Earth-hunger and Other Essays |
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abuse anarchistic become capital century chance civil liberty consequences definition demand democracy doctrine dogma duties earth hunger economic effect effort element emancipation enjoy equal erty ethical fact folly force functions give guarantee ical ideals increase individual industrial institutions intelligence interests labor land legislation limited living mankind marriage matter means ment modern monogamic Monroe doctrine moral natural monopoly natural rights never nomic notion of liberty organization Panama Congress parents persons phantasms phenomena philosophy plutocracy political popular population position possession poverty present primitive privileges proposition question railroad reason regard regulation relations responsibility revolt savage seems sense sentiment serf servitude slavery slaves social science social war struggle for existence things tion true truth wage slavery wealth whole WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER
Popular passages
Page 17 - The scientific man has above all things to strive at self-elimination in his judgments, to provide an argument which is as true for each individual mind as for his own. The classification of facts, the recognition of their sequence and relative significance is the function of science, and the habit of forming a judgment upon these facts unbiased by personal feeling is characteristic of what may be termed the scientific frame of mind.
Page 230 - Let every man be sober, industrious, prudent, and wise, and bring up his children to be so likewise, and poverty will be abolished in a few generations.
Page 376 - When a father flogs his son, the true doctrine seems to be that the son should run away and seek a life of adventure. When he does this he has no difficulty in finding friends, or in living by his wits, so that he makes money and comes back rich and glorious, to find his father in the poorhouse. These periodicals seem to be intended for boys from twelve to sixteen years of age, although they often treat of older persons. Probably many boys outgrow them and come to see the folly and falsehood of them....
Page 17 - The classification of facts and the formation of absolute judgments upon the basis of this classification — judgments independent of the idiosyncrasies of the individual mind — is peculiarly the scope and method of modern science. The scientific man has above all things, to strive at self-elimination in his judgments, to provide an argument which is as true for each individual mind as for his own. The classification of facts, the recognition of their sequence and relative significance is the...
Page 375 - ... extreme. In regard to details the supposed code of English brutality prevails, especially in the stories which have English local color, but it is always mixed with the code of the revolver, and, in many of the stories, the latter is taught in its fullness. These youngsters generally carry revolvers and use them at their good discretion. Every youth who aspires to manliness ought to get and carry a revolver. A boy ought to cheat the penurious father who does not give him as much money as he finds...
Page 218 - Men never cling to their dreams with such tenacity as at the moment when they are losing faith in them, and know it, but do not yet dare to confess it to themselves.
Page 368 - Health. be that of the gambler, one day " flush " and wasteful, another day ruined and in misery. There is another type of boy who sometimes furnishes the hero of a story, but who also figures more or less in all of them. That is the imp of mischief — the sort of boy who is an intolerable nuisance to the neighborhood. The stories are told from the standpoint of the boy, so that he seems to be a fine fellow, and all the world, which is against him, is unjust and overbearing. His father, the immediate...
Page 63 - Nothing can quench that; for, as we have seen, it is the impulse which drives the human race to enter upon and enjoy its patrimony, the earth; but such a conception of the civilized races of the world in their relation to each other would bring into a clear light the difference between the extension of industry and commerce on the one side and political aggrandizement on the other. This distinction is no new thing; it is recognized and acted upon by all the most enlightened economists, publicists,...
Page 115 - Liberty is the natural faculty of that which it is permitted to any one to do, unless something has been prohibited to him by force or law. Slavery is an institution of the law of nations, by which any one is subjected to the rule of another, against nature. Servi are so called because military commanders are wont to sell captives, and so to preserve (servare) them and not kill them.
Page 367 - Few gentlemen, who have occasion to visit news-offices, can have failed to notice the periodical literature for boys, which has been growing up during the last few years. The increase in the number of these papers and magazines, and the appearance, from time to time, of new ones, which, to judge by the pictures, are always worse than the old, seem to indicate that they find a wide market. Moreover, they appear not only among the idle and vicious boys in great cities, but also among school-boys whose...