And tell the other girls and boys,
Not to meddle with _my_ toys."

That is the way of the Monopolist. It catches him in the very act. He
says to all the world: "Hands off! My property! Don't walk on my grass!
Don't trespass in my park! Beware of my gunboats! No trifling with my
women! I am the king of the castle. You meddle with me at your peril."

"Ours!" not "Mine!" is the watchword of the future.




XI.

"_MERE AMATEURS._"


"He was a mere amateur; but still, he did some good work in science."

Increasingly of late years I have heard these condescending words
uttered, in the fatherland of Bacon, of Newton, of Darwin, when some
Bates or Spottiswoode has been gathered to his fathers. It was not so
once. Time was when all English science was the work of amateurs--and
very well indeed the amateurs did it. I don't think anybody who does me
the honour to cognise my humble individuality at all will ever be likely
to mistake me for a _laudator temporis acti_. On the contrary, so far as
I can see, the past seems generally to have been such a distinct failure
all along the line that the one lesson we have to learn from it is, to
go and do otherwise. I am one on that point with Shelley and Rousseau.