 a colossal
world-darkening blunder. And then I showed them how four fifths of the labor of
men was utterly wasted by the mutual warfare, the lack of organization and
concert among the workers. Seeking to make the matter very plain, I instanced
the case of arid lands where the soil yielded the means of life only by careful
use of the watercourses for irrigation. I showed how in such countries it was
counted the most important function of the government to see that the water was
not wasted by the selfishness or ignorance of individuals, since otherwise there
would be famine. To this end its use was strictly regulated and systematized,
and individuals of their mere caprice were not permitted to dam it or divert it,
or in any way to tamper with it.
    The labor of men, I explained, was the fertilizing stream which alone
rendered earth habitable. It was but a scanty stream at best, and its use
required to be regulated by a system which expended every drop to the best
advantage, if the world were to be supported in abundance. But how far from any
system was the actual practice! Every man wasted the precious fluid as he
wished, animated only by the equal motives of saving his own crop and spoiling
his neighbor's, that his might sell the better. What with greed and what with
spite some fields were flooded while others were parched, and half the water ran
wholly to waste. In such a land, though a few by strength or cunning might win
the means of luxury, the lot of the great mass must be poverty, and of the weak
and ignorant bitter want and perennial famine.
    Let but the famine-stricken nation assume the function it had neglected, and
regulate for the common good the course of the life-giving stream, and the earth
would bloom like one garden, and none of its children lack any good thing. I
described the physical felicity, mental enlightenment, and moral elevation which
would then attend the lives of all men. With fervency I spoke of that new world,
blessed with plenty, purified by justice and sweetened by brotherly kindness,
the world of which I had indeed but dreamed, but which might so easily be made
real. But when I had expected now surely the faces round me to light up with
emotions akin to mine, they grew ever more dark, angry, and scornful. Instead of
enthusiasm, the ladies showed only aversion and dread, while the men interrupted
me with shouts of reprobation and contempt. »Madman!« »Pestilent fellow!«
»Fanatic!« »Enemy of society!« were
