Читать книгу The Reign of Gilt онлайн

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How will we do it? It is not given to man to foresee even one minute of his own future. But, since triumph we must, rest assured that triumph we shall. If you wish to make a shrewd guess as to the how of it, watch the motions of that infant of yesterday, Science. Already Science has given to us all a thousand things that not the richest of our grandparents could afford, nor the most powerful command. Beyond question it will presently unlock the secrets of the composition of matter and show us how every object that now enters into private wealth or is rationally sought by human desire can be obtained so easily by a little effort on the part of any human being that a man would as soon think of devoting himself to bottling sunshine as to storing up what is now called wealth. Less than two human generations of scientific activity, and already what ominous groanings and crackings in the last remaining of the artificial barriers that have so long dammed up the riches of the earth as wealth to be withheld or doled out by the few. Science is the emancipator, the deliverer, the mighty equalizer and leveler—equalizing and leveling up. Not down, but up, always up. Not by making the rich poor, but by making the poor rich. Not by making the wise foolish, but by making the foolish wise. Not by enfeebling the powerful, but by making powerful the feeble.