CHAPTER I
SPEAKING AS ONE OF THE CROWD
It is a little awkward to say what I am going to say now.
Probably it will be still more awkward afterward.
But I find as I go up and down the world and look in the faces of the crowds in it, that it is true, and I can only tell as it is.
I want to be good.
And I do not want to go up on a mountain to do it, or to slink off and live all alone on an island in the sea.
I go a step further.
I believe that the crowds want to be good.
But I cannot prove that people want to be good in crowds, and so for the sake of the argument, and to make the case as simple as possible, I am going to give up speaking for crowds, and speak for myself as one member of the crowd and for Lim. Lim and I (and Lim is a business man and not a mere author) have had long talks in which we have confided to each other what we think this world, in spite of appearances, is really like, and we have come to a kind of provisional program and to a definite agreement on our two main points.