174   HISTORIC GROWTH OF MAN.

THE FINANCIER.   175

who have the talent to excel in each special kind of work. Then the men of each trade must exchange their products with those of other trades. If one man makes shoes and nothing else, then the farmer must raise enough extra food to supply the shoemaker. The farmer is dependent upon the tradesman, the grocer, the carpenter, the shoemaker and many other trades. And conversely, each of these is dependent upon the farmer and upon all the others. A vast system of mutual dependencies is thus an essential and necessary condition of civilization. We cannot, therefore, settle the rights of any class of persons without reference to the rights and relations of the other classes.

Under this beneficent law of evolution we find that the carpenter builds as good houses for others as he does for his own family; the shoemaker makes as good shoes for other children as for his own, and the watchmaker offers to the public as good timekeepers as the one he carries in his own pocket. And so of every trade or employment. The whole community gets equal benefits from each man's special skill. All scientific men of our day know that this is a proved law of evolution.

But there is one kind of talent or ability that insists upon its right to disregard, to transgress this basic law. The man who has financial talent, the ability to judge of property and its investments, this man claims the right to use his talent chiefly for the benefit of himself and his family. This talent by itself can produce nothing. It can only accumulate by using the labor of others and giving them back less than they produce. By employing a large number

of workers, the profits are sufficient to make this man wealthy while those who did the work remain poor.

This financier has used his own mental force, but is this mental force three hundred times greater than that which is used by each one of his three hundred workmen ? Science, applied to brain action, proves that he has exerted only a little more brain force than the average man of skill working for him. The financier has received three hundred times as much as each workman got. Where did he get his right to this great excess? He may say that it is the established custom among men; they have always employed others for the profits on their labor. Well, if custom is the only basis of the right, then if workmen choose, they can exchange that custom and establish an utterly different one in its place. And they will make this change as soon as they once consider the matter.

" But these workmen need the talent of the employer; they could not get along without his judgment to plan, to invest and to oversee the work." Very well, neither could the employer get along without the trained skill and the experienced judgment of each worker. Is financial talent the only God-like and worthy thing in the world? Is it so precious and so scarce that we must pay such an enormous and crushing price for its use? Is selfishness more noble than all other virtues?

No good or honest reason has ever been given why the financier's special talent should be exempt from the great natural law of specialization and social interdependence. We have a right to demand that he shall use his talent, not chiefly for his own interests,