Functional socialism

CHAPTER VIII MOTIVE

Mortve is the urge in us towards what we want. There are many other definitions, doubtless more scholarly or more scientific; but I like my own best. The question is: what do we want? It will be found that the community, through its individual citizens, wants everything, from an occasional “‘binge’’ to the satisfaction of high and noble ambition. There is a little, harmless man down the road who dreams of a first prize for pansies at the local fower show. The farmers all round me are given to bloodstock. They conscientiously farm, but they spend time and money on horses and cattle that will some day bring home a blue or yellow ribbon from the ‘‘Royal”’ or the “Bath and West”. I know a railway clerk who “scorns delights and lives laborious days” studying finance. He is determined to write a classic on the subject. In my village is a splendidly built young man who means to be the referee at the Cup Final. Another young man I know wants to get into a motor car works. Not for commercial reasons, but because he is fascinated by the mechanism. Myself, when young, was determined to play “‘soccer” for

Ireland and lead a proletarian revolt. I fondly G