3l6 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING
regular employment." Its general effect upon personality must be seriously demoralizing. It might be cynically re marked that it adds to his leisure, for which he so stren uously contends; but it does not do so in such a way as to lead to a regular use of leisure for cultural purposes. It is exceedingly depressing and dissipating, increases anxiety, induces recklessness, and tends towards moral disintegra tion generally.
Moreover, there is an ethical limitation set for him by his life-conditions. His class consciousness is intense. This, it seems, can not be otherwise. With the possible ex ception of the very rich, the labouring men constitute the most clearly defined class in our society. The interests and life-problems of this class are of the most urgent kind. Those interests are, indeed, fundamental, and under their pressure the labourers are being irresistibly compacted and welded into a distinct social group. On the basis of those interests it is simply inevitable that there should grow up a class consciousness which must in the nature of things be more and more accentuated by all the rapidly developing conditions of our industrial life. It is worse than useless to scold the labourers for it. They simply can not help it ; and to denounce them for it only promotes it, and at the same time betrays a singular lack of insight into the sociological laws that are at work around us. This class consciousness is growing extensively, for labouring men are coming more and more to realize their essential community of interests. Their labour organizations an absolute necessity for their economic salvation promote and must promote it. It must also develop intensively. Every economic struggle, whether successful or unsuccessful, must inevitably leave the class consciousness stronger. Class consciousness is only the realization of a community of interests by a number of persons. It will be strong in proportion as those interests are felt to be vital, and in proportion as they are felt to be menaced. The clash of class with class inevitably deepens it. There are only two possible ways to dissipate it. One is to
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