SOURCE: “A Great American Prophet,” in Common Sense Vol. III, No. 4, April, 1934, pp. 6-7.

In the following essay, Dewey examines Bellamy's evocation of “the terrible gulf between what is possible and what is actual” with regard to human freedom and equality.

In his Equality, Bellamy states, through the mouth of Dr. Leete as exponent, the device that marks off his picture of a social Utopia from all other literary Utopias. Explaining why men of our day do not see the meaning of facts that stare them constantly in the face, he says: “It was precisely because they stared you and your contemporaries so constantly in the face that you lost the faculty for judging their meaning. They were too near the eyes to be seen aright”. This statement gives the key to the literary device which Bellamy employs in both Looking Backward and Equality. He uses his picture...