Functional socialism

FUNCTION Si

I answer that I am not predicating an immediate or even an ultimate reign of reason. Life is too difficult and complex. But the very complexities that surround us at every turn compel us to seek some method of systematizing our problems: urgently demand the appropriate media in which we shall express our wills and aspirations. Above all, that we must ever distinguish between the economic means and the spiritual ends. Means and ends necessarily react upon each other, even though they are in different categories of thought and action. The tragedy of modern life is that the great mass of mankind is preoccupied with the means of life and not with its purpose.

There is, in this connection, a point of view not to be ignored. It might be termed the idealization of the real. It assumes that we find our spiritual satisfaction, the kindling of the imagination and the intellectual life, in the work we do. Kipling was its prophet:—

For still the Lord is Lord of might:

In deeds, in deeds, he takes delight; The plough, the spear, the laden barks, The field, the founded city marks.

This, of course, is materialism alluringly depicted. We should, indeed, do injustice to the practical genius of the British race not to recognize that a people that has girdled the globe with material marvels, with a literature and a jurisprudence grown out of these achievements, is a people instinct with faith and spiritual power. But it is precisely because of these qualities that we must beware. Preoccupation with