Never did such a
mass of material offer so fine a field for investigation. What
has been found; what new principle has sprung from this mass;
what solution of the many problems of long standing has been
reached; what new direction have studies taken?
One question, among others, seems to have been prepared for a
final judgment,--pauperism. Pauperism, of all the phenomena of
the civilized world, is today the best known: we know pretty
nearly whence it comes, when and how it arrives, and what it
costs; its proportion at various stages of civilization has been
calculated, and we have convinced ourselves that all the
specifics with which it hitherto has been fought have been
impotent. Pauperism has been divided into genera, species, and
varieties: it is a complete natural history, one of the most
important branches of anthropology. Well I the unquestionable
result of all the facts collected, unseen, shunned, covered by
the economists with their silence, is that pauperism is
constitutional and chronic in society as long as the antagonism
between labor and capital continues, and that this antagonism can
end only by the absolute negation of political economy.
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