The source of most of the cruelty and at least half the folly of the world is ignorance. What we do not know may on rare occasions be magnificent. It is more frequently alarming and odious. Ineradicable ignorance of one another among the nations is the fruitful cause of war, and similar ignorance between the various classes of society is responsible for much that is unjust and indefensible in the social system. But ignorance has seldom been more harmful than when it disguises the real nature of a conflict.

In all the ancient civilizations we find the spirit of gain, and in uncivilized races also. It is one of the natural qualities which distinguish man from the other animals. There are men who rise superior to it, when they have enough to live upon without gain, and some there are who will take the chance of having enough. But for the mass it holds good under every economic system. A man wants to improve on his condition. In a money economy it is easier, because a man can save more readily. In our own civilization we find it at work in the period before the dominance of capitalism. There is the striking case of St. Godric, the Norfolk lad who began life at the bottom, then started as a pedlar and did so well that presently he acquired a vessel, took partners and traded along the East Coast and overseas with such success that in sixteen years he amassed magnas opurn divitias. His parents were pious folk and he was a devoted son of the Church.