The great ones of the world have taken this earth of ours to themselves; they live in the midst of splendour and superfluity. The smallest nook of the land is already a possession; none may touch it or meddle with it.--_Goethe._ I have by no means exhausted the evils of the system under which we live in the brief catalogue I have made for you, my friend. If it were necessary, I could compile an immense volume of authentic evidence to overwhelm you with a sense of the awful failure of our civilization to produce a free, united, healthy, happy and virtuous people, which I conceive to be the goal toward which all good and wise men should aspire. But it is dreary and unpleasant work recounting evil conditions; constantly looking at the sores of society is a morbid and soul-destroying task. I want you now to consider the cause of industrial misery and social inequality, to ask yourself why these conditions exist. For we can never hope to remove the evils, Jonathan, until we have discovered the underlying causes. How does it happen that some people are thrifty and virtuous and yet miserably poor and that others are thriftless and sinful and yet so rich that their riches weigh them down and make them as miserable as the very poorest? Why, in the name of all that is fair and good, have we got such a stupid, wasteful, unjust and unlovely social system after all the long centuries of human experience and toil? When you can answer these questions, my friend, you will know whither to look for deliverance. You said in your letter to me the other day, Jonathan, that you thought things were bad because of the wickedness of man's nature. Lots of people believe that. The churches have taught that doctrine for ages, but I do not believe that it is true. It is a doctrine which earnest men who have been baffled in trying to find a satisfactory explanation for the evils have accepted in desperation. It is the doctrine of pessimism, despair and wild unfaith in man. If it were true that things were so bad as they are just because men were wicked and because there never were good men enough to make them better, we should not have any ground for hope for the future. I propose to try and show you that the wickedness of our poor human nature is not responsible for the terrible social conditions, so that you will not have to depend for your hope of a better society upon the very slender thread of the chance of getting enough good men to make conditions better. Bad conditions make bad lives, Jonathan, and will continue to do so. Instead of depending upon getting good men first to make conditions good, we must make conditions good so that good lives may flourish and grow in them naturally.