There is a law of diminishing returns, but the actual limitations experienced in agriculture, as in other industries, lie rather in social than in physical causes. Under given social conditions we can obtain only so much by our efforts, but the social conditions may be changed and are constantly changing, and there is no reason why in the future they may not more than counter balance any restraint imposed by physical nature. As a writer has said, not the niggardliness of nature, but the stupidity of man, causes diminish ing returns in agriculture and elsewhere. When ever additional capital and labor are applied at a given point because a new use has been found for them, they will often bring increased instead of diminished returns. Thus there are limits which seem to lie in physical nature, but which are nevertheless set aside by social changes.
Other obstacles will be recognized as dis tinctly social and economic, rather than physi cal. The accumulation of capital is essential to social progress, but one of the chief ob stacles to such accumulation in early stages of society is lack of security. There is no sufficient motive to accumulate if the hoard is to be seized by any stronger rival or enemy. Better enjoy, while others are doing so, the result of the chase or of war, than, by saving the share assigned to you, become the prey of those who are able to rob you. The tribal system introduces some elements of security. The ownership of property being vested in the entire tribe, it becomes the duty of all to fight, if necessary, for its protection.
The recognition of private property intro duces, it may be, temporary confusion by again throwing at first the defence of private rights upon the individual ; but with an im provement of social order and a full recogni tion of the importance of police functions of the state, there conies a stronger guarantee of security than before private property is established. What is even more important, there is developed a general respect for the sacredness of property. There is not only less power, but there is also less disposition, to interfere with the property rights of others. Even those who have but little property real ize that they are better off when that little is safe than when it is liable to capture or wanton destruction. This obstacle to social progress from a lack of security is one that must be overcome even more completely than at present ; and the most practicable method is a better education in the advantages derived from social security and a pointing out of the petty causes that threaten it, rather than an increase of police vigilance or government interference, except in the extreme cases where these may be necessary. Society gains more from the growth of sound social instincts than from external pressure.
Still another obstacle to social progress is to be removed only by slow educational pro cess. The lack of saving instincts has had
even more to do with the comparative failure of communities which have no capital than a lack of security. Improvidence, lack of fore sight, inability to anticipate future wants, a vague feeling that some lucky chance will carry one through future difficulties, — these characteristics survive too frequently even in the most advanced communities. Observa tion will convince that the ones who succeed are they who do most keenly appreciate the future, who take far in advance the initial steps in securing the objects which they most desire, who accumulate capital with infinite care, but who do not hesitate to invest it boldly at the right moment. For it must not be forgotten that saving instincts demand expenditure no less than accumulation. The capitalist is not he who hoards wealth, but he who saves and uses capital. The use begins as early and is as indispensable as the saving. This obstacle to social progress in the lack of saving instincts has been overcome in the past by the ruthless defeat in life's struggle of those who are without them, and a slow but sure conquest of such persons by those who do their work in serial methods with an eye to the needs of the future. There is no other way in which it can be overcome in the future except as saving instincts may be implanted and developed in all classes by educational means.
Until recent times the greatest of all the ob stacles to social progress has been the lack of directive intelligence, of industrial enterprise, of skill in management of the kind shown by men whom we are accustomed to designate as cap tains of industry. It was not a lack of intelli gence, for this has been displayed as profusely in earlier ages, but mental activity was directed into other channels than the supply of common wants and the increase of the agencies that tend to harmonize and elevate those wants. War, religion, and art, and passion have claimed the highest energies of man. All of these are social and all have contributed to social progress, but due attention to the industrial organization of society is likewise essential. An effective ad ministration of the machinery by which the or dinary wants of men are supplied has been secured only in our own time, and is even now far from satisfactory in many departments of industry. But many of the ablest men of every land are now engaged upon it. The most in ventive and constructive minds are directly em ployed in improving the ways in which goods are made. Others equally able are inquiring into the best ways of using them. The obsta cle from this quarter has therefore already be come less serious, and we may expect that even greater abilities will be concentrated upon these problems.