depth and extent of the misery of my fellow-creatures separated from the divine harmony, and it was heavier than I could bear, and I was crushed under it. I lifted up my hand, I stretched out my arm, but there was none to help me; I looked round about and was amazed. In the depths of my misery, O Lord, I remembered that thou art omnipotent, that I had called thee Father, and I felt that I loved thee, and I was made quiet in my will, and I waited for deliverance from thee. Thou hadst pity upon me when no man could help me. I saw that meekness under suffering was showed to us in the most affecting example of thy Son, and thou taught me to follow him, and I said, "Thy will, O Father, be done! " And so the will of the Father was done; he entered into the larger life October 5, 1772.

To Stephen Girard, as to Woolman, the end-or the beginning-came at last. He had toiled on through a tortuous course of harassing public and private affairs, had held to his oars like a wretched galley slave, was worn out with ceaseless cares, exhausted of nerve force until he succumbed to insomnia, disgusted even with money-making, anxious only to occupy himself with business. There were rifts in the clouds, and an occasional gleam of optimism shot through the rifts. He served his city well during the dreadful days of the plague, flinging himself into danger without fear and, perhaps, with the secret wish that death might come and end his impoverished life. He died; and the Quaker City decreed him a public funeral. Over the dust of the French infidel, the miser, the inhospitable cynic, rises his monument-the majestic college. The story of his life, whatever its value, has no inspiration for the two-worldly or other-worldly man-for him who would attain the true peace and completeness of living. To write Woolman's Journal and live Woolman's life would be greater honor than to gather millions of money at the price of peace and of fellowship with the best men of the ages.

On Thursday, August 16, 1894, as I rode through the streets of Mount Holly, the door of the old Friends' meeting house, built in 1775, stood open. It was "fifth day," and meeting was to be held. Before noon of that day I stood at the gates of Girard College, and was given a card containing an extract from the will of Stephen Girard prohibiting the admission of any "ecclesiastic, missionary, or minister of any sect whatsoever, ... for any purpose, or as a visitor." Because the hands of William T. Harris and Stephen M. Merrill had once been im

posed upon my head in ordination I was not permitted to pass the lodge. Had I sat in the lowly brick meeting house, unadorned and obscure, I would have been in fellowship with the spirits of just men made perfect and with the Spirit of God. Had I entered the halls of Girard College I should have been impressed by majesty of architecture and grandeur of wealth; but, beyond and beneath, I would have had visions of a sorrowsmitten, pessimistic, cynical infidel. He has often been styled a philanthropist. I fancy he would sneer at the title. Woolman would decline it, too; but in his heart he loved God, and in his heart he loved all his fellow-men.

G

M. Hammell,

ART. VI.-SOCIAL AND ETHICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF INDIVIDUAL WEALTH.

Is a man really culpable of moral misdemeanor if he becomes very wealthy? In other words, is it wicked to get rich? A certain number of persons seem disposed to answer these questions in the affirmative. The theory is not a new one; but of late it has taken a more definite form and is, therefore, more influential. It is not the sole object of this paper to refute the doctrine or to convert the believers in it from the error of their ways; but, since a vague feeling prevails more or less widely that there is not only an unequal, but an unjust, distribution of wealth, it is desirable to get a clearer conception of the good and evil involved in the actual conditions. Let us examine the grounds of the conviction that large accumulations by a limited number of the members of a community, while others are only moderately provided for and still others are miserably poor, are intrinsically vicious.

The main assumption appears to be that only a certain amount of wealth can be created, and only so much as can be produced by manual labor. Even if this were so there would still be inequalities; for manual laborers differ widely in their powers of production, one man's ability in this respect being three, five, or, perhaps, ten times as great as that of another. It is true that these are usually ranked as skilled laborers; but skilled labor, in its proper sense, depends upon certain physical qualities. On the whole, they may be classed among manual workers. But the power to produce wealth in any extraor dinary degree is purely psychical. It ranges all the way from moderate cleverness in adapting means to ends to consummate genius. In its general characteristics it is entirely analogous— we might say entirely similar-to powers that are exclusively intellectual. We know how widely men differ in respect of scientific, literary, and artistic abilities, and how few there are who attain to really great competence as statesmen or as military leaders. There is no reason for believing that men differ any less in those capabilities which are essential to the production of wealth. Nor is there any basis for the assumption that only a limited amount of wealth can be created by a single in

dividual. Production is the rendering of the utilities of nature available to man. The resources of nature are practically infinite; the ability to lay hold of them is all that is needed; and there is no reason for limiting this power to anything heretofore achieved.

The psychical factors operating in the production of wealth are both more numerous and more influential than have been apprehended by the majority of even able thinkers. Leaving out for the present the added power that has come through the invention of machinery, by which production is increased from five to fifty fold, and the scientific discoveries on which these inventions rest, we may yet readily see how largely the creation of wealth is due to mere mental ability. We have instances where, by the simple organization of a force of laboring men and a skillful distribution of the work according to individual capacity, the product has been increased to more than two hundred times the previous amount, and this, too, by purely handicraft process. Clearly enough the increase in these cases was the result of superior mental, and not of manual, power. Still more remarkable is the effect of the ingenuity of man when working with machinery.

The plea is made by certain socialistic writers that, while it is true that this great increase of productive effect has its source in psychical, rather than physical, causes, it is also true that the men who possess the former are dependent on manual laborers, and, therefore, that these should be, if not equal sharers in the industrial result, at least larger sharers than they are. The general tendency of thought with the class of thinkers to whom reference is made is that there should be an equality of distribution. If by this were only meant that the amount going to the manual laborers should be equal to that going to employers it might be replied that the former do now receive not only as large an amount, but even much more. In the annual report for 1893 upon the manufactures of the State of Massachusetts by the Bureau of Statistics we find that in nine leading industries, embracing more than nineteen hundred establishments, the amount directly paid in wages was fifty-five per cent of the whole product, while that paid indirectly would make a considerable addition. In many instances it went up to sixty, and even sixty-five, per cent. But this is not accepted

as a fair equivalent by many. Some go to the extent of insisting that every laborer should receive as much as any proprietor. This would, of course, imply an equality of compensation among the laborers themselves. It would be difficult to show that ethical justice demands such a distribution. If it is to be conceded it must be either on the ground of benevolence or of industrial policy. On these topics something further will appear as we go on.

As to the principle that the mutual dependence of manual laborers and the entrepreneur implies the right of sharing equally in the product, it is evidently contrary to the practical judgment of man in other and analogous social relations. No one really thinks that the organ blower should receive equal credit with the man who handles the keys in a musical performance; and yet the latter is as really dependent on the former as the man of great business ability is on his workmen. The sculptor is dependent on the common quarryman and the stone hewer for the block out of which he makes his statue; but no one claims that the latter are entitled to an equal share with the former in the merit, to say nothing of the pecuniary result, of the production.

It is further to be noted that the dependence of the two parties is not wholly mutual. It is admitted that the manual laborer is dependent on the ability of the capitalist employer for the opportunity to labor in any largely productive way, and that the latter is dependent on the former. But it seems to be overlooked that, while the latter can do all that the former can, the former cannot do all that the latter can. Karl Marx makes it his main indictment of the present industrial system and a reason why it should give place to collectivism that all the surplus product of labor-that is, all save the bare pittance necessary for subsistence-is appropriated by the employer, who is a mere exploiter of labor, himself creating no value. Leaving out of account for the present the contradiction of the bare pittance allegation by a multitude of facts, the doctrine that the employer or entrepreneur produces nothing is easily refuted. It has already been seen how great is the increase of product from organization and skillful distribution of the laborers, and that the power to effect this to much advantage resides in only a few minds. One can see at a glance