reach forward fearlessly to comprehend this future that defeats our eyes.

All this world is heavy with the promise of greater things, and a day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings, beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins, shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a footstool, and shall laugh and reach out their hands amid the stars.

What is wrong with the world is its vastness. That is what hinders us from reducing the chaos of human affairs to a rational order. In relation to the solar system the earth is small; in relation to the universe, infinitesimal; but in relation to the mind of man it is bewilderingly huge and complicated. No human intellect has hitherto been able to conceive in any detail a rational world-order, for no human intellect has had the power of grasping a thousandth part of the factors in the problem. There have been Utopias in plenty, both in literature and in political experiment: but a Utopia is precisely a worldorder in which the data of the problem are ignored.

The purpose of the present essay is to inquire whether the human mind must forever remain inadequate to the effort required to bring cosmos out of chaos--whether the time has not come (or is not approaching) when a worldorder may be projected on the basis of a competent knowledge or forecast of all the factors. I suggest that a new instrument of precision lies ready to our hands, needing only an organizing genius, with a selected staff of assistants, to make effective use of it on a sufficiently com

1 Reprinted from The Great Analysis, a Plea for a Rational World Order, published by Charles Scribner's Sons.

prehensive scale. It is no recondite or unfamiliar instrument: we employ it very frequently, in every-day affairs. But it is somewhat difficult to handle, even on a small scale; and to apply it to the problem of world-order is a task, no doubt, for a giant brain. My humble design, in the meantime, is to give, mayhap, a little twist in the right direction to one or other of the giant intellects which are possibly, and even probably, ripening around us.

What do we mean when we speak of world-order? The actual thing is so unrecorded in history, so remote from practical experience, that many people find it hard to grasp even the bare concept. I propose, then, to illustrate the concept on a greatly reduced and simplified scale.

II

Most of us have heard of Sir George Darwin's speculation that the moon consists of matter which, at some indefinitely remote period, flew off at a tangent from the earth, leaving a gap now occupied by the Pacific Ocean. Well, let us suppose that, one fine day, the county of York were in like manner to break loose from its moorings and drift away into space, until it reached a point at which the balance of forces, rounding it as on a turning-lathe, set it rotating, a second satellite, between the moon and the earth. Let us suppose that its climatic conditions remained practically unaltered, and that it took its minerals along with it, and a due allowance of sea. Let us suppose, moreover, that the disruption from the earth produced no instant or startling change in the mental constitution of its inhabitants. We may also assume, what would probably be the fact, that the population, at the moment of severance, was fairly representative of

the English people as a whole-of its virtues and vices, its ideals and prejudices, its talents and its limitations. And one thing more we must postulate-namely, that the libraries and laboratories of the errant region contained all that was necessary to place its people fully abreast of modern science, research, and speculation.

Yorkshire,1 then, with its three and a half million inhabitants-its peers and merchant princes, its squirearchy and its clergy, its soldiers, its sailors, its fishermen, its villa residents, living on their dividends, its shopkeepers and its artisans, its workers in factories and foundries and mines, its unskilled laborers, its ploughmen and shepherds, the tramps on its country roads, and the grimy social sediment of its slums—this fragment of what we call European civilization would (by hypothesis) be swinging through space, a self-contained planeticule, cut off from all communication with the rest of the universe. In process of time, indeed, it might learn to exchange signals with its parent earth; but we assume that any transit of material objects, animate or inanimate, between our globe and its new satellite is forever out of the question.

What would ensue? As this is not a Utopian romance, I make no attempt to prophesy in detail. There would be a period, no doubt, of great confusion and suffering. Most of the luxuries of the rich, many of the necessaries or quasi-necessaries of the poor, would be suddenly cut off. There could be no replenishing of whatever stock happened to be in hand of wine, tobacco, rubber, petrol,

1 One of the smaller among the United States would equally well serve the purpose of this illustration. We might take the State of Massachusetts, for example larger in area than Yorkshire, somewhat smaller in population. The main difference would lie in the fact that the population of Massachusetts would not be so homogeneous as that of Yorkshire, so that certain race problems might have to be encountered.

tea, coffee, cocoa, sugar,1 oranges, lemons, bananas. Manufacturers would be cut off from almost all their markets. Famine could be avoided, if at all, only by the most drastic measures. Possibly the organizing talents of the county (let us continue to call it so) might get together, take command, as born leaders, of the police and military forces, seize all food-supplies, and dole out siege-rations, until the food-producing resources of the territory could be developed in proportion to the new claims upon them. Possibly, on the other hand, the organizers might convince themselves that the county was essentially overpopulated, in relation to its inherent resources (even under intensive cultivation), and might decide that to fight against the ultimately inevitable famine would only be to prolong the agony, widen the area of suffering, and postpone the eventual reorganization of life.2 In one way or another at any rate whether by the elimination of the unfittest, or by the prompt and skilful utilization of natural resources, or, more probably, by both processes-some sort of balance would sooner or later be established between food and population; and, the transitional state of siege being over, Yorkshiremen might calmly and at leisure set about the reconstruction of their polity. How would it proceed?

III

Evidently a resolute effort would be made to set up anew the hierarchy of British society-the great landowner, the capitalist, the small landholder, the dividenddrawer (rentier, in French), the tradesman, the artisan,

1 Until beet-culture could be established on a large enough scale.

2 I make no attempt at a definite estimate of the food resources of Yorkshire, for the details of the period of transition are wholly inessential to my argument.