peaceful slumbers are not disturbed for a single instant by the
prospect of such a frightful catastrophe. On the other hand, eighty
departments have been laboring to-day, without concert, without any
mutual understanding, for the provisioning of Paris."

The theme may well excite wonder. But wonder should always be watched
with a wary eye; for he is apt to bring in his train a hanger-on
called worship, who can do nothing but mischief here. It is a short
step from a passage like that quoted above to a glorification of the
existing system of society, to a defence of all manner of indefensible
things; and a cross-grained attitude towards all projects of
reform. It is a short step; but it is one which it is quite
unjustifiable to take. For the evils of our economic system are too
plain to be ignored; too many people have harsh personal experience of
the wastefulness of its production, the injustice of its distribution;
of its sweating, its unemployment and slums. And when the attempt is
made to plaster over evils, such as these with obsequious rhetoric
about the majesty of economic law, it is not surprising that the
spirit of many men should revolt and that they should retort by
denying the existence of order in the business world, by declaring
that the spectacle which _they_ see is one of discord, confusion and
chaos. And then we are engulfed in a controversy as stale, flat and
unprofitable as that between the "theorist" and the "practical man."

The truth is that the language of praise and obloquy is quite
inappropriate. In the first place, it may be well to note that the
order of which I have spoken manifests itself not merely in those
economic phenomena which are beneficial to man, but hardly less in
those which work to his hurt. Even in those alternations of good and
bad trade, which spell so much unemployment and misery, there is