In our day there is a tendency toward extension of state functions which after all is perhaps no more than symmetrical in view of the general expansion of larger structures in every sphere. It does not seem to outstrip the growth, for instance, of private corporations, or labor unions, or of individual wealth. It is easy to see a tendency to state socialism if you look only at the new functions of the state; easy to see an opposite tendency if you fix your attention on private organization. Whether or not the state is _relatively_ increasing its sphere is not easy to decide. The new conditions of life bring men closer together, creating a general need of wider organization; and, so far as now appears, this need is to be met by the simultaneous development of various structures already well begun; such as popular government and education, private industrial and commercial corporations, labor unions, mutual-aid societies, philanthropical associations, and so on. The special demand for state extension seems to spring chiefly from two conditions: the need to control the exorbitant power of private economic associations, and the need of meeting novel problems arising from life in great cities. In these and similar directions an intelligent and practised democracy will proceed tentatively, “with the firm foot below,” always balancing the loss against the gain. Experiments in political socialism are sure to be tried, which will prove instructive and perhaps beneficial. How far they will be carried no man can say, but I see no special reason to fear that they will go to any pernicious extreme. FOOTNOTES: [174] If the reader is not clear as to what I mean by public will, I beg to refer him to chapters I, XII and XXXIV. [175] These principles are much the same as those put forth by W. S. Jevons. See his Methods of Social Reform, 355. [176] Compare Simon N. Patten, The New Basis of Civilization, 124. CHAPTER XXXVI SOME PHASES OF THE LARGER WILL GROWING EFFICIENCY OF THE INTELLECTUAL PROCESSES—ORGANIC IDEALISM—THE LARGER MORALITY—INDIRECT SERVICE—INCREASING SIMPLICITY AND FLEXIBILITY IN SOCIAL STRUCTURE—PUBLIC WILL SAVES PART OF THE COST OF CHANGE—HUMAN NATURE THE GUIDING FORCE BEHIND PUBLIC WILL. The main source of a more effective public will is to be sought not, peculiarly, in the greater activity of government, but in the growing efficiency of the intellectual and moral processes as a whole. This general striving of the public mind toward clearer consciousness is too evident to escape any observer. In every province of life a multiform social knowledge is arising and, mingling with the higher impulses of human nature, is forming a system of rational ideals, which through leadership and emulation gradually work their way into practice.