Even the best of modern civilisations appears to me to exhibit a
condition of mankind which neither embodies any worthy ideal nor even
possesses the merit of stability. I do not hesitate to express my
opinion that, if there is no hope of a large improvement of the
condition of the greater part of the human family; if it is true that
the increase of knowledge, the winning of a greater dominion over
Nature which is its consequence, and the wealth which follows upon that
dominion, are to make no difference in the extent and the intensity of
Want, with its concomitant physical and moral degradation, among the
masses of the people, I should hail the advent of some kindly comet,
which would sweep the whole affair away, as a desirable consummation.
What profits it to the human Prometheus that he has stolen the fire of
heaven to be his servant, and that the spirits of the earth and of the
air obey him, if the vulture of pauperism is eternally to tear his very
vitals and keep him on the brink of destruction?