Religion is said to be one of the supreme concerns of the human race, and there can be no doubt that it forces itself into the calculations of every one of us. It is a matter about which we fight and differ, about which we interest ourselves in various degrees in proportion to the development of our spiritual and emotional nature, and which only a minority conscientiously consider to be of vital consequence. But there is another concern which enters equally surely into all our calculations, for which we fight without differing, about which we interest ourselves in various degrees in proportion to the development of our material nature, and which only a small minority consider _not_ to be of vital consequence. After the satisfaction of our animal appetites it is our first preoccupation. To some it presents itself as the very first consideration on which even the satisfaction of their appetites must depend. All great human efforts at progress, whether they issue from religious, political, scientific, social, or economic sources, get checked and thwarted sooner or later, because of the universal acceptance of a dominant principle, so powerful and so insinuating that it permeates the views and convictions of men, whether they be of high or low degree, and irrespective of their creed and nationality. This bond that unites all civilised humanity is not a great uplifting ideal nor a divine inspiration. It has more the nature of a malignant and infectious disease by which we are all contaminated. It can be expressed in one single and familiar word--MONEY--that is to say the unqualified belief in money as a means, money as an end, aim, object, ideal; money as representing the method of securing a greater degree of physical wellbeing, money as power, money as pleasure, money, therefore, as happiness. It is a deep-rooted and at present ineradicable conviction which we hold without doubt and without question. A little money, we argue, is obviously indispensable, a little more money we are all of us continually declaring that we want, a good deal of money we are convinced brings a decided increase in happiness, and a vast amount of money must therefore mean a great power for good.