"
Not that the people were personally hollow or empty, but they had come on
a hollow and empty business: to help the good Mr. Binks to strengthen the
Insurance Act against the wicked Mr. Jinks who would only promise to
fortify the Insurance Act. That night it did not blow the democratic gale.
Yet it can blow on these as on others; and when it does blow men learn
many things. I, for one, am not above learning them.
The Marxian dogma which simplifies all conflicts to the Class War is so
much nobler a thing than the nose-counting of the parliaments that one
must apologise for the comparison. And yet there is a comparison. When
we used to say that there were so many thousands of Socialists in Germany,
we were counting by skulls. When we said that the majority consisting of
Proletarians would be everywhere opposed to the minority, consisting of
Capitalists, we were counting by skulls. Why, yes; if all men's heads
had been cut off from the rest of them, as they were by the good sense and
foresight of Timour the Tartar; if they had no hearts or bellies to be
moved; no hand that flies up to ward off a weapon, no foot that can feel a
familiar soil--if things were so the Marxian calculation would be not only
complete but correct. As we know to-day, the Marxian calculation is
complete, but it is not correct.
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