It seems, nowadays, a matter of universal desire that poverty should be abolished. We should be quite willing to abolish luxury, but to abolish honest, industrious self-denying poverty would be to destroy the soil upon which mankind produces the virtues which enable our race to reach a still higher civilization than it now possesses.

【翻译】现在看来，消除贫困似乎是一个人类普遍愿望的问题。我们应该非常愿意废除奢侈，但消除勤奋忘我的甘守清贫，将意味着破坏人类借以创造美德的土壤，这些美德使我们人类能够达到比现在拥有的更高的文明程度。

it now possesses. = our race now possesses.

than it now possesses：比人类现在拥有的（文明程度）。