TWO LETTERS ON HENRY GEORGE
I
IN reply to your letter[1] I send you the enclosed with special pleasure. I have been acquainted with Henry George since the appearance of his "Social Problems." I read that book, and was struck by the correctness of his main idea, and by the unique clearness and power of his argument, which is unlike anything in scientific literature, and especially by the Christian spirit which pervades the book, making it also stand alone in the literature of science. After reading it I turned to his previous work, "Progress and Poverty," and with a heightened appreciation of its author's activity. You ask my opinion of Henry George's work, and of his single tax system. My opinion is the following:—
Humanity advances continually toward the enlightenment of its consciousness,[2] and to the institution of modes of life corresponding to this consciousness, which is in process of enlightenment. Hence in every period of life and humanity there is, on the one hand, a progressive enlightenment of consciousness, and on the other a realization in life of what is enlightened by the consciousness. At the close of the last century and the beginning of this, a progressive enlightenment of con-
- ↑ Written in answer to a German, occupied in spreading the ideas and system of Henry George in his own country, who wrote to ask Tolstoi what views he held concerning such an activity.
- ↑ The Russian word soznaniye signifies both "consciousness" and "conscience," and as in these paragraphs seems to vibrate between the two concepts.—Ed.
