The seed had been sown, however. A younger man took up the idea, and made researches in the South Seas--substantiating the claim that those races which took to anthropophagy had invariably supplanted the others. The new investigator printed his findings in a book which was circulated privately; and pretty soon he was called into consultation by the master-mind of the country’s finance--the richest man in the world. This man was old and bald and feeble; and now suddenly there came to him a new lease of life--new health and new enthusiasm. It was given out that he had got it by wandering about bare-footed in the grass, and playing golf all day--an explanation which the public accepted without question. No one remarked the fact that the old man began devoting his wealth to the establishing of foundling asylums; nor did any one think it suspicious that the younger generation of this multi-millionaire should rise so suddenly to power and fame. But there began to be strange rumors and suspicions. There were young writers, who had developed a new technique, and had carried poetic utterance to undreamed of heights; and in this poetry were cryptic allusions, hints of diabolic things. A Socialist paper printed the ménu of a banquet given by these “Neo-Nietzscheans”, and demanded to know what one was to understand by _filet de mouton blanc_, and wherein lay the subtle humor of _paté de petit bête_. And at last the storm broke--a youth scarcely in his teens published a book of poems in which the dread secret was blazoned forth to the world with mocking defiance. There were frantic attempts to suppress this book, but they failed; and then a prosecuting officer, eager for notoriety, placed the youth upon trial for his life. And so the issue was drawn. The public at large awakened to a dazed realization of the head-way which the new idea had made. It had become a cult of the ruling-class, the esoteric religion of the state; everywhere its defenders sprang up--it seemed as if all the intellectual as well as the material power of the community was under its spell. To oppose it was not merely bad form--it was to incur a stigma of moral inferiority, to be the victim of a “slave-ethic”. With the scientific world, of course, its victory was speedy; the new doctrine was in line with recognized evolutionary teaching. The great names of Darwin and Spencer were invoked in its support; and, of course, when it came to economic science, there could be no two opinions. Had _laissez-faire_ ever meant anything, if _laissez-faire_ did not mean this?