Progress and Poverty by Henry George (most important books of all time txt) 📕

Winwood Reade, a writer of singular vividness and power. This book is in reality a history of progress, or, rather, a monograph upon its causes and methods, and will well repay perusal for its vivid pictures, whatever may be thought of the capacity of the author for philosophic generalization. The connection between subject and title may be seen by the conclusion: “I give to universal history a strange but true title⁠—The Martyrdom of Man. In each generation the human race has been tortured that their children might profit by their woes. Our own prosperity is founded on the agonies of the past. Is it therefore unjust that we also should suffer for the benefit of those who are to come?” ↩

The Study of Sociology⁠—Conclusion. ↩

Winwood Reade, The Martyrdom of Man. ↩

Herbert Spencer’s definition of Evolution, First Principles, p. 396. ↩

Wordsworth, in his “Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle,” has in highly poetical form alluded to this influence:

Armor rusting in his halls
On the blood of Clifford calls:
“Quell the Scot,” exclaims the lance;
“Bear me to the heart of France,”
Is the longing of the shield.

↩

How easy it is for ignorance to pass into contempt and dislike; how natural it is for us to consider any difference in manners, customs, religion, etc., as proof of the inferiority of those who differ from us, anyone who has emancipated himself in any degree from prejudice, and who mixes with different classes, may see in civilized society. In religion, for instance, the spirit of the hymn⁠—

“I’d rather be a Baptist, and wear a shining face,
Than for to be a Methodist and always fall from grace,”

is observable in all denominations. As the English Bishop said, “Orthodoxy is my doxy, and heterodoxy is any other doxy,” while the universal tendency is to classify all outside of the orthodoxies and heterodoxies of the prevailing religion as heathens or atheists. And the like tendency is observable as to all other differences. ↩

The Sandwich Islanders did honor to their good chiefs by eating their bodies. Their bad and tyrannical chiefs they would not touch. The New Zealanders had a notion that by eating their enemies they acquired their strength and valor. And this seems to be the general origin of eating prisoners of war. ↩

See Macaulay’s letter to Randall, the biographer of Jefferson. ↩

It is also, it seems to me, instructive to note how inadequate and utterly misleading would be the idea of our civilization which could be gained from the religious and funereal monuments of our time, which are all we have from which to gain our ideas of the buried civilizations. ↩

Statistics which show these things are collected in convenient form in a volume entitled Deterioration and Race Education, by Samuel Royce, which has been largely distributed by the venerable Peter Cooper of New York. Strangely enough, the only remedy proposed by Mr. Royce is the establishment of Kindergarten schools. ↩

In point of constructive statesmanship⁠—the recognition of fundamental principles and the adaptation of means to ends, the Constitution of the United States, adopted a century ago, is greatly superior to the latest State Constitutions, the most recent of which is that of California⁠—a piece of utter botchwork. ↩

Let us not delude our children. If for no other reason than for that which Plato gives, that when they come to discard that which we told them as pious fable they will also discard that which we told them as truth. The virtues which relate to self do generally bring their reward. Either a merchant or a thief will be more successful if he be sober, prudent, and faithful to his promises; but as to the virtues which do not relate to self⁠—

“It seems a story from the world of spirits,
When any one obtains that which he merits,
Or any merits that which he obtains.”

↩

Colophon

Progress and Poverty
was published in 1879 by
Henry George.

This ebook was produced for
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New York,
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