Nor do the same practices of mutual aid and support fail among the richer classes.  Of course, when one thinks of the harshness which is often shown by the richer employers towards their employees, one feels inclined to take the most pessimist view of human nature.  Many must remember the indignation which was aroused during the great Yorkshire strike of 1894, when old miners who had picked coal from an abandoned pit were prosecuted by the colliery owners.  And, even if we leave aside the horrors of the periods of struggle and social war, such as the extermination of thousands of workers’ prisoners after the fall of the Paris Commune—­who can read, for instance, revelations of the labour inquest which was made here in the forties, or what Lord Shaftesbury wrote about “the frightful waste of human life in the factories, to which the children taken from the workhouses, or simply purchased all over this country to be sold as factory slaves, were consigned"(22)—­who can read that without being vividly impressed by the baseness which is possible in man when his greediness is at stake?  But it must also be said that all fault for such treatment must not be thrown entirely upon the criminality of human nature.  Were not the teachings of men of science, and even of a notable portion of the clergy, up to a quite recent time, teachings of distrust, despite and almost hatred towards the poorer classes?  Did not science teach that since serfdom has been abolished, no one need be poor unless for his own vices?  And how few in the Church had the courage to blame the children-killers, while the great numbers taught that the sufferings of the poor, and even the slavery of the negroes, were part of the Divine Plan!  Was not Nonconformism itself largely a popular protest against the harsh treatment of the poor at the hand of the established Church?

With such spiritual leaders, the feelings of the richer classes necessarily became, as Mr. Pimsoll remarked, not so much blunted as “stratified.”  They seldom went downwards towards the poor, from whom the well-to-do-people are separated by their manner of life, and whom they do not know under their best aspects, in their every-day life.  But among themselves—­ allowance being made for the effects of the wealth-accumulating passions and the futile expenses imposed by wealth itself—­ among themselves, in the circle of family and friends, the rich practise the same mutual aid and support as the poor.  Dr. Ihering and L. Dargun are perfectly right in saying that if a statistical record could be taken of all the money which passes from hand to hand in the shape of friendly loans and aid, the sum total would be enormous, even in comparison with the commercial transactions of the world’s trade.  And if we could add to it, as we certainly ought to, what is spent in hospitality, petty mutual services, the management of other people’s affairs, gifts and charities, we certainly should be struck by the importance of such transfers in national economy.  Even in the world which is ruled by commercial egotism, the current expression, “We have been harshly treated by that firm,” shows that there is also the friendly treatment, as opposed to the harsh, i.e. the legal treatment; while every commercial man knows how many firms are saved every year from failure by the friendly support of other firms.