DEDICATED
TO THE
MEMBERS OF CLUB C
PREFACE
As we unravel political knots, they resolve themselves into proverbs and familiar truth, and thus our explanation becomes a treatise upon human nature,—a profession of faith.
The idea that man is an unselfish animal has gradually been forced upon me, by the course of reflection which I give in the following chapters, in the order in which it occurred to me. The chapters are little more than presentations from different points of view of this one idea. The chapters on Politics and Society seem to show that our political corruptions and social inferiorities can be traced to the same source,—namely, temporary distortion of human character by the forces of commerce. The chapter on Education is a study on the law of intellectual growth, and shows that a normal and rounded development can only come from a use of the faculties very different from that practised by the average American since the discovery of the cotton gin.
The chapter on Democracy is a review of that subject by the light of the conclusions as to the Nature of Man, arrived at in the Essay on Education; and it is seen that our frame of government is in accord with sound philosophy, and is a constant influence tending to correct the distortions described in the first two chapters. In the final chapter on Government, some illustrations are drawn together, showing that the whole course of reasoning of the book contains nothing novel, but accords with the ideals and with the wisdom of the world.
The book itself arose out of an attempt to explain an election.
J. J. C.
ROKEBY, June 10, 1898.