‘Because being one has made them big and strong, or rather big and rich. Because the central government made commerce easier between men in different States, and thus assisted the great development of the country which has marked the years since the Civil War. In particular the victory secured the market of the defeated States for the manufacturers of the North. It is necessary to remember these things, for in America it is the manufacturers and their wives who decide what other people shall think, for among their other products they manufacture public opinion.’ ‘Come, Socrates,’ said Agathon, ‘you forget your old friends the preachers.’ ‘Well,’ I replied, ‘I find the preachers have great influence. Yet they only succeed in those matters where the manufacturers support them, though the union of the two is irresistible.’ ‘What would happen,’ asked Lysis, ‘if the preachers wished one thing and the manufacturers another?’ ‘That seldom happens,’ I said. ‘For the majority of preachers have never been known to wage a campaign against any activities that are thought desirable by the men of commerce, such as the prostitution of the soul which is called salesmanship, or the concentration upon business success which is called “making good.” But they attack those pleasures of ordinary men, like gambling and drinking, which the manufacturers will support them in attacking. For I verily believe they think it worse to be a drunkard than to sell one’s soul for gold. Nor is it difficult to understand how they have reached even such absurdities as this.’ ‘We are listening,’ they said. ‘Why, they hold that some sins might unfit a man to serve the Gods, and in particular the God Progress, for they do not value all the gods equally, and to Bacchus they will not agree to pay any honours at all. Now, to those who think like that, a man will seem not wholly bad though the reasonable part of his soul be subordinated to a shameless desire for pelf, because such a man can play his part, and, indeed, be a leader, in that industrial life, walking calmly among the whirring wheels and running the machines whose buzz they consider a perpetual song of praise to Progress. But a drunkard cannot safely assist at these services.’ ‘He might,’ said Agathon, ‘if he would not mind being caught up in the wheels and immolated as a sacrifice, but I can well believe he sees enough things going round as it is without going into factories to see more.’ ‘So the manufacturers,’ I resumed, ‘were strongly in favour of this Civil War, and the preachers were with them. And these two parties make up the minds of millions of people.’ ‘It must be fine fun, Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘to make up so many minds like that.’