Most men and women go where income promises and social preferment
beckons. But not all! There are some whose love of justice, truth and
beauty; whose yearning for betterment and increased social
opportunity, outweighs the tempting bait of ease and respectability.
Them the established order smites.
The strength of the old order is measured superficially by the extent
of its control over the means of common livelihood and by the
generalness of the satisfaction or discontent with which the masses
receive its administration. Fundamentally its strength is determined
by the direction in which its life is tending. The structure of the
Roman Empire was apparently sound before it buckled and disintegrated.
The French aristocracy was never surer of itself than in the gala days
that preceded 1789. The old order may undergo a process of gradual
transformation. In that case the change is slow, as it was when
Feudalism gave place to Capitalism in England. Again, the old order
may be exterminated as it was when Feudalism gave place to Capitalism
in France. In one case the masters of life loosens the reins of power
to ease the straining team; in the other case the masters hold the
reins taut till they are jerked from their hands, as masters and team
go together over the precipice.
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