_First_, that social reform, either moderate or in its extreme expression as Communism or Bolshevism, is a modern obsession, resulting from a gratuitous concentration upon the material conditions alone of one class only of the community; and that all changes that are inspired by this obsession are certain to be wrong and utterly disastrous, seeing that it takes no cognisance of the great unhappiness that is unconnected with the state of indigence. _Second_, that the relation of happiness to material conditions is a subject of such deep misunderstanding at the present day that, at all events, reforms which rely too obstinately upon the accepted and general [p173] view of this relation, are sure to lead to the most distressing blunders, without relieving by one iota, the burden of misery that is borne by the whole population, rich and poor alike. In conclusion, the following considerations may prove of value in regard to the general question of social reform, and to the particular question of happiness:-- _The present state of settled despondency in all classes may be the result of a number of agencies, with the continued operation of any one of which it might be fatal to start a new era with any hope of achieving greater happiness._ _The world has come to its present pass by means of the observance of hundreds of values, among which it is possible that the most unsuspected are the most powerful causes of the general decline in the joie de vivre._ For instance, to make a few suggestions at random, it is possible that the general European attitude of toleration towards disease, crippledom, congenital debility and physical disabilities of all kinds, may be totally wrong. It may be that the steady infection of the healthy mass of the people by the careful perpetuation, preservation and propagation, of the population’s unhealthiest elements, may have acted as a gradual poison in four ways: (_a_) as a depressing spectacle and therefore as a destroyer of joy to the sensative; (_b_) as an unnecessary burden upon the hale and the hearty, exacting too heavy a toll from their energy and good spirits; (_c_), as a source of deterioration to the healthiest elements in the race; and (_d_) negatively, by making it difficult for the desirable percentage of very successful creatures to be [p174] born,--those creatures who, by their beauty, grace and wanton spirits, ennoble life, by holding up a lofty example of Life’s highest possibilities. It is possible, that is to say, that Humanitarianism is merely an inverted form of cruelty; in other words, instead of directing their cruelty against the undesirable, humanitarians direct it against the desirable, and cheerfully sacrifice the hale and the hearty to the physiologically botched.