period of the nineteenth century. Complete commercial competition absolutely unrestrained has even been found quite impossible, let alone more direct competition. The evil we have before us is not at all the evil of ruthless struggle, such as the Socialists in my youth talked about when they denounced the industrial system. We could not possibly have merely ruthless struggle; we should all die, and death is not vulgar, which will no doubt be a great comfort to us all when we are dead. But what has come about is exactly the opposite. It is here that I find myself in most danger of trenching upon those political and sociological questions which are not strictly part of the question of Culture. Everybody knows, I suppose, that the actual result of that commercial conflict that raged at the beginning of the industrial era has not been murderous anarchy or the survival of the best citizens or any of the other things that were prophesied for or against it. The ultimate result of it has simply been the enormous growth of monopoly, which is, of course, the very contrary of competition. There has grown up on an enormous scale in America, and on a hardly less enormous scale in our own country, the institution of trusts, that is to say, the centralisation of all commercial operations. When you add that final fact to the dangers that I have been trying to point out, you do, I think, find yourself confronted with something which is in the real sense of the word a peril to the mind of man.
To put it shortly, the evil I am trying to warn you of is not excessive democracy, it is not excessive ugliness, it is not excessive anarchy. It might be
