health, strength, honor, generosity and beauty as conspicuously
and undeniably as the want of it represents illness, weakness,
disgrace, meanness and ugliness. Not the least of its virtues is
that it destroys base people as certainly as it fortifies and
dignifies noble people. It is only when it is cheapened to
worthlessness for some, and made impossibly dear to others, that
it becomes a curse. In short, it is a curse only in such foolish
social conditions that life itself is a curse. For the two
things are inseparable: money is the counter that enables life to
be distributed socially: it is life as truly as sovereigns and
bank notes are money. The first duty of every citizen is to
insist on having money on reasonable terms; and this demand is
not complied with by giving four men three shillings each for ten
or twelve hours' drudgery and one man a thousand pounds for
nothing. The crying need of the nation is not for better morals,
cheaper bread, temperance, liberty, culture, redemption of fallen
sisters and erring brothers, nor the grace, love and fellowship
of the Trinity, but simply for enough money. And the evil to be
attacked is not sin, suffering, greed, priestcraft, kingcraft,
demagogy, monopoly, ignorance, drink, war, pestilence, nor any
other of the scapegoats which reformers sacrifice, but simply
poverty.

Once take your eyes from the ends of the earth and fix them on
this truth just under your nose; and Andrew Undershaft's views
will not perplex you in the least. Unless indeed his constant
sense that he is only the instrument of a Will or Life Force
which uses him for purposes wider than his own, may puzzle you.
If so, that is because you are walking either in artificial
Darwinian darkness, or to mere stupidity. All genuinely religious