The Arena

"We do not take possession of our ideas, but are possessed by them. They master us and force us into the arena, Where, like gladiators, we must fight for them.”

I. THE SWEEP OF THE CENTURY AND ITS MEANING.

HE mariner must know the currents of the sea he sails

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and watch the winds that press upon his ship, or the vessel may be driven through the mists upon some dangerous shore, while he, absorbed in daily routine, reckless pleasure, or unthinking toil, is quite unconscious of the peril, which proper care and watchfulness might easily have averted. So we who sail life's sea must know the movements of our time to save ourselves and the ship of state from wreck, and guide the vessel toward her port through smooth, safe waters unshaken by the tempest.

Some of the currents in the sea of life to-day are so powerful and so obvious that even the most careless voyager can scarcely fail to note them, though he may not understand them. The increase of wealth and power through invention and discovery, steam and electricity, manufactures, commerce, railroads, telegraphs and machinery; the growth of knowledge and its wide dissemination; the development of liberty and democracy; the trend toward union, coöperation, and organization; and the spread of civilization round the globe by colonization, commerce, and conquest-these are patent to all, as

is also the progressive aggregation of enormous wealth in the hands of a few individuals, resulting from processes of industrial organization dominated by the ideal of commercial conquest, and intended to secure the mastery of the many by the few instead of the union of all for the benefit of all.

The meaning of these great movements is not as obvious as their existence; yet it is not difficult to decipher. The last named movement means aristocracy, mastery, despotism, power for the few, industrial limitation and restriction for the rest; the other movements mean the liberation and enrichment of life for all the people-the concentration of wealth entails the sure subjection and impoverishment of the masses: while the growth of knowledge, wealth and power, union and civilization, linked with liberty, democracy, education and coöperation, must make all the people rich and free.

These movements of the nineteenth century, therefore, fall into two opposing groups-one lifting the whole world into freedom and plenty, the other capturing the world for the profit and pleasure of the few; one tending to elevate a little body of monopolists and submerge the rest, the other tending to elevate all. Another influence more important than any other, perhaps, but not yet named, because it could not be put in the list of obvious movements, is the deepening and broadening of sympathy and the rising power of its best ideals. This influence joins the group that tends to enrich and liberate all human life, and would of itself in time, if left unchecked. conquer the concentration of wealth from the inside and abolish the despotism of capital by abdication.

Let us examine, first, the united currents carrying all toward a richer and freer life, which together make the grandest movement of the age; the gulf stream of the century just passed; a compound movement toward the mastery of Nature and the emancipation of humanity; the subjection of material forces and the liberation of life-the transfer of servitude from man to matter.

How much the century has done to free mankind from the limitations of ignorance and poverty and the arbitrary control

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The Arena, Volumen26