It is
maintained, on the one hand, that if banks were let alone by the
state their issues would be proportioned to the exact wants of
business; and, on the other, that if the state would only restrict
them more rigidly business would be kept within proper limits, and
all would go well. Each disputant draws from a panic about the same
amount of support for his views, because in the great variety of
circumstances which surround it there are always some which favor
any theory of its origin. In one thing, however, both sets of
observers are apt to agree thoroughly, and that is in believing the
"thing will not blow over," and that "we are going to feel it for a
long time." They have long foreseen it, and have only been surprised
that it did not come sooner; and they lower their voices to a hoarse
whisper while telling you this.
But there is no class of observers which extracts so much solid
comfort from a panic as that large body of social philosophers who
are hostile to luxury, and believe that the world is going to the
dogs through self-indulgence.
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