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98 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
when analyzed, are, in truth, signs of the improve-
ment.
The one doubtful sign, it appears to me, as regards
the future, is pointed at by the qualification implied in
the words-the human being who really belongs to the
new society. It may possibly happen that there will be
an increase, or at least non-diminution, of what may be
called the social wreckage. A class may continue to
exist and even increase in the midst of our civiIi~ation,
possibly not a large class in proportion, but still a con-
siderable class, who are out of the improvement alto-
gether, who are capable of nothing but the rudest labour,
and who have neither the moral nor the mental qualities
fitted for the strain of the work of modern society. On
the other side, as already hinted, the existence of what
may be called a barbarian class among the capitalist
classes, living in idle luxury, and not bearing the
burden of society in any way, seems also a danger.
But speculations of this sort would perhaps take us too
far at present. Substantially, as yet there seems to be
no reason to doubt the steadiness of the improvement
in recent years among the working classes. both those
practically so called and those who may be included
when we use the language in its widest-that is, the
strictly economic-sense, and that this improvement
goes on from year to year, and from generation to
generation, and must, in the nature of things, go on, in
consequence of the improvements and inventions of the
modern world, and the general spread of education, so
long as nothing happens to prevent a continuous im-
provement in the efficiency of human labour and the
average return it can obtain from the forces with which
it works.