He made his statements in the language of the tradition he
assailed, and foreshadowed the replacement of chaos by order in quite
chaotic and mystical appeals. Here, for instance, is a typical passage
from "Man, the Social Creator".
"Property is now a stumbling-block to the people, just
as government has been. Property will not be abolished,
but, like government, it will be democratised.
"The philosophy of self-interest as the social solution
was a good living and working synthesis in the days when
civilisation was advancing its frontiers twenty miles a day
across the American continent, and every man for himself
was the best social mobilisation possible.
"But to-day it is a belated ghost that has overstayed
the cock-crow. These were frontier morals. But this same,
everyone for himself, becomes most immoral when the
frontier is abolished and the pioneer becomes the fellow-citizen
and these frontier morals are most uneconomic when
labour can be divided and the product multiplied. Most
uneconomic, for they make closure the rule of industry,
leading not to wealth, but to that awful waste of wealth
which is made visible to every eye in our unemployed--not
hands alone, but land, machinery, and, most of all, hearts.
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