for political and economic justice, the growing recognition and reality of their force, the ability to organize and insist upon their rights—if these are the principal direct agents of reform—not even the expansive method of Mr. Kidd can classify them under the term religion as opposed to reformation. To avoid this conclusion Mr. Kidd perverts history, attributing modern progress to the generosity of the classes. It is quite true, of course, that one condition of modern progress, of the French Revolution, and of the later steps in the road to democracy in England, has been a weakening of the moral power of resistance in the classes, owing to a vague sense of the injustice of class monopolies. Moreover, the work of education, of light and leading, has been largely done by a small number of morally emancipated members of the power-holding classes. But the direct efficient cause has in almost every case been the force of the popular demand. To speak of the Acts of Parliament which register various progressive steps in English history as voluntary concessions of the power-holding classes, is a monstrous perversion of history. Even the abolition of slavery, both for this country and for America, was not brought about until it had been demonstrated that as an industrial system slavery was uneconomical. The power-holders have never made a concession which was not wrung from them by threats, though after fear has compelled them to give way they have frequently attributed the act to their native generosity, reminding one of the story of the small boy who, when he was knocked down by a bigger comrade, remarked as he lay on the ground, that he was "just agoin' to fall down." The moral weakness of the position of the power-holding classes is a condition of the success of popular agitation and popular force, but it is not the cause; the concession is no more voluntary than that of the traveler who yields up his purse when a pistol is placed at his head.
But let us assume that Mr. Kidd is correct in his interpretation of the progressive movement as a voluntary concession of power by the classes, and that religion is the name of the force which induces the classes to act contrary to the dictates of
