Bourgeois America, which means most of America, is, as every one sees, on the verge of a revolution like the political-social revolution of 1800. For a century we have pursued economics, and now economics is pursuing us. A new class is coming to the front, and yet that, perhaps, is of minor importance in America, where money and a little education extinguish distinctions between classes in two decades. What is coming with more significance is a new social system, wherein a new control of industry and a more equitable distribution of the products thereof is to be substituted for competitive individualism. Many are skeptical of the proposed practices by which this revolution is to be accomplished; few now doubt that its theory is correct and will some day be demonstrated. But there has never been a revolution of any kind in world history that did not bring with it a revolution of all that tradition had established and custom made familiar. And this revolution, peaceful or otherwise, that is upon us differs from earlier examples in that its economic nature is clearly distinguished and, therefore, its challenge to all that we term esthetic, cultural, spiritual, religious, doubly sharp and direct. Food, clothing, and recreation, not religious or political liberty, are its legitimate, but also its only expressed, objects. If it gains these at the expense of the soul--of what we all understand by the soul in the ancient warning, “What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”--if it gains material welfare and material welfare only, it will fail; and if it fails, we all go down with it.