get it." 
 "Still I" 
 "Cut it ! Everybody sees it but you," said Charles. Like 
 
 the law Charles was no respecter of persons. 
 
 Mr. Ransom looked about him. Seeing no evidence that 
 
 others were with him in desiring further exposition of the 
 
 matter, he subsided. 
 
 "Now, Mr. Barlow, as to the materialistic implications 
 in the theory of evolution," prompted Barbara. 
 
 "As to the term materialistic you must keep in mind that 
 the theory of evolution has only to do with phenomena," 
 resumed the secretary. "It has nothing to say about the 
 Ultimate and Absolute Reality. Whether you mean by the 
 theory of evolution just the theory that all things phenom- 
 enal, inorganic, organic and super-organic, have evolved and 
 are evolving in an orderly way which may be studied and in 
 large measure understood by men ; or whether you mean 
 some particular formula of evolution, as Spencer's ; the 
 theory in either case may be entertained by men who hold 
 to the most diverse views, guesses, beliefs, dogmas whatever 
 you call them about the Absolute and even by one who 
 clothes his Absolute in all kinds of human attributes and 
 calls it a personal God provided only that he adds not ca- 
 priciousness to his attributes. It may be entertained by the 
 man who postulates an Absolute of some kind or by a man 
 who postulates that there is no Absolute or by the thorough 
 going agnostic who declines to postulate either that there is 
 or is not some such entity behind phenomena or by a man 
 who postulates that the phenomenal is just the functioning 
 of the Will of the Absolute. All may hold to the theory of 
 evolution of things whether they are just phenomenal things 
 or real things or only the unfoldings of the Absolute. Only 
 they who postulate a capricious Absolute whether just a 
 capricious Absolute Reality or a capricious personal God are
 
 24 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 precluded from holding to a belief in evolution generally and 
 only they who believe in free will are precluded from belief in 
 the evolution of man in his psychical, ethical and social na- 
 ture. Even they who proclaim a priori rules and set these 
 up as an Absolute of another kind are debarred in so far 
 only. Because of their fundamental postulates of that which 
 transcends and lies behind phenomena, if anything does 
 transcend and lie behind phenomena or because of their re- 
 fusal or neglect to postulate none are precluded. It there- 
 fore seems to me utterly idle to call an evolutionist a ma- 
 terialist since materialists, idealists, atheists, theists, agnos- 
 tics and every other kind of 'ist' except capricionists and free 
 willists may be evolutionists. Whether one is a materialist 
 or not depends upon his belief or postulate as to the Absolute 
 if he postulates anything." 
 
 "But if he postulates nothing isn't he a materialist?" 
 asked Miss Elsingham. 
 
 "Certainly not. He may fall back upon his admission 
 that there may be an Absolute." 
 
 "But how can you assume to cram evolution as applica- 
 ble to the mind and soul down the throat of the absolute 
 idealist?" asked Mrs. Ransom. 
 
 "I don't. But it is the only medium of circulation that 
 is at all acceptable to all except libertarians, whether it is 
 acceptable as hard cash or only as fiat money." 
 
 "Absolute idealists, however, do discuss the conduct of 
 man and independently of evolution, as applicable to the 
 mind and soul," persisted Mr. Ransom. "I instance the ethics 
 of T. H. Green and his school. Man's experience being but 
 the unfolding of the Will of the Absolute his duty consists in 
 self-realization as part of the Absolute, or, in terms of con- 
 scious experience, self-realization as part of the Social 
 Whole." 
 
 "If Green's Absolute were not, as he contends, a capricious 
 Absolute but one which unfolded in accordance with law 
 its own law if you will in an orderly way, then an evolu- 
 tionist could have no quarrel with him whether or not he 
 would quarrel with the evolutionist," answered Barlow. "The 
 unfolding being an orderly one and pictured in the conscious 
 experience of man we go right on studying the laws of the 
 conscious experience of man including his necessary conduct 
 that is, we study evolution as applicable to the mind and
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 25 
 
 soul of man. If the positive knowledge about man's mental 
 and moral development which we thus gain is also knowledge 
 about the orderly unfoldment of the Absolute Will, that is 
 interesting, but the important gain is increased knowledge of 
 ourselves, not of the Absolute. Again if, gaining positive 
 knowledge about moral adjustment of man to man and to 
 environment, we find we can express adjustment in terms of 
 self-realization in relation to the social whole that may be a 
 convenient form of expression, but the important thing is that 
 we have learned our duty to ourselves and to each other as 
 individuals. The social whole apart from the individuals 
 which compose it is nothing with them it's nothing more 
 than the total of the relations between them. But Green 
 takes great pains to prove to his satisfaction and that of his 
 followers that his Absolute is a capricious Absolute in the 
 sense that the unfoldment of its Will is at the mercy of the 
 free will of its individual parts. We must then exclude Green 
 from the discussion of conduct since according to his view 
 there is nothing to discuss there being no order in conduct. 
 But he is excluded not as an absolute idealist but as a 
 capricionist." 
 
 "There you go ! You materialists can see no order but 
 mechanical order," said Mr. Ransom. "You ignore the power 
 of ideals. You cannot see the ideal order." 
 
 "Your last remark seems to imply that the will is not 
 free before the power of ideals. That is true but it seems 
 a strange one for a capricionist to entertain," rejoined Mr. 
 Barlow. "Evolutionists more than any others recognize the 
 power of ideals whether such an one as the ideal that we 
 form just before tossing off a cocktail or that which moves 
 us to relieve suffering or recede from a course of injustice. 
 But we have our minds upon those ideals which actually do 
 move men, ideals of pleasure to be enjoyed or pain to be 
 escaped. We eschew invented ideals that have no impelling 
 effect upon men such an one, for instance, as the ideal of 
 self-realization as part of the Social Whole. That ideal never 
 moved and never can move anyone to action that is other- 
 wise than through the proximate ideal of calculated happiness, 
 well-being, pleasure to be attained, in such way, by the actor." 
 
 "Calculated or spontaneous," suggested Barbara. 
 
 "No, Miss Fleming not in self-realization," insisted Mr. 
 Barlow. "There is spontaneous happiness in sympathy with
 
 26 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 the joy of one or more fellow beings but none in adjustment 
 to the idealists Social Whole the feelingless shell." 
 
 "Isn't it a little too sweeping, Barlow, to say that the 
 ideal of self-realization cannot move to action?" asked Bob. 
 "Granted that no one can know what to do in order to 
 realize one's self as part of a Social Whole emptied of the 
 individuals who compose it; still the teachers of the cult do 
 point out what they say are the courses of conduct which 
 will result in or are the result of self-realization or are 
 coordinate with it. May we not be moved by mistake?" 
 
 "True. We may be moved by mistake," answered Mr. 
 Barlow. "But observe that I said only that the ideal of self- 
 realization can move no one otherwise than through the proxi- 
 mate ideal of pleasure for the actor. Whether we are moved 
 by mistaken or correct practice the proximate ideal is the 
 pleasure of the actor usually calculated but as the true 
 moral goal is approached tending to become spontaneous 
 ever the proximate impelling ideal but to be smothered in 
 consciousness by sympathy for others. No one can realize 
 himself or do anything else, unless he wants to and the very 
 essence of wanting to is the calculated or spontaneous motive 
 of self-betterment. Whether your ultimate moral ideal is 
 self-realization as part of an ideal Social Whole or is the 
 highest and most complete happiness for all individual men 
 your proximate ideal is the resultant of your conflicting de- 
 sires self-betterment pleasure. As to the two ultimate 
 moral ideals it may be left to the opinion of mankind which 
 is the better; that of the absolute idealist barren of every 
 thing that human breasts crave; or that of the better and 
 ever better happiness of all the ideal of the evolutionary 
 hedonist." 
 
 "Good boy, Barley," cried Charles, clapping his hands. 
 "You are some orator believe me." 
 
 "Behave yourself Charlie Boyd," commanded Barbara. 
 
 "I'm behaving myself. Great heavens ! What kind of 
 a meeting is this if a fellow can't applaud?" 
 
 "You were not applauding seriously." 
 
 "I was," quoth Charles. "You make me tired, Barbara. 
 You seem to think you are burdened with the duty of per- 
 sonally conducting Barley through this discussion. Whv 
 Pauline" 
 
 But here he caught a warning glance from Pauline.
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 27 
 
 III 
 
 "Let's see," said Barbara, undisturbed. "I think we have 
 strayed from the subject of the materialistic aspect of evo- 
 lution." 
 
 "To come back to that topic, Mr. Barlow," said Mr. 
 Walthall, "let me suggest that there are those who believe 
 that life, intelligence, the soul, are mere functions of matter, 
 have evolved from matter. There has been some question 
 whether Spencer did not hold to this opinion or hypothesis as 
 a tenable scientific hypothesis. At least it would come within 
 the domain of the phenomenal it is often stated that there 
 will be forthcoming scientific demonstration of it. But can 
 you successfully maintain that one who holds such an hypothe- 
 sis is not a materialist?" 
 
 "If it should turn out to be a fact it would be a fact 
 whether materialistic in its implication or not," suggested 
 Bob. 
 
 "Of course. I am not a pragmatist. My reading leads 
 me to pretty much the same general conclusions as those which 
 Mr. Barlow has outlined. But I confess that the establish- 
 ing of such a fact would, it seems to me, have a materialistic 
 implication and speaking for myself, it would have a very 
 depressing effect." 
 
 "We biologists do not cross our bridges until we come 
 to them," suggested Professor Mann in a superior manner. 
 
 "Not being biologists, but just human in our weaknesses, 
 neither do we, Professor," replied Mr. Walthall good- 
 humoredly. "But we confess to a curiosity about the bridges. 
 I should like to hear what Mr. Barlow has to say about it 
 whether he thinks there is a bridge or that we shall have to 
 plunge into the cold stream." 
 
 "What do you say, Mr. Barlow?" asked Mrs. Lurton, who 
 was as deeply concerned about this point as about Mr. Bal- 
 four's gloomy picture of dissolution. 
 
 "There is a bridge for me," replied the secretary, "and 
 for all who see in materialism a mere spectre. Suppose it be 
 actually established that life, intelligence, soul have evolved 
 from matter what is established? Simply that matter is
 
 28 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 capable of taking such form as to be conscious of itself. Its 
 conscious experience then is just conscious experience the 
 succession of states of consciousness just appearance, phe- 
 nomenal. We are no nearer to the Absolute or wiser about 
 it than before we still see it through the veil of the mind. 
 We cannot now any more than before push the mind to one 
 side and look directly upon that which may cause conscious 
 changes the Absolute Reality or whatever you may call it 
 if there is any such Reality. Then 
 
 "Oh, but there you give your whole case away, Mr. Bar- 
 low," broke in Mrs. Lurton. "After relying upon the Abso- 
 lute Reality to save us from the spectre of materialism now 
 you speak as if there may be no Absolute Reality!" 
 
 "I have to look all the possibilities in the face even if one 
 of them does destroy my case," replied Mr. Barlow. "While 
 the theory of evolution does not deny the Absolute neither 
 does it require it. Then the question arises whether, if there 
 is no Absolute behind phenomena if matter is just what it 
 appears to be stone, iron, carbon, atoms, electrons, and not 
 the manifestations of an Absolute Reality and if, further, 
 it later becomes scientifically certain that mind, intelligence, 
 soul are just functions of such gross, real, matter then, I 
 say, the question arises whether, in such case, the implication 
 of evolution is materialistic. I think it is. But so is it of 
 every other theory of the nature of things. Under the sup- 
 position materialism is an implication of the facts no more 
 binding upon an evolutionist than on any other observer or 
 dreamer. But a belief in the materialistic nature of things 
 would be unfortunate. Though the spur to right doing would 
 not be dulled, though the moral goal towards which evolution 
 points would still be our goal, so long as man inhabited the 
 earth, still a great deal of the joy of life would be taken 
 away and an end would be made to the hope of immortality. 
 Fortunately we do not have to accept the supposition as true 
 and never shall have to accept it as true. Should science 
 prove that mind is just a function of matter we shall have to 
 accept that as true to deny it would be just to hide our 
 heads ostrich-like in the sand. But we will never have to 
 admit that appearance is reality. We can never push the 
 veil of the mind aside even so much as to see that it is not a 
 veil that there is nothing behind it. While we have no right 
 to postulate the Absolute as positive knowledge upon which
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 29 
 
 to found systems of ethics or other rules for the guidance of 
 man, we have a right to personal religious belief in such an 
 existence and that appearance is but its manifestations. Nor 
 does this appeal to meliorism as a criterion of emotional 
 belief about that of which we have and can have no posi- 
 tive knowledge any more than the arbitrariness in the form 
 in which science frames positive truth propose meliorism or 
 fruitfulness as a proper criterion of substantive, positive 
 truth. But in that domain into which science can never in- 
 trude the domain of the Unknowable, behind the veil the 
 appeal to meliorism as a criterion of faith is a legitimate one." 
 
 "I fear, Mr. Barlow, that biology can lend no support 
 to the postulate of the Absolute. The interpretations of con- 
 sciousness are real and the only knowledge we can have." 
 
 "I postulate nothing as to the Absolute," replied Mr. 
 Barlow. "I am a thoroughgoing agnostic and I thought I 
 had made it plain that I believe the interpretations of con- 
 sciousness to constitute the only knowledge we can have. But 
 there is a difference between knowledge and faith. If you 
 assert that the interpretations of consciousness are real then 
 it is you who postulates. If biologists have any evidence of 
 such a proposition, then, high as has been my admiration for 
 biologists it has fallen far short of their deserts for they 
 are not merely great scientists they are nothing less than 
 magicians." 
 
 At which Mr. Walthall laughed quietly but with every 
 evidence of* satisfaction. It was evident too that the rest of 
 the company, including those who had crossed swords with him 
 earlier in the discussion sympathized with Mr. Barlow in his 
 position against the biologist. 
 
 "It does you fellows good to get a jolt now and then," 
 said the economist. 
 
 At which Professor Mann merely shrugged his shoulders 
 it was useless to argue with one who was not a biologist. 
 
 "But how can you say that a materialistic belief would 
 nt dull the spur to right doing, Mr. Barlow?" asked Miss 
 Elsack. 
 
 "Since Mr. Barlow has proved that the theory of evolu- 
 tion is not materialistic and that no one need run away from 
 any positive truth whatever for fear of the materialistic 
 bogie, he need not answer that question," said Barbara in 
 judicial manner. "But "
 
 30 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 There was a general laugh at this sustained claim of right 
 to guide the discussion with a firm hand. 
 
 "Order!" she cried. "We have to limit the discussion. 
 But I think it would be interesting to have Mr. Barlow's 
 answer to Miss Elsack's question if he is willing to answer." 
 
 "But I asked a question sometime ago that is still un- 
 anwered," protested one. 
 
 "And so did I," said another. 
 
 "And I want to know too how does Mr. Barlow, ma- 
 terialist or no, get away from Mr. Balfour's picture of dis- 
 solution after evolution has run its course?" said Mrs. Lurton. 
 
 "Why may we not found a system of ethics upon the 
 nature of the Absolute? You cannot push a system such as 
 Green's to one side with a mere manifesto." This from Mr. 
 Ransom. 
 
 "To me ethics has to do with men's souls and therefore 
 reaches beyond the veil mere worldly experience is not a 
 sufficiently broad basis for it," said Miss Elsingham. 
 
 "Mercy ! We have enough matter for discussion to keep 
 us here all night," exclaimed Barbara. "I guess we shall have 
 to cut out your question, Miss Elsack." 
 
 "But if Mr. Barlow can explain why a materialistic 
 philosophy would not dull the spur to right doing it would, 
 it seems to me, throw some light on the other difficulties," 
 persisted Miss Elsack. 
 
 "What do you say Mr. Barlow?" asked Barbara. 
 
 "There must be others here who can answer these ques- 
 tions so much more clearly than I can I ought not to be 
 made to monopolize the conversation really " 
 
 Mr. Barlow cast another look of inquiry toward the girl 
 at the head of the table. 
 
 "The company is interested, Mr. Barlow," said Pauline, 
 with another cold little smile. "I really think that you must 
 put aside your modesty and do your part." 
 
 "Put aside my modesty!" repeated Mr. Barlow to him- 
 self. "And here I have been doing most of the talking for an 
 hour! Satire! I never would have thought it of her. Well, 
 the only thing to do is to go on. Perhaps some lucky turn 
 may start them into general conversation again. It would 
 have come about some time ago but for this pestiferously 
 persistent moderator."
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 31 
 
 "Come, Mr. Barlow, we are waiting," urged the pestifer- 
 ously persistent one. 
 
 "It seems to me then," he began, "that the relation of the 
 soul to ethics, the relative advantage of speculation about the 
 Absolute and of generalization from experience as a founda- 
 tion for ethics and the lack of effect on right doing of a 
 materialistic philosophy may all be answered together. I 
 will do the best I can. The fundamental thing to note is 
 that what does guide our conduct is our desires. Owing to 
 the necessity of adjusting ourselves to our social environment, 
 that is of living together in a society which is growing more 
 and more complex, and owing to the greater power this com- 
 plex social life gives us to represent to ourselves painfully 
 and pleasurably the sorrows and joys of our fellow-beings 
 and our own postponed harm and welfare, we are gradually 
 coming to be moved by desires which take greater and greater 
 account of the welfare of others and our own postponed wel- 
 fare. The result is that we find ourselves upon an infinite 
 journey towards that moral goal where there will be no pain 
 and no evil where 'duty will become synonymous with pleas- 
 ure' and 'right conduct will become instinctive and spon- 
 taneous.' There is nothing new in all this it is familiar to 
 you and I just restate it as the basis of the answer to the 
 three questions. I can answer yours now, Miss Elsack. 
 Materialistic belief could in no way affect the confirmed habit 
 of man to seek pleasure and avoid pain if it did it would 
 just destroy the race, not dull its morals. Given that life- 
 preserving habit, moral progress is certain. Please remember, 
 Miss Elsack, that I am just defending a chance remark I 
 made about materialism not defending materialism. Let me 
 repeat emphatically that no man at any time need turn 
 his back on any teaching of science for fear that it leads to 
 materialism. It cannot lead to materialism for any man who 
 holds to the melioristic faith in an Ultimate and Absolute 
 Reality beyond the reach of science. But and here is the 
 answer to your question, Miss Elsingham, the things that 
 man has to do with in this existence on this earth are the 
 things that science has to do with. It's no business of men 
 to save their souls. Their duty and growing pleasure is to 
 love their neighbors as themselves and act accordingly hav- 
 ing due regard to the kind of neighbor to be just and honest, 
 to vote right and to do just such other concrete things as
 
 32 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 conscience in the light of latest information orders. If in- 
 cidentally our souls are saved so much the better. They are 
 very much more likely to be saved in that way than by 
 conduct primarily intended to save them. There is another 
 'paradox.' In short, though the soul reaches on beyond the 
 veil I believe that our duty is here and now along lines 
 which may be determined here and now from our experiences 
 here and now and past. Neglect the teachings of earthly and 
 finite experience for vain guesses about the purposes of the 
 Unknowable Ultimate and Absolute Reality beyond the veil 
 and you do so not for the good it seems to me but at the 
 peril of your soul. And the answer to your question, Mr. 
 Ransom, is but little different. Based upon a crude and little 
 understood experience, we have conscience that outgrowth 
 of rules of thumb about right conduct. As with more ex- 
 perience we come to better understand what makes for the 
 welfare of the individual and society meaning by society not 
 an ideal entity but the individuals of which it is composed 
 we will direct a more searching gaze upon those rules of 
 thumb and whip them into more accurate rules of reason ; to 
 which the conscience will give a more ungrudging, unques- 
 tioning sanction than it ever gave the rules of thumb within 
 which it has grown. But the welfare of men has to do, now, 
 just with finite existence on this earth about his welfare be- 
 yond the veil we know nothing. So we have at hand in our 
 finite experience all that is needed to teach us, though slowly, 
 what makes for the welfare of each and all. Have we any 
 right to trifle with the welfare of men by allowing presump- 
 tuous guessers about the Absolute to impose their pronounce- 
 ments of duty upon us if their pronouncements are at variance 
 with the teachings of our growing experience?" 
 
 "Emphatically, no!" said Levering. "Besides trifling 
 with the welfare of men it would amount to establishing a 
 new hierarchy in control of men's consciences. Even now in 
 this twentieth century you find cultivated if not intelligent 
 men or perhaps mostly women giving their consciences 
 into the control of the priests of new revelations. Fortu- 
 nately, the overwhelming mass of men are well founded in the 
 plain teachings of experience that good or bad conduct has to 
 do with the well being of individuals on this earth." 
 
 "And still more fortunately this," added Mr. Barlow. 
 "Regardless of theory it is the ideal of the well being of
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 33 
 
 individuals that in fact does move us. And though we do, 
 still, personify the Church, the State, the City, Labor, 
 Capital, we are becoming more and more inquisitive about 
 the individuals connoted by these personifications." 
 
 "We are disposed to find the nigger in the wood-pile," 
 suggested Charles. 
 
 "That's it, Charles," said Mr. Barlow. "So it is reason- 
 able to hope that though it is said that the Common Good of 
 the Social Whole has no individual beneficiaries, we shall want 
 to know whether it has not in fact some secret beneficiaries, or 
 at least may not readily come to be the agency of secret bene- 
 ficiaries granting that at present it may be entertained as 
 an unselfish if meaningless ideal." 
 
 "But you are wrong in saying that there are no benefi- 
 ciaries of the Common Good of the Social Whole. Its bene- 
 ficiaries are all men," answered Mr. Ransom. 
 
 "Then hedonists can have no quarrel with the Common 
 Good. For it means the same as the highest happiness of all. 
 The only test we have of benefits is to reckon them in happi- 
 ness. The only question between us then is how are we going 
 to determine the Common Good the highest happiness? 
 Shall we take someone's authoritative statement about it? Or 
 shall we go on slowly but surely working it out through the 
 interplay of egoistic and altruistic impulses, aided by ad- 
 vancing knowledge and wider sympathies growing out of more 
 and more complex experience? Whatever may be the theory, 
 the latter will be the way we actually will determine it 
 unless ' 
 
 "Unless?" 
 
 "Unless a wide-spread disgust with the pseudo-individual- 
 ism which is masquerading as individualism should dispose men 
 to accept temporarily authority as their guide and a fetich 
 as a substitute for sympathy and knowledge in sheer des- 
 pair of the ability of democracy to work out its just ends. 
 The same evils which tend to make men socialists in economics 
 might, conceivably, make them the slaves of a plausible cult, 
 well designed through its pronouncements by authority to 
 become a new cloak for old exploitation."
 
 34 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 IV 
 
 "You refer to the failure of individualism," supplemented 
 Miss Elsack. 
 
 "So phrased but better phrased as the success of fake- 
 individualism its too inveterate hold upon its privileges. 
 Individualism is something we are working towards but have 
 not as yet enjoyed except for brief intervals and in outlying 
 spots of civilization. The history of the world has been the 
 history of the exploitation of the weak, the meek, the gener- 
 ous, the patriotic, and I have to add the cowardly and igno- 
 rant by governments for the benefit of the selfish few who 
 have made it their business to be the government or to control 
 government. We can only attain true individualism by tak- 
 ing government out of its partnership with individuals so 
 that it won't pay selfish schemers to make the effort to control 
 it. It is the magnificence of the prizes that have been gained 
 and are still to be gained through the control of government 
 that makes it so difficult to shake off the evils which are 
 nursing socialism and its appropriate ethic." 
 
 "Are you a follower of Nietzsche, Mr. Barlow?" asked 
 Mrs. Orton, in such evident sincerity that Mr. Crandall shot 
 a look of astonished inquiry in her direction. 
 
 "Doesn't she know about him?" he asked himself. 
 
 "Indeed no, Mrs. Orton. I can think of no man of whose 
 views I can say with more enthusiasm *I dissent.' ' 
 
 "I gathered from your previous remarks that you were an 
 individualist," rejoined Mrs. Orton serenely unconscious that 
 she was fencing with her niece's secretary. 
 
 "I am," said Mr. Barlow, laughing, "but I take the liberty 
 of reading Nietzsche out of the party. His is the brand of 
 fake-individualism which preceded the present commercial 
 brand. It is several centuries out of date. It belongs to the 
 era of feudalism when bullies and schemers made it their 
 business to be the government. Now the best they can do 
 at least in our country is to control the government and 
 that not continuously. Nietzsche's individualism is the in- 
 dividualism of the determined self-seeker in a race of docile
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 35 
 
 slaves. To Americans it can be but a curiosity. Here democ- 
 racy has too firm a hold and is making it firmer." 
 
 "That is, your individualism favors a large measure of 
 collective control and standardization at least looks forward 
 to it," suggested Professor Walthall. 
 
 "Control, yes, but not much standardization, and control 
 as means, not as an end; and as a means to a particular end, 
 individual freedom," answered Mr. Barlow. "Even if our 
 end were efficiency and it is not it would be folly to curb 
 competition that is, to standardize until there appeared to 
 be some perfection in sight. I don't see any perfection 
 around. But our true end is individual freedom because 
 happiness is an individual thing, not a collective thing. But 
 we cannot have more individual freedom than will hang to- 
 gether and the cement that binds it pending character 
 growth is collective control, and, where necessary, collective 
 effort. We need the i cement but we need to remember that the 
 structural material is the individual's right to the pursuit of 
 happiness ; and as he sees it, not as some other sees it for 
 him." 
 
 "But are not the majority of us always wrong, as Ruskin 
 says?" asked Miss Elsingham. "Do we not need leaders to 
 point out the best good of the whole?" 
 
 "The majority of us are always wrong about art and 
 usually wrong about how to accomplish what we want, but 
 always right about what we want. We may need leaders to 
 'show us' I mean the full strength of the slang expression 
 how to accomplish what we want. But when you have a 
 people reduced to such docility as to sacrifice their individual 
 happiness to the good of a whole not determined by themselves 
 but by some overbearing dominant will then there is no length 
 of madness to which they may not be driven." 
 
 "But democracy must organize or it will succumb to the 
 superior organization of rival political systems," Mr. Ransom 
 suggested. 
 
 "By all means let it organize. That is different from 
 being organized. Whenever we hear a man speak of democ- 
 racies being organized we may put it down that he does not 
 know what democracy is. We have even heard Germany 
 spoken of as a democracy; because if it is true all alike, 
 rich and poor, noble and peasant, have to make equal sacri- 
 fice to 'one great purpose.' To such observers democracy
 
 86 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 means equal burdens. Equal benefits do not seem to them to 
 be of any importance ; nor what the one great purpose is ; 
 nor whose arbitrary purpose." 
 
 "I fear, Mr. Barlow," interposed Professor Hardy, "your 
 patriotism and permit me to say that though it is very 
 refreshing, it seems to me also rather naive leads you to 
 idealize the American form of democracy to the disparage- 
 ment of other forms." 
 
 "The forms based on equal burdens only?" asked Barlow. 
 "I am willing to stake my reputation for hard-headedness 
 upon my rejection of democracies of that kind. But I do 
 not idealize the American form of democracy because I do 
 not believe that even we have as yet attained that form of 
 government though we are likely to be the first to attain it." 
 
 "Not a democracy, Mr. Barlow!" exclaimed Miss Elsing- 
 ham. 
 
 "No not while our purposes are subject to the veto of 
 say nine judges not directly responsible to us who have arro- 
 gated to themselves under the name of 'loose construction' 
 the power to amend a written constitution. Before we can 
 call our form of government real democracy we must either 
 make these judges responsible to us or shift the power of 
 amendment into the exclusive and unmistakable charge of a 
 representative body." 
 
 "Elect the Supreme Court!" exclaimed Crandall in a tone 
 of shocked surprise. 
 
 "Not necessarily if it is to be exclusively a court. But 
 if it is to continue to be a constitutional convention it seems 
 to me that that reform is inevitable." 
 
 "But the Supreme Court has repeatedly declared that the 
 Constitution speaks today in the same terms as when it was 
 adopted. The Court has simply applied its abiding princi- 
 ples to new conditions." 
 
 "A convenient fiction on a par with the fiction that 
 judicial expansion of the common law is the common law. 
 But, fiction or not, expansion of the common law in the ab- 
 sence of statute is a function proper to a court; expansion 
 of a constitution is not that is in a democracy." 
 
 "But it seems to me, Mr. Barlow," persisted Mr. Ransom, 
 "that there is a strong tendency amongst thinking people 
 towards the democratic ideal of equal submission of all to 'one 
 great purpose.' '
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 37 
 
 "If under the influence of disengenuous or tender-minded 
 Germanophiles we ever retrograte to the German type of 
 intelligence so far as to lose the substance of democracy 
 equal benefits as well as equal burdens, real benefits, not fetich 
 benefits I think it is nevertheless safe to believe that we 
 shall never lose the form nominal control of the bureaucracy. 
 We shall never again throw our caps in the air and huzza 
 for the king. You have only to note how the popular hero 
 drops out of view after he has pitched a few losing games, 
 or said or done a few unpopular or tactless things to realize 
 how impersonal is our admiration for men. With at least 
 nominal control of the beaureaucracy the real special bene- 
 ficiary of the 'one great purpose' or else the conduit through 
 which the special beneficiaries receive their benefits we shall 
 always be in an advantageous position to take up again the 
 forward movement." 
 
 "But you do not really, look for any such retrogression!" 
 exclaimed Charles Boyd. 
 
 "It's too much like prophecy either to look for it or to 
 shut one's eyes to the possibility of temporary softening of 
 the brain. Progress does not run in a straight line. It's 
 easier to locate the straight line from the curve than to locate 
 the next turn of the curve." 
 
 "Modern research in Mendelism brings out not the least 
 evidence of the gradual evolution of masses of men," here 
 interrupted Professor Mann. 
 
 "And what is your inference, Professor?" inquired Mr. 
 Barlow. 
 
 "That they tend to degenerate rather than progress that 
 the fate of democracy hangs upon the character of its 
 leaders." 
 
 "If you will excuse my frankness, Professor, it seems to 
 me that biologists should be less catholic in their conclusions. 
 Or if they will make formulas about masses of men they 
 should check up their biology with history. If I have read 
 history to any purpose there are two things that stick out 
 of it the gradual improvement in the morals of mankind and 
 the gradual assumption of masses of men to drive their so- 
 called leaders before them. The would-be leader of today 
 who does not keep his ear to the ground is a foregone 
 failure." 
 
 "He would be a joke," added Bob. 
 
 233473
 
 38 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 "Nevertheless there is a feeling in the chancellories of 
 Europe that our experiment in government is doomed to 
 fail," said Mr. Puff, "and because of that very lack of disci- 
 pline that resentfulness of the masses against anything that 
 looks like leadership, independent leadership." 
 
 "It is in the chancellories of Europe, if anywhere, that 
 you would look for that mournful feeling, Mr. Puff," replied 
 Mr. Barlow with a smile. 
 
 "The opinions of trained administrators is not to be 
 sneered at," protested Mr. Puff. 
 
 "They are no doubt valuable as to men who are willing 
 to be 'administered' but they are not so valuable as to men 
 who are gradually, if somewhat fitfully, learning the game 
 themselves." 
 
 "But" 
 
 "I think, Mr. Puff," interrupted the ruthless moderator, 
 "that we all understand the difference in the view points of 
 yourself and Mr. Barlow. It would do no good to thresh 
 the matter further." 
 
 "But, Barbara, would Mr. Barlow deny that discipline 
 is necessary to progress," demanded Mrs. Orton. 
 
 "What do you say, Mr. Barlow?" questioned the moder- 
 ator. 
 
 "Self-discipline is necessary to progress, Mrs. Orton," said 
 Mr. Barlow. "But discipline imposed by others may bring 
 the very antithesis of progress. At best when properly im- 
 posed it is a mere stop-gap, pending the moral growth of 
 individuals to the requirements of their social environment, 
 and tending to check that growth." 
 
 "To return to the subject of socialism, Miss Fleming," 
 said Miss Elsack, "I would like to ask Mr. Barlow if it will 
 cure the evils why oppose it?" 
 
 "Let it come in so far as it is a cure if we cannot rid 
 ourselves of fake-individualism in any other way," replied the 
 secretary. "The essence of individualism, after all, is not 
 economic but moral. We can for mutual benefit give up the 
 right or privilege of each to accumulate as much property 
 as he wants in any way he can and still retain the essential, 
 fundamental right to moral independence the right of each 
 to work out his own moral salvation or go to the devil in any 
 way he pleases. But I don't, myself, see how there can be 
 moral independence under a government which controls all the
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 39 
 
 means of livelihood either directly or through regulated cor- 
 porations. The reason I say let socialism come is because it 
 will come in so far as we do not otherwise get rid of the 
 evils. In the future as in the past the desire to put an end to 
 the special privileges which crop out of government partner- 
 ship with those who control it will raise in some cases the 
 ideal of a government which is the partner of none and in 
 others the ideal of a government which is the partner of all. 
 Between these two extremes of political thought it seems to me 
 the great mass of men will vote as practical opportunists and 
 the two ideals working alternately or together will evolve the 
 state of the future a state in which there will be a larger 
 measure of government ownership of some agencies of pro- 
 duction and government interference with some individual ac- 
 tivities, and, on the other hand, a larger measure of non- 
 interference with other agencies and other activities in short 
 organized individualism. It seems to me that the more stub- 
 bornly privilege hangs on the more government we shall have. 
 Corporations breed bureaucracies. An impatient despair of 
 the ability of democracy to rid itself of dollar diplomacy, dollar 
 politics and dollar standards in general might not only lead 
 men to vote long steps towards socialism in economics but also 
 throw them into temporary moral insanity causing them to 
 give a kind of religious adhesion to the Common Good of the 
 Social Whole. As a new fetich it would be all the more attrac- 
 tive to a diseased public mind because emotionless and vaguely 
 supposed to be founded upon a philosophy of imposing empti- 
 ness." 
 
 "But what do you mean by temporary insanity?" asked 
 Mr. Walthall. "Would not insanity of that kind be more or 
 less permanent come to look like sanity?" 
 
 "The insanity would last just as long as the rank and file 
 of men found supreme pleasure in sacrificing every other pleas- 
 ure to the alleged good of an emotionless Social Whole. But 
 this pleasure would eventually pall upon them and they would 
 begin again to compare rations and hours of work and hours 
 of leisure; to get back again to the things that can be meas- 
 ured in individual experience and individual feeling." 
 
 "There, Mr. Barlow, you use the word experience again, 
 but where do you make any allowance for spiritual experience, 
 psychical experience?" asked Mrs. Hardy. "I cannot see but 
 that you ignore a wide field of experience especially in con-
 
 40 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 nection with your statement, a few minutes ago, that we have 
 at hand in our finite experience all that is needed to teach us 
 what makes for the welfare of each and all." 
 
 "Reported psychical experiences which can be subjected to 
 the observation or experiment of others ought not to be ex- 
 cluded, Mrs. Hardy," said Mr. Barlow. "But if they do not 
 fit into the body of our more or less well established knowledge 
 especially if they contradict such fundamentals as the law 
 of causation and the uniformity of nature, the evidence upon 
 which thdy rest must be regarded with suspicion." 
 
 "But people sneer and refuse to observe. We can lead the 
 horse to water but we cannot make him drink." 
 
 "You cannot make him drink what seems to him imaginary 
 water especially if he has already had his fill of real water. 
 Since I know that I can go from Essex Head to Boston by 
 train you cannot blame me if I do not take a great deal of 
 interest in the rumor that there is a man in town who has a 
 magic carpet." 
 
 That the company in general was not much concerned 
 about evidence of a private and mystical kind which could not 
 be spread upon the records was indicated by a ripple of 
 laughter following Mr. Barlow's illustrations. 
 
 "You spoke a few moments ago, Mr. Barlow, of conscience 
 giving a more unquestioning, ungrudging sanction to new rules 
 of reason than to the old rules of thumb within which it has 
 grown," began Mr. Crandall as soon as the laughter had died 
 away. "How do you make out that conscience can change its 
 allegiance from the rules within which it has grown or rather 
 if I understand correctly, the teachers of natural ethics 
 around which it has crystalized?" 
 
 "But Barbara when are you going to make Mr. Barlow 
 take note of Mr. Balfour's gloomy picture of dissolution?" 
 asked Mrs. Lurton scenting another long digression. 
 
 "Postpone your gloom for awhile, dear Mrs. Lurton," an- 
 swered Barbara, laughing. "All in due time. But it has been 
 a good deal more important to know about conscience and a
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 41 
 
 possible temporary insanity that may seize us any minute, now, 
 than about dissolution which can scarcely be recognized as 
 within the field of practical politics." 
 
 There was a generous burst of laughter at this sally in 
 which all even Mrs. Lurton joined all except Pauline. 
 
 "It isn't fair to make light of his explanations," said the 
 latter to herself indignantly. "There is not another man here 
 who could answer all those questions so clearly." 
 
 But apparently Mr. Barlow did not take Miss Fleming's 
 sally as aimed at him for he laughed as heartily as the others 
 and at her request took up the discussion again as seriously 
 as ever a discussion which seemed, too, to hold the interest of 
 the company. 
 
 "I think it is more accurate to say that conscience has 
 grown up within the rules of conduct than that it has crystal- 
 ized around any particular rules, Mr. Crandall," he resumed. 
 "That is, conscience is the feeling of obligation under which 
 we live to conform to those utilitarian rules of thumb to which, 
 we have been taught in childhood, our fellow-men, the law and 
 the church expect us to conform supplemented by such modi- 
 fications of our childhood's teaching as our own mature ex- 
 perience of utility leads us to adopt. It has grown up through 
 ages of conformity to the teachings of childhood. It does not 
 everywhere and at all times command obedience to one code par 
 excellence but commands obedience to the code of the place and 
 the day whatever it is vaguely recognized as having a utili- 
 tarian sanction in the main and subject more or less to amend- 
 ment in accordance with our personal experience. The less 
 clearly a man recognizes the basis of utility in the code the 
 more binding it is upon him, and the less likely he is to feel 
 the binding force of amendments suggested by the utilitarian 
 evidence of the day that is, he is likely to think of the code 
 as something revealed complete in the beginning or intuitive 
 and forever unchangeable. On the other hand the more clearly 
 he recognizes the utilitarian inspiration of the code the more 
 likely he is to substitute amendments of his own intelligent 
 adoption though not necessarily of his own discovery. It 
 seems to me that men generally are coming to recognize that 
 utilitarian considerations, however falsely weighed, have always 
 been at the bottom of our old rules of thumb. More and more, 
 too, we are coming to see that utilitarian service to men, as 
 distinguished from institutions and personifications, and to men
 
 42 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 generally, as distinguished from those classes whose selfish in- 
 terests largely molded the old rules of thumb must be the 
 inspiration of the new rules of reason. So, I think, we are 
 going to see very great changes in the code. These changes 
 will go hand in hand with our more intelligent hold upon esti- 
 mates of justice and with our wider and keener sympathies. 
 Conscience as ever will command substantial obedience to the 
 code of the day and all the more effectively and exclusively if 
 the utilities of the new code appeal to men's estimates of justice 
 and their sympathies. When the code was eye for eye and 
 tooth for tooth, conscience commanded obedience, but the 
 sympathies of the moral pioneers of that day must have re- 
 belled. When the code becomes a command of mercy and help, 
 conscience again will say obey and it will be backed by sym- 
 pathy and a more understanding sense of justice duty becom- 
 ing ever more and more a pleasure and the growth of character 
 gradually making conscience unnecessary and obsolete." 
 
 "Ah, but you forget Leslie Stephens' admission that while 
 progress solves old problems and discords and extirpates old 
 evils there are always coming up new problems and new dis- 
 cords and new evils," protested Professor Hardy. 
 
 "New problems yes. But problems do not become dis- 
 cords and evils if they are promptly and justly solved. We 
 have the problems now but without the character to want to 
 solve them honestly and justly and sympathetically or to take 
 pleasure in the results if they cross our grosser passions. But 
 as the animal heritage is outgrown the problems will seem sim- 
 pler and the solutions will appeal to pleasure of a higher kind." 
 
 "But suppose a new set of rules not based upon utility at 
 all say based upon the ideal of self-realization as part of the 
 Social Whole. Then conscience would ally itself with those 
 rules," suggested Mr. Ransom. 
 
 "To a degree and for a time according to how many of 
 us have permanently graduated from the tutelage of authorities 
 and outgrown the worship of phrases," answered Mr. Barlow. 
 "No doubt supposing the moral insanity to give the new 
 code a good start there would be many people whose con- 
 sciences would conform to the blind Ought of their childhood's 
 lessons little qualified by enlightened estimates of utility. But 
 it would take little leaven to leaven the whole lump. Specula- 
 tion would at once begin anew as to why conduct should be 
 called good simply because some authority vouchsafed its
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 43 
 
 making for the Common Good of the Social Whole, if, in fact, 
 it did not appear to benefit individuals generally and equitably, 
 but only benefited certain favored individuals or certain chosen 
 institutions." 
 
 "But you just assume that it would not benefit individuals 
 generally according to place in the Social Whole," said Mr. 
 Ransom. 
 
 "According to place in an invented or assumed Social 
 Whole or a Social Whole of the Medes and Persians is not 
 equity," replied Mr. Barlow. "If, however, it turned out that 
 in effect the self-realization code did make for the benefit of 
 individuals generally and equitably then men would soon cast 
 away the shell and hold on to the kernel." 
 
 "But would the two codes be any different? Would not 
 the concrete rules of conduct be the same under either code? 
 If so, why quibble about descriptive phrases?" asked Professor 
 Mann. 
 
 "The code of men individually responsible to themselves and 
 to each other, growing through responsibility more intelligent 
 and sympathetic and to have more in mind the welfare of in- 
 dividuals one and all on this earth and that only must even- 
 tually differ from that imposed upon us by men however good 
 and great to whom we delegate the right or duty of arbi- 
 trarily expounding the Common Good of the Social Whole," 
 answered Mr. Barlow. "One assesses individual burdens and 
 benefits only, the other if it assesses individual burdens and 
 benefits at all does so in relation to an arbitrary factor which 
 vitiates all results." 
 
 "See here, Barlow," broke in Commodore Lurton, who had 
 as yet taken no part in the discussion. "You believe, for the 
 reasons you give, which I consider sound, that the Common 
 Good notion even if enthroned in ethical and political thought 
 would have but a short reign." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "As I understand it," added Barbara, "conscience com- 
 mands obedience to the code of the day, subject to private 
 amendment. The more the code ignores utilities for individuals 
 the stronger would be the pull of private amendment back to 
 an utilitarian individualistic code; because, regardless of the- 
 ories and phrases the shells only such a kernel would per- 
 manently satisfy our growing intelligence and sympathies." 
 
 It seemed to Pauline that Barbara had summed up her
 
 44 
 
 secretary's exposition very cleverly and this irritated her even 
 more than had, a few minutes before, Miss Fleming's apparent 
 lack of serious consideration of his views. 
 
 "Good ! Very well expressed," said the Commodore. "You 
 well preface the question I want to ask. It is whether we as 
 practical men and women have not been giving too much time 
 tonight to the discussion of the possibility of fundamental error 
 creeping in error to which I feel sure the ordinary voter is 
 giving no ear and which if it did creep in would as you show 
 work its own cure. And as to the pragmatic method too, I 
 feel that it would work its own cure from sheer inability of 
 men to get together on any common ground for discussion of 
 our affairs." 
 
 "Oh! I think these questions are very interesting and 
 proper to discuss at length, Commodore," exclaimed Barbara. 
 "If not, it is my fault, not Mr. Barlow's, for it is I who have 
 brought out his interesting views in such detail." 
 
 "Interesting and proper enough academically," said Mr. 
 Lurton. "But are they of practical import? I ask Mr. 
 Barlow what practical advantage there is in digging into fund- 
 amentals and I am not a pragmatist either." 
 
 "Although fundamentally crooked thinking will eventually 
 cure itself, Commodore," replied Mr. Barlow, "it may in the 
 meantime do a great deal of harm. When you find a professor 
 of philosophy breaking into politics with a pragmatic attack 
 upon the teachings of political economy* it seems to me of 
 very practical concern. It shows the danger of letting down 
 the bars of scholarly restraint upon those whose position seems 
 to qualify them as expert witnesses. It shows how pragmatism 
 may lend a jaunty air of respectability to every intellectual 
 flunky who has his master's axe to grind. Then " 
 
 "Good!" cried Bob. 
 
 "Hear! Hear!" from Charles. 
 
 "Then, as to the self-realization method," continued Mr. 
 Barlow. "It is studied seriously in our universities as a possi- 
 ble method. It seems to me that I have shown that it is 
 meaningless or false. But its viciousness consists in its de- 
 generating tendency. It tends to fit men for regimentation to 
 make them contented and ambitionless. Then there are the 
 terms 'Common Good' and 'Social Whole.' They sound well. 
 
 *W. Caldwell in the Nineteenth Century, Nov., 1912.
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 45 
 
 In the mouths of those whose interests lie in exploitation they 
 are powerful pieces of clap-trap. I have not sought to press 
 my views upon the company, Commodore, but have been as it 
 were personally conducted by our very capable moderator." 
 Mr. Barlow bowed gravely to Miss Fleming. Pauline's 
 fingers clutched her fan again. 
 
 "Such being the case," he added, "I make no apologies for 
 expressing them frankly." 
 
 "And ably," added the Commodore. "And there does seem 
 to be a practical side to the matters. I should certainly feel 
 concerned to see our people turned into a docile flock of sheep." 
 "Yet I am surprised to find you showing so little faith in 
 the sagacity of the voters, Barlow," said Crandall sarcastically, 
 "those individuals who are getting on so famously in sympathy 
 and intelligence." 
 
 "When you have a just cause before a jury, Crandall, is 
 it your habit to let the jury dissect the testimony of the ad- 
 verse experts unaided, or do you help them by cross-examina- 
 tion and by putting on your own experts?" 
 
 "There's one for you, Crandall," laughed Bob. 
 "And you must remember, too, Crandall, that the electorate 
 is a jury that has not only to weigh the evidence but to pass 
 on the qualification of the experts. It has no judge to 
 assist it." 
 
 "I imagine the electorate will need all the assistance you can 
 give it, Mr. Barlow," said Professor Mann, sarcastically, "and 
 then some." 
 
 "I see no more reason for pessimism than for cavalier 
 optimism, Professor Mann," said Mr. Barlow. "You must 
 remember that the jury at any particular juncture is limited. 
 It is only a small number of the voters whose verdict counts 
 all the time those who are unselfishly and intelligently ar- 
 rayed against every special interest. They and the voters in 
 the border land of light constitute the jury. The selfish in- 
 terests check each other more or less ; the labor union against 
 the capital union; the Roman hierarchy against the socialist 
 and the fake-individualist against both; the liquor interests 
 against the would-be regulators of private morals ; the would- 
 be regulators against all forms of commercialized vice; the 
 civil service reform beaurocrat against the spoilsman; the 
 spoilsman against the beaurocrat. The voters interested in 
 any little selfishness are few compared to the great numbers
 
 46 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 selfish enough in their own way but opposed to that particular 
 selfishness. It seems to me that the immediate hope of progress 
 lies in the fact that most of us will be willing to give up our 
 privileges and arrogances in order that we may preserve our 
 rights." 
 
 "And the more remote hope?" queried Mr. Walthall. 
 
 "In the improvement of our pleasures. In other words in 
 character growth." 
 
 "Exactly the adjustment of feeling to environment grow- 
 ing more complex." 
 
 "You are a disciple of Professor Westermarck?" inquired 
 Professor Hardy. "You believe that morals are wholly a mat- 
 ter of feeling." 
 
 "Not exactly. Of course knowledge alone never caused a 
 man to lift his little finger it fructifies in conduct only by 
 guiding desire. But as a matter of fact knowledge does guide 
 desire. Therefore it seems to me that Professor Westermarck 
 is in error in affirming that there is no science of what ought 
 to be. Man, having discovered that he is evolving morally, 
 cannot help inquiring what kinds of conduct will realize his 
 desires and what kinds of conduct will retard them. The 
 principles underlying the answers to those inquiries will 
 constitute the science of what he ought to do. Herbert 
 Spencer " 
 
 "Realize his desires ! Merciful heavens ! Morals !" gasped 
 Mr. Puff. "I call it the breaking away from all morals." 
 
 "True it is a breaking away from the morals of selfish 
 authority and to some extent from utilitarian rules of thumb 
 but it is the adoption of the morals of knowledge. I have 
 already named the goal we must, under the compulsion of our 
 very nature, desire to reach the greatest happiness for all 
 with which will come the smothering of the sense of duty in 
 pleasure. More than forty years ago Herbert Spencer, in his 
 famous letter to John Stuart Mill wrote that it is the business 
 of moral science to deduce from the laws of life and the condi- 
 tions of existence what kinds of action necessarily tend to pro- 
 duce happiness and what kinds to produce unhappiness and 
 that these deductions are to be regarded as rules of conduct 
 and are then to be conformed to, irrespective of a direct esti- 
 mation of happiness or misery. There, it seems to me, is the 
 high-water mark of ethical thought. If, under the impulse of 
 more or less ignorant groping for happiness hampered by the
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 47 
 
 ethical proclamations of authority, we have come this far 
 towards the goal, how much swifter will be our pace when we 
 consciously bring the understanding to the aid of feeling? 
 Not only will our ought be an ought of understanding but 
 under the more certain enjoyment of the higher satisfactions 
 which knowledge will insure character will grow very much 
 more rapidly than in the past. That is, though we shall have 
 a science of the ought the rules will be a mere stop-gap pending 
 character growth." 
 
 VI 
 
 "Yet one of the great masters of your school, Mr. Barlow," 
 said Mr. Ransom, "came at last to cry out that the human 
 soul has asked for Theology not for Dynamics." 
 
 "Then let human souls do as that of John Fiske did give 
 to our knowledge of appearances any transcendental interpre- 
 tations they crave and believe," replied Mr. Barlow. "Behind 
 the veil science cannot intrude and meliorism is the sole cri- 
 terion. But let not the soul then deduce Moral Dynamics 
 from such interpretations still less, Moral Statics." 
 
 "But, Barlow, you do not put the Absolute to one side by 
 disposing of the ghostlike Absolute of the neo-Hegelians," ex- 
 claimed Professor Hardy. "The Absolute is not a ghostlike 
 existence but is an eternal rule that is to bind every will in 
 its aim to attain the real world. The Absolute is not an exis- 
 tence but is 'valid,' 'it is not a thing but an obligation which 
 prescribes beforehand the standards and the ideals of every 
 individual endeavor.' It is the function of philosophical, criti- 
 cal idealism, which began with Kant and which by proclaiming 
 the 'absolute character of the ideals of the will' offers the real 
 bulwark against materialistic positivism, 'to deduce from the 
 character of the world-positing will the particular demands 
 which are binding for every possible search of truth, beauty, 
 morality and religion.' It is true that the only world that we 
 can know is the world of our experience but this world is de- 
 termined by the thought forms of our understanding, and as to 
 ideal values man's, intuitions must ever bind his acquired 
 knowledge. Your views about the changing allegiance of the
 
 48 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 conscience are only too impressive evidence of the danger in 
 materialistic positivism." 
 
 "Danger to what, Mr. Hardy," asked Miss Fleming. 
 
 Levering laughed and gave Barbara an appreciative glance. 
 But Professor Hardy merely shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Permit me once more to say," said Barlow, "that I have 
 not tried to dispose of the ghostlike Absolute nor do I wish to 
 dispose of your Absolute rule. Of course our experience is 
 'determined by the thought forms of our understanding' and 
 of course there are obligations *which prescribe beforehand the 
 standards and the ideals for every individual endeavor.' These 
 are just other ways of saying that man's intelligence and feel- 
 ing and conduct are within the jurisdiction of natural law. 
 There is no room for difference between us here nor for (Differ- 
 ence with Mr. Ransom to whom this all means the unfolding 
 of the Absolute. Your friends, Mr. Ransom's friends and my 
 friends all stand together here. Our common enemy is the 
 capricionist. But when we come to the method by which we 
 make these thought forms of our understanding, the obligatory 
 ideals, the natural laws in short, of use to us in this life, 
 there we differ. Your friends and Mr. Ransom's friends wish 
 to proclaim what my friends wish to discover. But as long 
 as you proclaim just what we discover there need be no quarrel 
 between us. It is only when you invent the world-positing will 
 or the Moral Reason, or give to the conscience a character it 
 has not in order that by divorcing us from the ordinary under- 
 standing and its powers of generalization you may have a 
 plausible sanction under the guise of laying the spectre of 
 materialism to make proclamations in support of the very 
 flesh and blood of materialism it is only there that we join 
 issue. But the outcome will not be uncertain. The real fac- 
 ulty, the understanding is bound to win against imaginary 
 faculties, the Moral Reason and world-positing will and all 
 other imaginary agents of an objective Law-giver." 
 
 "Ah ! The flesh and blood of materialism !" repeated Lover- 
 ing impressively. "There you have the right name for calling 
 upon the name of God to vouch for the judge-made right to 
 revel in luxury while others starve." 
 
 "At any rate, Mr. Barlow is sound in rejecting the objec- 
 tive source of the moral law," said Professor Mann to Pauline. 
 
 "But he does not reject it, Professor Mann," protested 
 Pauline, her eyes bright with enthusiasm. The clean-cut dis-
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 49 
 
 tinctions of her secretary appealed to her logical mind; and 
 his ability in debate gave her new pleasure in her sense of 
 proprietorship. "He rejects the imaginary agents of the Law- 
 giver, not the Law-giver. Mr. Barlow is as he has said, a 
 thoroughgoing agnostic. It is idle to argue about the Law- 
 giver. It is for the individual soul to believe." 
 
 "But are we not conscious of the fact that we have binding 
 moral intuitions?" asked Miss Elsingham, addressing Barlow. 
 
 "We are conscious of moral feeling to which the name 
 intuition was given long before its nature was understood or 
 it was supposed to have a history. If by continuing to regard 
 it as an intuition you mean to assert that it existed full grown 
 in the earliest forms of life, or even in the breasts of the first 
 men, and will be no more highly developed in the breasts of 
 men of the future, then it is obvious that there are no intuitions 
 of that sort. If you mean by intuition eternal rules hovering, 
 as it were, in the objective absolute waiting to be experienced 
 and generalized by the understanding and the feelings, or, in 
 the phraseology of Professor Hardy's school, posited by the 
 will of the individual as he develops intellectually and emo- 
 tionally, then you speak of something that either has the same 
 message for the individual as his feelings and ordinary under- 
 standing have for him, or else its messages have no other or 
 better warrant than the unsupported authority of the volunteer 
 interpreter of the intuitions. Nor will the knowledge of right 
 and wrong ever become intuitive. In the domain of morals 
 it is only the feelings that become spontaneous ; and long be- 
 fore knowledge however certain that a particular kind of con- 
 duct is wrong can become intuitive the characteristic feeling 
 will have forestalled it. That is, character growth will have 
 made knowledge of secondary importance only for purposes 
 of discussion and instructing, admonishing and restraining the 
 young and morally defective." 
 
 "Yet just now learned opinion seems to be swinging back 
 to the rationalist view," suggested Professor Walthall. 
 
 "That now, a half a century after Spencer's Psychology 
 and thirty years after the Data of Ethics, there should be 
 serious preaching of intuitions as a means of divorcing men 
 from the generalizing faculty only shows how hard put to it are 
 the opponents of the progress that must follow in the wake 
 of positive agnostic idealism. They point the finger of denun- 
 ciation at a spectre of materialism and so distract attention
 
 50 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 from the real materialism of unjust rules in support of prop- 
 erty and place." 
 
 "Is it fair to impugn motives, Mr. Barlow?" asked Mr. 
 Ransom. 
 
 "I do not impugn motives, Mr. Ransom," replied Mr. 
 Barlow, directing a level glance at the learned gentleman. 
 "The corrupt man is not the worst obstacle to democracy and 
 progress." 
 
 "But you speak as if the fact that intuitions have differed 
 in the past and differ now is an argument against their valioj- 
 ity," said Professor Hardy. "Are you warranted in so doing? 
 Because some savages can count only five does that fact des- 
 troy the validity of the multiplication table? May we not 
 take the intuitions of the developed man as the standard?" 
 
 "If you can find the developed man, I will not quarrel as to 
 whether his pronouncements are derived a priori or a pos- 
 teriori," replied Mr. Barlow, dryly. 
 
 When the laughter that rippled round the table had sub- 
 sided, he continued: 
 
 "The fact that the savage can count only to five and has 
 never heard of the multiplication table is no argument against 
 its validity because the truth of the multiplication table may 
 be demonstrated with as great certainty as we can demon- 
 strate anything by generalization. The coexistences under- 
 lying the table have been found to be valid in an almost infinite 
 number of cases and have never once been found invalid. Since 
 the coexistences of the multiplication table have been estab- 
 lished by an almost infinitely long enumerationem simplicem, 
 amply verified, it would be strange if they had the same status 
 in the thought of the descendants of men that had never gen- 
 eralized about these coexistences as in the thought of the de- 
 scendants of ancestors who had. The difference in the attitude 
 towards the multiplication table is just what you would expect 
 towards a product of generalization. But such difference is 
 fatal to an allegation of coexistence which is not the product 
 of generalization. For if it is not the product of generalization 
 and not universally accepted what is the basis of its claim upon 
 our acceptance? The very fact that constant appeals have 
 to be made to the feelings and the 'ordinary understanding' in 
 behalf of the 'notion' of duty, is in itself proof that there is 
 no such 'notion.' ' 
 
 "Now, Mr. Barlow, won't you please give an illustration of
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 51 
 
 some change of rules and the transference of the allegiance of 
 conscience of which you speak?" requested Miss Elsingham. 
 
 Mr. Barlow knit his brows. 
 
 "I had in mind, while I was speaking, one that will no 
 doubt arouse a good deal of criticism and open up an entirely 
 new field of discussion," he said. 
 
 "Fire away, Barlow," said the Commodore. "We may not 
 all agree with you but we all are robust enough to stand any 
 ordinary shock." 
 
 "My illustration will not call for intellectual or moral 
 robustness," replied Mr. Barlow, laughing, "but for a certain 
 amount of sportsmanlike disregard for pocketbook protests." 
 
 "Go ahead, Barlow. We will try to nerve ourselves against 
 even that shock far more grievous to most of us than any 
 fears of the materialistic bogie." 
 
 "Well, then, for instance," began the secretary, "it seems 
 to me that with better, clearer, knowledge of ideal utilities we 
 are quite likely to adopt a modified set of rules about the rela- 
 tion of the public to private property. If we do it will be 
 but a very short time before these new rules will become as 
 binding upon conscience as the old rules. As to one form of 
 private property we can almost see men's consciences change 
 their allegiance. I mean that form known as good will. There 
 was a time not long ago when no one questioned a man's prop- 
 erty right in the so-called good will of his business and his 
 right to sell it. Had any one proposed to prohibit his selling 
 it most likely a successful appeal could have been made to 
 men's consciences not to lend themselves to such an unjust 
 interference with his property rights. Now, however, after so 
 much good will has been disposed of to the investing public 
 in the form of so-called watered stock, and when from time to 
 time legislation is sought by wage-earners and consumers not 
 interested in the investment, which legislation would have a 
 tendency to confiscate or rather destroy this good will by 
 destroying the earnings which furnish the dividends upon the 
 stock issued against it conscientious men are no longer gen- 
 erally agreed as to the property rights in it. A great many 
 men now feel bound by conscience not to lend themselves to the 
 perpetuation of burdens upon wage-earners and consumers in 
 order that the so-called good will may be made secure." 
 
 "But these investors paid their good money for this good 
 will," exclaimed Mr. Condor, a new participant in the debate.
 
 52 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 "I can't see where there is a chance for conscience to be in 
 doubt." 
 
 Mr. Condor had taken no interest in the discussion of fund- 
 amentals but dividends were things about which he had settled 
 convictions. 
 
 "True," assented Mr. Barlow. "It is a pity that we ever 
 allowed the sale of these enormous blocks of property largely 
 ephemeral. We would not now, or soon, have to decide upon 
 which of two innocent though not equally innocent classes 
 we shall allow the loss to fall loss which on the other side of 
 the ledger shows up in profit to the sellers of the good will 
 and to the promoters of the sales." 
 
 "Do you mean to insinuate, sir, that frauds have been per- 
 petuated in selling this good will to the public?" asked Mr. 
 Condor, with some indignation. "I am speaking, of course, of 
 such sound dividend paying securities or with reasonable 
 prospects of dividends as houses say like er Bemis & Co. 
 have been distributing to the investing public. I don't mean 
 issues with nothing behind them clearly fraudulent." 
 
 "But what do you mean, Mr. Barlow, by the expression 
 'not equally innocent'?" asked Miss Elsingham. "Of course 
 the buyers of these securities are perfectly innocent." 
 
 "Pardon me, Miss Elsingham, if I answer Mr. Condor 
 first," said Mr. Barlow. "My answer to his question will, I 
 think, lead to the answer to yours. The issues I refer to, Mr. 
 Condor, are just such issues as Bemis & Co., and other equally 
 reputable houses have been floating. It seems to me that Mr. 
 Bemis and his kind are of the most baneful influences of our 
 times, but I would not go so far as to use the term frauds in 
 connection with their operations. In fact, I go so far as to 
 say that there has been no fraud. They have been operating 
 with perfect conscientiousness so far as I know probably 
 the conscientiousness of ignorance. They have even been under 
 the impression, I believe, that they have been doing a great 
 public service while at the same time making very large profits 
 for themselves. They have thought that they had bricks of 
 real gold to sell to the public. It is a fact, however, that they 
 have sold the public the gold-bricks of the vernacular. This 
 so-called good will which they have sold to the investing public 
 has consisted, I think, of these elements: first real good will, 
 the personal hold the original owners had upon the confidence 
 of their customers ; second, in almost all cases, privileges,
 
 53 
 
 such as the privilege of monopoly in operating a public utility 
 or the privilege of exploiting bound consumers handed over to 
 them by tariff legislation; third, in the case of a combination 
 of several competing businesses the capital value of expected 
 increased profits due to higher prices consequent upon the 
 elimination of competition or to the saving of the wages of 
 discharged supernumeraries, or both; and fourth, in all cases, 
 the capital value of the difference between what the wage- 
 earners produce measured by their capability to produce in 
 a favorable location under good management, adequately paid 
 admittedly somewhat indefinite and what they get in wages. 
 None of these four elements have permanent value but no 
 doubt most of the buyers of these securities issued against them 
 have thought they were buying permanent value. You see 
 then, Miss Elsingham, that the innocence of the purchasers 
 rests mainly on the plea of ignorance and cannot be compared 
 in faultlessness with that, for instance, of the wage-earners who 
 have been mainly the victims of circumstances to the con- 
 tinuance of which they are in no way bound to agree. And 
 it seems to me it will appear to be the duty if indeed not the 
 pleasure of many disinterested citizens to help them to read- 
 just conditions." 
 
 "Rather radical opinions, Mrs. Orton, to be held by the 
 secretary of one whose interests are so far-reaching as your 
 niece's," suggested Mr. Crandall to Pauline's aunt. 
 
 "Secretary? Pauline's? Mr. Barlow?" demanded Mrs. 
 Orton in staccato but in a low tone. 
 
 "Yes. Did you not know?" 
 
 "No. I had not heard and his manner it has been that 
 of one who had the power behind the opinions." Mrs. Orton 
 looked with renewed interest at her niece's secretary. "I have 
 supposed that he was some well-to-do philanthropist." 
 
 "I imagine he has counted upon the power of your niece's 
 fortune," said Mr. Crandall, dryly. "But, if I am any judge 
 of faces, Miss Parsons will have a mind and a will of her own 
 as to that." 
 
 "I have noticed that Pauline seems displeased," said Mrs. 
 Orton. "No wonder ! The assurance of the man ! It is as- 
 tounding !"
 
 54 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 VII 
 
 "But you speak of the value of the wage-earner's product 
 under good management favorably located and adequately paid, 
 as being admittedly indefinite," suggested Bob. "Does not 
 that allow room for the permanency of a considerable part of 
 the fourth item?" 
 
 "Yes varying according to the ability of the dominant 
 managing element of the corporation, its capital connections 
 and the favorableness of its location, and so forth. I did not 
 mean to intimate that the fourth item would in all cases be 
 eliminated though in some cases it will be eliminated and in 
 all cases reduced. That is, unless we permit combinations in 
 the control of capital which may prevent it flowing freely to 
 entrepreneurs of ability who are eager to compete for labor, 
 though on an advancing wage scale. I should add, also, that 
 of course another great wave of improvement in the arts would 
 tend to take care of advances in wages and so for a time 
 check the shrinkage in profits. And of course, too, I except 
 the disturbing factor of changes in the gold production." 
 
 "Why, man, your fourth item is just the reward of brains," 
 exclaimed Mr. Condor. 
 
 "Unquestionably brains applied to conditions," agreed 
 Mr. Barlow. "But you can't deliver the brains with the snares 
 nor the conditions in abiding form." 
 
 "Just what are these conditions, Barlow?" asked Bob. 
 "I'm a little rusty." 
 
 "The conditions are these, I take it," replied the secretary. 
 "During the last seventy-five years or so there has been an 
 extraordinary improvement in the arts which has increased the 
 product of a laborer under efficient direction to many times 
 what it was at the beginning of the era. But wages though 
 they have increased materially have not increased in anything 
 like the ratio to the increased product. If capital were not 
 blind if it sought the most efficient entrepreneurs and them 
 only, and there were free competition between the entre- 
 preneurs, their eagerness to use profitably all of the capital at 
 their disposal would have made them such active bidders in
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 55 
 
 the wage market that wages would have advanced considerably 
 more. But unfortunately only a small portion of the capital 
 flows into the hands of the most efficient entrepreneurs and a 
 large part of it flows into the hands of even the most incompe- 
 tent. The latter can afford to pay no more in wages than 
 their ability enables them to get out of the workers. If they 
 pay more they fail. They have had to pay no more because 
 the demand for laborers by the more competent entrepreneurs 
 has been checked by their limited capital while at the same 
 time the wage market has been further glutted during the 
 same period by the following of the home industries into the 
 factory by the women. They are, however, gradually having 
 to pay more and the least competent are being gradually 
 weeded out. You see then, Miss Elsingham, that the fourth 
 item is as Mr. Condor says, the reward of brains, but it is a 
 reward that depends on conditions. The purchaser of shares 
 in the capitalization of this item having failed to buy the 
 brains with the shares and moreover, having failed to assure 
 themselves of the permanency of the conditions, cannot be held 
 to be innocent purchasers as against the workers who have 
 been retarded by the conditions and who may be expected to 
 oppose attempts to make the conditions permanent. The 
 wiser and least innocent of the investors, I imagine, have 
 frankly hoped that concentrated control of the flow of capital 
 into accredited channels would both furnish a satisfactory 
 substitute for brains and secure the permanency of the con- 
 ditions." 
 
 "And the tendency now will be will continue to be the 
 securing to the wage earners of a larger part of the 'product," 
 supplemented Bob. 
 
 "Yes. As long as combinations in the control of capital are 
 not permitted to prevent its flowing freely to the use of 
 entrepreneurs of ability who are eager to reap the profit 
 wages of superintendence consisting of the difference between 
 what they can make wage earners produce under their man- 
 agement and what they have to pay them in market wages, the 
 rate of wages will, other things being equal, tend upward. 
 There are several influences which tend to accelerate the bring- 
 ing of wages and product closer together the activity of the 
 trade unions and growing public sympathy with their aims as 
 long - as they act within reason the elimination of children 
 from the wage market the shortening of the hours of labor
 
 56 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 the prohibition of unsuitable labor for women, and of all labor 
 for very young women ability of men, as they receive higher 
 wages, to marry early and support their wives and children 
 especially their daughters at home. But above all, the most 
 material factor will be the seeing to it that there are no com- 
 binations to keep capital from reaching the hands of able in- 
 dependent entrepreneurs willing to operate on a smaller margin 
 of profit." 
 
 "Do I gather that you favor combinations of wage earners 
 while opposing combinations of capitalists?" asked Crandall, 
 one of whose clients was having trouble with organized labor. 
 
 "I do under existing conditions." 
 
 "How do you justify that position?" demanded Crandall 
 tartly. 
 
 "To mention just one ground because one kind of com- 
 bination has become so powerful that it scarcely hides its con- 
 sciousness of power to force its will upon the will of the electo- 
 rate while the other has barely started to accomplish a raising 
 of the standard of living where it will do the most good," re- 
 plied Mr. Barlow. 
 
 "Do you say that it is nothing to have raised wages to 
 such a level that they are a crushing burden upon our indus- 
 tries?" asked Mr. Condor, who ever evinced a tender regard 
 for our industries. 
 
 "While there are so many men who cheerfully assure us 
 that they are worth to our industries twenty-five thousand 
 dollars or more a year, I fail to grow much excited over the 
 burden imposed by a wage of five dollars a day received by 
 heads of families." There were some sly smiles at this counter 
 of Mr. Barlow's for it was generally understood that Mr. 
 Condor's salary was fifty thousand dollars. 
 
 "Do you make no allowance for difference in service?" 
 asked the sponsor for industry. 
 
 "I do. But there is room for liberal recognition of differ- 
 ence in service within very much narrower limits. Under a 
 civilization as artificial as ours it is reasonable to inquire 
 whether our measurements of difference in service are not 
 largely artificial," responded the secretary. 
 
 "But, at any rate, such discrimination is class legislation 
 you can't get away from that." This from Professor Walthall. 
 
 "I make no attempt to get away from it. Practically all 
 legislation now is class legislation in the main regulating the
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 57 
 
 status of classes made by past legislation. The only party 
 which is entitled to that 'cry' is the party of anarchy. All 
 that the rest of us who believe that rules are needed to enable 
 us to live happily and peacefully together in society may 
 demand is class legislation that is just and the safe-guards 
 against the classes becoming castes." 
 
 "But is it just to discriminate between combinations of 
 capitalists and combinations of wage earners?" asked the Pro- 
 fessor. 
 
 "That depends upon how you discriminate. There is 
 nothing inherently unjust in discriminating between things that 
 are different. On the contrary there is prima facie injustice in 
 not discriminating between them." 
 
 "How do you make out that they are different?" demanded 
 the Professor. 
 
 "Because one is of such little political power that new and 
 ancient judicial interpretations to its hurt still go unchecked 
 by the legislature, while the other has practically dictated the 
 policies of government and is a real danger to the state; be- 
 cause one is a combination of individuals to whom the state has 
 not only given no aid but who have had from the beginning 
 to work against the prejudice of feudal and then commer- 
 cialized law only slowly becoming humanized, while the other 
 is a combination of individuals into whose hands the state has 
 given the most powerful tool ever handled by men the corpo- 
 ration. One ought to oppose trade unions whenever they act 
 in detriment to the rights of others, but his opposition will 
 be on distinctly different grounds than the grounds of his 
 opposition to combinations of capitalists using this tool as a 
 weapon. An attempt to classify the two things together is an 
 absurdity on its face." 
 
 "The framers of the Sherman Anti-Trust law classified 
 them together," suggested Mr. Crandall. 
 
 "It is no less an absurd classification because of that," 
 answered Mr. Barlow. "Compromises though often necessary 
 are usually imperfect. Take away from the capitalists the 
 tool we have given them and without which their combinations 
 would be powerless for evil then there may be reason in 
 classing together the two kinds of combinations." 
 
 "Do you favor abolishing corporations?" demanded Cran- 
 dall. 
 
 "No. On the contrary, I believe in improving them. Cor-
 
 58 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 poration laws are good examples of class legislation but 
 beneficent legislation, so long as we insist that the corporation 
 be used as a tool, not as a weapon. I have little doubt but 
 that we shall find means to insure this." 
 
 "But the labor unions may incorporate too if they wish," 
 said Crandall. 
 
 "True. But if they did they would embrace many disad- 
 vantages and no advantages. The immunities of corporations 
 are designed for capitalists not laborers. Should the state offer 
 incorporated labor immunities of value to laborers, laborers 
 might incorporate and then there might be more reason to leg- 
 islate in one breath about the two classes of corporations. 
 Even then, however, they would be distinctly different things." 
 
 "But is there not danger that the trade unions may become 
 a great political power?" asked Professor Walthall. 
 
 "When that threatens we shall know what to do with them." 
 
 "It may be too late." 
 
 "I have no fear of that. But at any rate it is a risk that 
 we must take because of the aid they can give and are giving 
 us in handling the power that is dangerous now." 
 
 "Yet such a competent observer as E. Sereno Martin, the 
 economist, is of the opinion that modern business cannot be 
 carried on successfully except by these big combinations of 
 capital operating along lines of cooperation rather than com- 
 petition," said Crandall. 
 
 "First noting the difference between growth and combina- 
 tion I can say further only that having in mind no specific 
 argument of Mr. Martin's, I am unable to refute it," said Mr. 
 Barlow. 
 
 "Leave his arguments to one side. Are not his opinions 
 valuable just as opinions?" persisted Crandall in a somewhat 
 overbearing manner. 
 
 "His opinions have no weight with me," said Mr. Barlow. 
 "On the contrary Mr. Martin's affirmative opinion upon any 
 economic proposition about which I had no other evidence, I 
 should take as prima facie evidence that the proposition is not 
 true." 
 
 "You astonish me! Mr. Martin's articles in the Mirror 
 are generally held to be weighty contributions to political 
 opinion upon economic subjects. How do you justify such a 
 broad criticism as you have just made?" demanded the lawyer. 
 
 "If I knew that a man believed the earth to be flat, I
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 59 
 
 should distrust his opinion upon any proposition in astronomy. 
 So knowing of Mr. Martin's belief that the artificial diversion 
 of industry from profitable into unprofitable channels is an 
 economic advantage, I distrust his opinion upon any other 
 economic subject," said Mr. Barlow. 
 
 "Does not that savor rather too much of the argumentum 
 ad hominem coming from one who is such a stickler about 
 logic?" asked Mr. Crandall dryly. 
 
 "Not at all," replied Mr. Barlow. "We are talking about 
 opinions." 
 
 "Good one, Barlow! Good," cried Levering. 
 
 "I confess you have a quicker wit than mine, Lovering," 
 sneered Crandall. "I don't see the distinction." 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me that you, Crandall, one of the 
 keenest trial lawyers in Boston, do not see that it holds good 
 out of the court room as well as in it that opinion as of an 
 expert is not to be admitted in evidence until the witness 
 qualifies as an expert?" demanded Lovering. "If he qualifies 
 as an ignoramus instead his opinion is valueless?" 
 
 "Ignoramus is a harsh word," said Crandall, coloring. He 
 was aware that the shoe fitted his own foot if it fitted Mr. 
 Martin's. 
 
 "To Barlow, Martin is an ignoramus on economics and it is 
 in Barlow's mind that you are trying to get admission for 
 Martin's opinion." 
 
 "But leaving technicalities to one side is it not a fact that 
 we need these big combinations?" asked Mr. Condor, addressing 
 the secretary. 
 
 "No. Size alone is of no value. What we want is size with 
 ability. Growth under conditions of competition and the main- 
 tenance of position under the ever-present pressure of com- 
 petition are guarantees of ability to meet the needs of the times. 
 But combination resulting from stock shuffling carries abso- 
 lutely no guarantee of any industrial ability only expertness 
 in financial intrigue. In the noncompetitive environment which 
 can be brought about over night you have just the state of 
 affairs in which continued success may be built upon exploita- 
 tion instead of service." 
 
 "But under proper regulation the people have a sure pro- 
 tection against exploitation," persisted Mr. Condor. 
 
 "At the cost of keeping Big Business constantly in politics 
 with all the possibilities of corruption corresponding to the
 
 60 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 magnificence of the prizes ; plutocracy and bureaucracy hand 
 in glove dividing the power and the spoils the attempted per- 
 petuation of that fake-individualism which must surely find its 
 Nemesis in the crumbling of the whole structure built upon pri- 
 vate property," replied Mr. Barlow. "Without competition 
 the whole thing comes down to a mere matter of opinion ex- 
 pressed at the polls if fortunately not with arms. Dividends 
 not constantly subject to the test of competition are just things 
 for arbitrary measurement. A public living in an atmosphere 
 of corruption and dollar politics will in the end make short 
 work of them. Having no characteristic test, even conscien- 
 tious voters will have doubts whether particular dividends have 
 not outlived service." 
 
 "That is your opinion," said Crandall, with a slight accent 
 upon the last word. 
 
 "Just good for what it is worth," laughed Mr. Barlow. 
 "Prophecy is always gratuitous." 
 
 "But right is right with conscientious people whether div- 
 idends have outlived service or not," protested Miss Elsack. 
 
 "If you mean legal right that may be easily changed, Miss 
 Elsack," replied Mr. Barlow. "If you mean moral right, then 
 one who comes into the court of morality must do so with clean 
 hands." 
 
 "But isn't that a harsh way of putting it?" inquired Miss 
 Elsingham. "Much of the wealth has been earned with clean 
 hands." 
 
 "A great part of the wealth of the country has been 
 earned honestly and with benefit to the country, but no one 
 has an unconditional moral right to his pound of flesh." 
 
 "I have been much interested in your views, Mr. Barlow," 
 said Professor Walthall. "I want to have another talk with 
 you one of these days if we can arrange it. I am particularly 
 interested in your distinction between combinations of unaided 
 individuals and combinations of individuals into whose hands 
 the state has given a tool without sufficient guarantees that it 
 be not used as a weapon. But I want to ask here whether these 
 combinations of corporate wealth (or by means of corporate 
 wealth) will not work out their own cure? One of my col- 
 leagues is making an extended study of some of those which 
 have failed and have been re-organized and I believe he con- 
 cludes that our fear of them is unnecessarily hysterical that 
 as with all other contrivances of men the badly managed ones
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 61 
 
 are sure to go to the wall. Is there not value in that con- 
 clusion?" 
 
 "Does he mean by badly managed, badly managed from 
 the point of view of the shareholders?" asked Mr. Barlow. 
 
 "Well yes I believe he does," replied Mr. Walthall with 
 a laugh, and he added, "and your question gives me your 
 answer." 
 
 "Eh? I don't see it," from Mr. Condor. 
 
 "Why, it is this, Mr. Condor," said the professor. "Those 
 who like Mr. Barlow are rather more interested in the wage 
 earner and the raising of the standard of living where it will 
 do the most good and in the consumer perhaps than in the 
 receiver of dividends are afraid of the successful combinations, 
 not the failures." 
 
 "If that is Mr. Barlow's view, he is certainly frank in his 
 partisanship against property," snapped Mr. Condor with a 
 glance of disapproval at the secretary. 
 
 "That is my view, Mr. Condor. But don't misunderstand. 
 I have no prejudice against the receiver of dividends. I con- 
 tend merely that there is nothing so sacred about dividends 
 that we are bound to safeguard them at the expense of others." 
 
 "Miss Parsons' secretary evidently feels that he has over- 
 shot his mark," said Mr. Crandall, in a low tone to Mrs. Orton. 
 "At this particular time, your niece's intentions are of great 
 moment to the business world. During the last few days there 
 has been considerable misgiving felt amongst those who are 
 striving for coordination of effort lest your niece had fallen 
 under an adverse influence as harmful to her own interests as 
 to the business welfare of the country. But what I have seen 
 tonight satisfies me that the street er that is the business 
 world has been unnecessarily alarmed." 
 
 "The business world need never have felt uneasy," said 
 Mrs. Orton, with the positiveness of conviction. "My niece 
 is too strong a character to yield to the influence of an idle, 
 talkative observer." 
 
 "At any rate he has not lasted," thought Crandall cheer- 
 fully to himself.
 
 62 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 VIII 
 
 "To go back a bit, Mr. Barlow," said Commodore Lurton, 
 taking advantage of the pause which followed the secretary's 
 last words, "you speak of men supporting their wives and 
 daughters at home. But the women no longer want that life 
 of idleness as they call it they want to be out in the world 
 working shoulder to shoulder with the men sharing their 
 burden, as they say." 
 
 "It seems to me," replied Mr. Barlow, "that women take a 
 narrow view of life who see no alternative between working for 
 gain and idleness. As to what the women the overwhelming 
 majority of them want, my own observation leads me to be- 
 lieve, Commodore, that they do not want to be out in the men's 
 world working shoulder to shoulder with them. I think it 
 must be a matter of common notice that wherever the means 
 are ample the women actually do make the home and the work 
 of the world that is not for profit their sphere." 
 
 "But why not let us express our wishes with our ballots?" 
 asked Miss Elsack. "Then you won't have to rely upon 
 common observation." 
 
 "I am willing, Miss Elsack provided you impose no gratu- 
 itous burden on women who believe that on the whole men have 
 represented them chivalrously, justly, manfully, if not always 
 intelligently; who are absorbed in the carrying of women's 
 burden; and are willing to leave to men those burdens which 
 men are especially fit to carry." 
 
 "How are we going to exercise the franchise without impos- 
 ing the duty upon unwilling women?" 
 
 "I don't know, Miss Elsack," laughed Mr. Barlow. "There 
 is a chance for women to demonstrate their skill in constructive 
 politics." 
 
 "Do you mean to assert that women are not as fit as men 
 to exercise the franchise," asked Miss Elsack. 
 
 "I say it without apology for I do not think it at all 
 uncomplimentary to your sex I do." 
 
 "Mr. Barlow! Do you mean to tell me that the common 
 bar-room loafers are better fit to vote intelligently than
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 63 
 
 than Miss Elsack's eyes circled the table, hesitated a 
 moment on the face of the fair hostess but wandered on and 
 finally met the intelligent eyes of Barbara Fleming "than 
 our capable moderator?" 
 
 "Do you judge of two gardens, Miss Elsack, by a weed 
 from one and a rose from the other?" asked Mr. Barlow. 
 
 Under the inspiration of the general clapping of hands at 
 the compliment to the charming moderator, Mr. Barlow may 
 have looked into her eyes with somewhat warmer approval than 
 was absolutely necessary. At any rate Pauline thought so. 
 Her fingers played ruthlessly with the lace of the delicate fan 
 and a chill settled upon her heart. After all, what she had 
 taken for his adoration for herself was just a temperamental 
 regard for women perhaps enhanced by natural deference to 
 an employer. 
 
 "But to prohibit young women from working for wages 
 isn't that an unwarranted interference with individual liberty 
 even though there be adequate provision to which I suppose 
 you would agree for exceptional cases?" asked the Commo- 
 dore. 
 
 "Of course there must be elasticity, Commodore," said Mr. 
 Barlow. "As to individual liberty, I suppose there is not a 
 person in this country who is not in some degree restrained in 
 his liberty. The question is whether the restraint is for the 
 greater good of the greater number in the opinion of the 
 greater number persistently expressed at the polls. Moreover, 
 since there is no inalienable or natural right to incorporate 
 and therefore no such right to contract with corporations, the 
 matter of regulating contracts between individuals and corpo- 
 rations, practically the only contracts requiring regulation, is 
 not a case of interfering with individual liberty at all but a 
 matter of regulating state-made status. I have not noticed 
 that legislatures or courts have given any consideration to 
 that point but it seems to me to be controlling." 
 
 "But, in speaking of corporations as in the category of 
 status, you seem to forget the decision in the Dartmouth 
 College Case," objected Crandall. 
 
 "Don't you miss the point, Crandall?" asked Barlow. 
 "That decision settled no political question for believers in 
 democracy. The fact that the people rested satisfied with a 
 practical way of repudiating it by further legislation binds
 
 64 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 no one outside of the narrow domain of academic corporation 
 law." 
 
 Levering laughed. 
 
 "But in the cases where both parties are individuals regu- 
 lation there is clearly an interference with individual liberty," 
 suggested Commodore Lurton. 
 
 "And therefore to be undertaken if at all upon different 
 grounds than where one party is a corporation. It seems to 
 me that individuals may and ought to be left as much as 
 possible to free contract." 
 
 "You are a queer individualist, Mr. Barlow!" growled Mr. 
 Condor. 
 
 "In an era of fake-individualism, real individualism is 
 bound to look queer," admitted the secretary. 
 
 "But a little while ago you spoke rather disparagingly of 
 discipline imposed by others," suggested Professor Mann. 
 
 "As to its effect upon progress," amended Mr. Barlow. 
 "But where individual progress lags where individuals fail to 
 grow to the requirements of the social environment discipline 
 is necessary as a stop-gap, pending wider individual progress. 
 I am not, however, advocating radical prohibitions for the 
 purposes of raising wages. Majorities do things whether they 
 are justified or not. But the more immoral or inexpedient a 
 proposed measure is, the less likely is it that majorities in 
 favor of it will be persistent enough to make it effective. 
 Probably no measure of labor prohibition grounded upon the 
 sole purpose of raising wages could come anywhere near at- 
 tracting a substantial majority of the electorate to its support. 
 But persistent majorities are supporting conservative, though 
 constantly widening prohibitions, upon the score of public 
 health. And possibly there may be some day persistent ma- 
 jorities in favor of prohibitions in behalf of a better standard 
 of living. But the very conservative movement now observable 
 towards raising the age for child labor on grounds of public 
 health especially if on the same grounds some weight is given 
 to the difference of sex will probably have great and cumu- 
 lative effect on wages. If a few men send their children out 
 to earn part of the family income the effect on wages is such 
 that other men have to do likewise. Prohibit men from sending 
 their younger children out to earn wages and the effect is 
 such that other men can and voluntarily will keep their older 
 children at school. The effect on wages is cumulative."
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 65 
 
 "But won't higher wages simply mean higher prices?" asked 
 the Commodore. 
 
 "No. There is in general no connection between higher 
 wages and higher prices until wages become so high that the 
 supply of products is effected through the unwillingness of 
 entrepreneurs to operate at the prevailing rate of profit. The 
 rate of profit wages of superintendence is not fixed, unal- 
 terable. It depends upon the willingness of entrepreneurs to 
 sell their time and ability at the prospective price. As the 
 rate of wages goes up, the rate of the wages of superintendence 
 will, other things being equal, come down. Of course if further 
 great advances in the arts should add still more to the pro- 
 ductiveness of the wage earner, wages of superintendence would 
 increase unless ordinary wages kept pace with or outstripped 
 this increased productiveness. The principal thing is to pro- 
 hibit such control of capital by means of the powerful tools 
 to which I have referred that it may easily be restricted to the 
 use of entrepreneurs bound by gentlemen's agreements or in 
 any other way to maintain profits." 
 
 "Apparently you do not hold to the theory, Mr. Barlow, 
 that after interest, rent and wages of superintendence are paid 
 the wage earners get all the rest that is, they get all they 
 produce," suggested Professor Walthall. 
 
 "Certainly I do but in making that statement one must 
 not yield to the notion that the wages of superintendence is a 
 fixed charge that must be paid at all events and at an un- 
 changeable rate. It is equally true to say that after rent, 
 interest and wages are paid the entrepreneur gets all the rest 
 but there again we must not get the notion that wages is a 
 fixed charge to be paid at all events and at an unalterable 
 rate. The better way to express it is to say that after rent 
 and interest are paid the wage earner and the entrepreneur 
 between them get all the rest dividing it betwen them in pro- 
 portion to their relative advantage in bargaining that is, in 
 dependence upon the supply and demand for laborers and 
 entrepreneurs. The supply of wage earners at a price consti- 
 tutes the demand for entrepreneurs if the price goes up some 
 of the entrepreneurs who were operating on the ragged edge 
 of failure will fall, if it goes down some men who could not 
 formerly operate at a profit now can and they become entre- 
 preneurs. On the other hand the supply of entrepreneurs at a 
 price constitutes the demand for wage earners. If there are
 
 66 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 too many to maintain profits those who can will outbid those 
 who cannot pay higher wages directly or indirectly through 
 lower prices. If there are not enough the pressure of the 
 supply of wage earners will lower wages." 
 
 "You have considerable faith in abstractions, Mr. Barlow," 
 observed Mr. Sounder, the pragmatist. 
 
 "Yes, I find most men, even pragmatists, carry abstractions 
 to the polls. The harm is not in abstractions, but in false or 
 unreal abstractions." 
 
 "Then the supply of capital has nothing to do with the rate 
 of wages," suggested Bob. 
 
 "On the contrary it has everything to do with it and also 
 with the rate of wages of superintendence. But it has nothing 
 to do with the relation between the rate of wages and the 
 rate of wages of superintendence except in so far as it blindly 
 seeks the less competent entrepreneurs or can be so controlled 
 as to be largely diverted to the special use of entrepreneurs 
 mainly corporations centrally controlled associated together 
 for profit protection." 
 
 "But do you not overlook the fact, Mr. Barlow, that there 
 are many industries where even the most efficient and most 
 advantageously placed entrepreneur works on a very small 
 margin of profit?" asked the Commodore thoughtfully. 
 
 "I have not overlooked these cases," replied Mr. Barlow. 
 "But I regard them not as typical, but exceptional. Of course 
 where the mal-adjustment of wages to product does not exist 
 there need be no readjustment," said Mr. Barlow. "Where 
 trades unions have been unusually effective, for instance, and 
 have advanced wages somewhat adequately in comparison with 
 the increased power to produce, there will be less room for an 
 advance in wages. Again, where the price of the product has 
 been kept down by law so that at a higher scale of wages no 
 entrepreneurs would be found willing to continue to operate, 
 as in the case of some public utilities, the result of a general 
 advance of wages would be either that the public would have 
 to pay more for the product in these cases, usually, service 
 or the state would have to take over such enterprises and 
 operate them at a loss. But the typical condition of industry 
 is that where the laborer working under the most fruitful man- 
 agement gets such a small part of his product and the entre- 
 preneur such a large part that there results an unstable equi- 
 librium which, unless we allow the control of capital to the use
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 67 
 
 of combinations, is in time bound to be destroyed by mere com- 
 petition. This aside from any steps the public may take as to 
 the labor of women and children. 
 
 "In Europe they do not look upon leadership as a crime," 
 Mr. Puff here interposed indignantly. 
 
 "I thought I had made it plain, Mr. Puff, that I ' be- 
 gan Mr. Barlow. 
 
 "You have, it seems to me, a distorted notion about our 
 great financial leaders," interrupted Mr. Puff. "They feel as 
 deeply as the muck-raking reformers but they keep their 
 heads." 
 
 "Nobody denies, Mr. Puff," said Mr. Walthall, "that in 
 your 'Captain of Industry and the Radical' you have drawn a 
 pretty picture of the effect of a pipe, good tobacco and a cheer- 
 ful campfire, upon the driving energies of the man of action. 
 But what is needed is not sentiment, nor even a sense of justice, 
 but enlightened self-interest and even if it is only a little 
 enlightened it will help." 
 
 "And Mr. Barlow has not been classifying men by voca- 
 tions," amended Barbara. "He has been discussing principles. 
 Every man, whatever his calling, may take his stand on either 
 side of a proposition according to its merits." 
 
 "There is no question where gentlemen should stand on the 
 labor question," quoted Mr. Puff. 
 
 "True," replied Miss Fleming dryly, "and so we come 
 around to the old question, what is a gentleman?" 
 
 The general laugh at this counter did not encourage Mr. 
 Puff to continue the series of bulletins from the old world with 
 which, from time to time, he had essayed to save the dinner 
 from being a failure. He had come prepared to be the lion of 
 the evening. The fair hostess, he thought, had listened to his 
 pronouncements from the smoking rooms of London clubs, con- 
 tinental chancellories and the ruling classes of Europe with 
 appreciation. But Miss Fleming had guided the discussion 
 with a firm hand she seemed as pestiferously persistent to 
 Mr. Puff as she did to Mr. Barlow.
 
 68 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 IX 
 
 "You admit, Mr. Barlow, that a rise in wages would elim- 
 inate some entrepreneurs," observed Mr. Condor. 
 
 "I don't admit it, exactly I assert it," laughed Mr. 
 Barlow. 
 
 "That is, the tendency of higher wages is to concentrate 
 business in stronger hands," crisply. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "But is not that one of the things you complain of?" tri- 
 umphantly. 
 
 "No. There is no objection to concentration based on 
 growth on competitive ability, service, free enterprise and 
 dependent upon the continuance of those elements. The objec- 
 tion is to concentration by artificial combination through the 
 shuffling of stock certificates leading to control of capital and 
 the perpetuation of incompetency privileged or otherwise and 
 ~to dividends upon incompetence. In short, the objection is to 
 concentration in weak hands." 
 
 "Barlow, you are my man!" quoth Bob. 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 "I want you to address us at one of the Saturday luncheons 
 of the Layman's Law Club." 
 
 "Oh, no, Lovering. I cannot do that. The circumstances 
 you know them make it quite impossible for me to do that." 
 
 But Bob, who did know the circumstances and knew where 
 the real power of disposal lay turned an inquiring look tow- 
 ards the head of the table. 
 
 Pauline, notwithstanding the chill about her heart, had 
 followed Mr. Barlow's explanations with increasing interest 
 guessing that they were prophetic of the results of the task 
 she had set him the devising of a scheme for profit-sharing. 
 She was about to give a favorable answer to Bob's appeal 
 when unfortunately Miss Fleming pushed her personality into 
 the foreground of Pauline's jealous demand upon the exclusive 
 allegiance of her secretary. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Barlow, you must ! I insist ! It was I who dis- 
 covered you and I have a right to insist. Of course,* Bob,
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 69 
 
 you will have Mr. Barlow speak on one of your ladies' days 
 and will ask me. I can't expect to be moderator, but I have 
 a right to expect a seat of honor. Nothing like asking for 
 what you want is there, Mr. Barlow. Come now, speak up. 
 Tell Bob he must give me the seat of honor." . 
 
 "Really, Miss Fleming, if it were not quite impossible for 
 me to do this I should feel flattered to it has not been my 
 retailing of views largely second hand your management 
 er keen appreciation of the point under 
 
 The fan in Pauline's lap had an unpleasant moment. 
 
 "Can't you manage it, Pauline?" asked Bob. 
 
 "Mr. Barlow really has a great deal to do, Bob," replied 
 the young hostess as calmly as she could. "I don't believe 
 I think he had better not undertake the exposition of his the- 
 ories in public." 
 
 The words were hardly out of her mouth before, catching 
 a momentary glance from her secretary, she realized that he 
 had taken them as a public reproof. Contrition followed upon 
 irritation and she would have attempted to put a different 
 meaning upon her words. But in the disturbed state of her 
 feelings she could think of no addendum that would not turn 
 apparent criticism into apparent apology for his theories. 
 
 Barbara turned a puzzled face from Pauline's to that of 
 Mr. Barlow. Not knowing the relation between them, she 
 could not understand Bob's appeal to their hostess nor her 
 assumption of right to decide it. 
 
 "Well, I don't quite understand but it's not my party, 
 so there, I have an idea. Let's have another dinner just 
 like this with orderly discussion of topics worth while. Ev- 
 erybody listen ! I invite you all to dine with us in Newport 
 say four weeks from tonight if that suits everybody. How 
 will that suit you, Mr. Barlow? You cannot plead work at 
 night as an excuse I shan't allow it. I shall have one or two 
 others worthy of your steel. Not that the men and women 
 here tonight have not been keen enough. But we must have new 
 issues raised. You will accept, Pauline? And you, Mr. Bar- 
 low first of all we must find a night to suit you. Will four 
 weeks from tonight suit you?" 
 
 Realizing that he was not at his own disposal and that he 
 was in disgrace with his mistress because of his forwardness 
 in expressing his opinions, Mr. Barlow's embarrassment had
 
 70 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 grown apace with the unfolding of Miss Fleming's plan for 
 an adjourned discussion. 
 
 "I fear that you will think it very unappreciative of me 
 but you must not take it that way circumstances beyond my 
 control it is really impossible " 
 
 "Oh, no, Mr. Barlow. You must not decline. That eve- 
 ning is just a suggestion. But there are several others, one 
 of which must surely suit your convenience." 
 
 Mr. Barlow looked very uncomfortable. Pauline was quick 
 to seize the opportunity to undo the impression her former 
 words had raised in her secretary's over-sensitive imagination. 
 
 "I accept, for one, Barbara," she said. "And four weeks 
 from tonight will suit me very well if it fits the engagements 
 of the others. And if you will leave it to me I think I know 
 that I can promise to to persuade Mr. Barlow to be one 
 of the party. He is very busy I happen to know but I 
 will produce him. He can't refuse to be my escort." 
 
 She caught Mr. Barlow's eye and was pleased to see the 
 look of relief in it. However, he did not permit himself to 
 believe that his indiscretion was to be overlooked. 
 
 "She has accepted just to save my face. She will find 
 some excuse later," he told himself. 
 
 "That is very nice of you, Pauline," said Barbara her 
 face nevertheless indicating her mystification. "And it is so 
 necessary to have Mr. Barlow present that I shall leave him to 
 your persuasion. But I am \ery much displeased with him 
 for not accepting my invitation directly." 
 
 And she gave Mr. Barlow a look of pretended disapproval. 
 
 "Then perhaps this is a convenient moment to adjourn to 
 the music room," said Pauline, preparing to rise. 
 
 "Oh, but Pauline Barbara my question! Mr. Barlow 
 has not answered it," exclaimed Mrs. Lurton. 
 
 But Pauline had caught an appealing look from her secre- 
 tary and in spite of Mrs. Lurton's protest arose. She knew 
 now that all Mr. Barlow's courage and self-confidence had 
 evaporated. Though she still felt uneasy at having pained 
 him by her apparent disapproval and determined to make it 
 plain to him at the very earliest moment possible that he had 
 misunderstood, she was conscious of a certain amount of ela- 
 tion in the knowledge that his moods were so sensitive to her 
 touch. 
 
 "Since our thoughts have turned to more practical con-
 
 PAULINE PARSONS 71 
 
 cerns, Mrs. Lurton, I think the others may not be interested 
 in the answer to your question," she said apologetically to that 
 lady. "But I hereby order Mr. Barlow to answer you pri- 
 vately forthwith." 
 
 Having seen her guests comfortably disposed to listen to 
 the music, Pauline, observing Bob seated alone near the door- 
 way into the drawingroom, took a seat beside him. She be- 
 came aware at once that Mrs. Lurton had captured Mr. 
 Barlow. They were seated just without the music room and 
 her secretary was speaking. 
 
 "So I would not let Mr. Balfour's gloomy forebodings 
 worry me if I were you, Mrs. Lurton nor any alleged buga- 
 boos of philosophical materialism, so-called. We know nothing 
 of dissolution on a universal scale. That this world may some- 
 time be a dead world is probable enough, but that the whole 
 universe will revert to chaos, or that the gain man makes on 
 this earth will be lost to the universe or to him is not implied 
 in any theory of evolution that I know of certainly not in 
 Spencer's. But the main thing is to remember that science, 
 positive knowledge, all important to us here, tells us nothing 
 about the Absolute. 'God is in his heaven' just the same 
 though we allow no man's theories about him to guide our 
 conduct." 
 
 "I cannot tell you how much good you have done me, Mr. 
 Barlow," said Mrs. Lurton, putting her hand impulsively upon 
 his arm. "I have always leaned towards beliefs based on the 
 solid foundations of experience they seem so much more satis- 
 fying, so much more real and above all so much more fruitful 
 but I have been constantly under that chilling sense of 
 hopelessness you know that questioning: 
 
 'What is it all if we all of us end but in being our own corpse- 
 coffins at last, 
 
 Swallow'd in Vastness, lost in Silence, drown'd in the deeps 
 of a meaningless Past? 
 
 What but a murmur of gnats in the gloom, or a moment's 
 anger of bees in their hive?' 
 
 I see now that authoritative interpretation of the Vastness 
 is beyond our powers, but the interpretations of this world are 
 just the interpretations we are in this world fit to make."
 
 72 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 "Let me congratulate you on the acquisition of your new 
 secretary, Pauline," said Bob in a low tone. "This has been 
 a most stimulating discussion." 
 
 "Oh, Bob, thank you!" responded Pauline, her eyes beam- 
 ing with pleasure. "Mr. Barlow is just the kind of secretary 
 a person in my circumstances needs. And don't you see that 
 he has reached the fundamental obstacles to democratic pro- 
 gress, real individualism, positive idealism? Every philosophy 
 which seeks to divorce us from the 'ordinary understanding 
 with which we generalize' substituting something that needs 
 interpretation by proclamation is a tool in the hands of the 
 pseudo-individualists who hope to continue to govern the world 
 for their personal pleasure or profit. If these volunteer ad- 
 ministrators of men are thorough-going intuitionists or intui- 
 tionists of the Kantian type they favor straight-out plutocracy 
 or straight-out feudalism or a combination of them as they 
 lean more heavily upon the divine foundations of private prop- 
 erty or upon the divine right of kings. If they are of the 
 Hegelian type they believe in safe-guarding their ends by a 
 hand-in-glove arrangement with a controlled bureaucracy. If 
 they are pragmatists they see that systematic transcendental- 
 ism does not appeal to the multitude the growing political 
 power and want to be free to appeal now to science, now to 
 transcendentalism, again, perhaps, to mysticism, as it suits 
 the temper, knowledge, prejudices, interests or even the press- 
 ing needs of the electorate." 
 
 "Yes, facile pens may easily be hired to make appropriate 
 suggestion to those who are always too ready to play the part 
 of Esau," commented Lovering. 
 
 "Of course, as Mr. Barlow says," continued Pauline, "the 
 a priori philosophers may be perfectly honest the corrupt 
 and selfish are not the worst enemies to progress." 
 
 "There is going to be plenty of novelty watching the little 
 old world take the curves," said Lovering after a moment's 
 pause. 
 
 "And, with better knowledge of the 'laws of life and the 
 conditions of existence,' trying to keep it near the straight 
 line," added Pauline.
 
 ERRATA 
 
 P. 7, line 32. Parson's should read Parsons'. 
 P. 11, line 24. know should read knew. 
 P. 37, line 1. disengenuous should read disingenuous. 
 line 12. beaurcaucracy should read bureaucracy. 
 
 line 17. The comma (,) after really should be 
 omitted. 
 
 P. 45, lines 40 and 41. beaurocrat should read bureau- 
 crat. 
 
 P. 55, line 16. purchaser should read purchasers. 
 
 line 17. There should be a comma (,) after item. 
 
 line 18. The comma (,) after moreover should be 
 omitted. 
 
 P. 67, line 24. quoted should read quoth.
 
 72 PAULINE PARSONS 
 
 "Let me congratulate you on the acquisition of your new 
 secretary, Pauline," said Bob in a low tone. "This has been 
 a most stimulating discussion." 
 
 "Oh, Bob, thank you !" responded Pauline, her eyes beam- 
 ing with pleasure. "Mr. Barlow is just the kind of secretary 
 a person in my circumstances needs. And don't you see that 
 * Koc rpached the fundamental obstacles to democratic pro- 
 
 "And, with better knowledge of the 'laws 01 me anv* ^..^ 
 conditions of existence,' trying to keep it near the straight 
 line," added Pauline.
 
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