{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_26108/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_26108","id":"gutenberg_26108","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26108","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","English essays","Nobel Prizes in Literature"],"text":"Produced by Russell Bell\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion\n\nby\n\nGeorge Bernard Shaw\n\n(1856-1950)\n\n\n\n\nWriting as: JOHN TANNER, M.I.R.C.  (Member of the Idle Rich Class).\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE REVOLUTIONIST'S HANDBOOK\n\n\"No one can contemplate the present condition of the masses of the\npeople without desiring something like a revolution for the better.\"\nSir Robert Giffen.  Essays in Finance, vol. ii. p. 393.\n\n\n\nFOREWORD\n\nA revolutionist is one who desires to discard the existing social order\nand try another.\n\nThe constitution of England is revolutionary.  To a Russian or\nAnglo-Indian bureaucrat, a general election is as much a revolution as a\nreferendum or plebiscite in which the people fight instead of voting.\nThe French Revolution overthrew one set of rulers and substituted\nanother with different interests and different views.  That is what a\ngeneral election enables the people to do in England every seven years\nif they choose.  Revolution is therefore a national institution in\nEngland; and its advocacy by an Englishman needs no apology.\n\nEvery man is a revolutionist concerning the thing he understands.  For\nexample, every person who has mastered a profession is a sceptic\nconcerning it, and consequently a revolutionist.\n\nEvery genuine religious person is a heretic and therefore a\nrevolutionist.\n\nAll who achieve real distinction in life begin as revolutionists.  The\nmost distinguished persons become more revolutionary as they grow older,\nthough they are commonly supposed to become more conservative owing to\ntheir loss of faith in conventional methods of reform.\n\nAny person under the age of thirty, who, having any knowledge of the\nexisting social order, is not a revolutionist, is an inferior.\n\nAND YET\n\nRevolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny: they have only\nshifted it to another shoulder.\n\nJOHN TANNER\n\n\n\nI\n\nON GOOD BREEDING\n\nIf there were no God, said the eighteenth century Deist, it would be\nnecessary to invent Him.  Now this XVIII century god was deus ex\nmachina, the god who helped those who could not help themselves, the god\nof the lazy and incapable.  The nineteenth century decided that there is\nindeed no such god; and now Man must take in hand all the work that he\nused to shirk with an idle prayer.  He must, in effect, change himself\ninto the political Providence which he formerly conceived as god; and\nsuch change is not only possible, but the only sort of change that is\nreal.  The mere transfiguration of institutions, as from military and\npriestly dominance to commercial and scientific dominance, from\ncommercial dominance to proletarian democracy, from slavery to serfdom,\nfrom serfdom to capitalism, from monarchy to republicanism, from\npolytheism to monotheism, from monotheism to atheism, from atheism to\npantheistic humanitarianism, from general illiteracy to general\nliteracy, from romance to realism, from realism to mysticism, from\nmetaphysics to physics, are all but changes from Tweedledum to\nTweedledee: plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.  But the changes\nfrom the crab apple to the pippin, from the wolf and fox to the house\ndog, from the charger of Henry V to the brewer's draught horse and the\nrace-horse, are real; for here Man has played the god, subduing Nature\nto his intention, and ennobling or debasing Life for a set purpose.  And\nwhat can be done with a wolf can be done with a man.  If such monsters\nas the tramp and the gentleman can appear as mere by-products of Man's\nindividual greed and folly, what might we not hope for as a main product\nof his universal aspiration?\n\nThis is no new conclusion.  The despair of institutions, and the\ninexorable \"ye must be born again,\" with Mrs Poyser's stipulation, \"and\nborn different,\" recurs in every generation.  The cry for the Superman\ndid not begin with Nietzsche, nor will it end with his vogue.  But it\nhas always been silenced by the same question: what kind of person is\nthis Superman to be?  You ask, not for a super-apple, but for an eatable\napple; not for a superhorse, but for a horse of greater draught or\nvelocity.  Neither is it of any use to ask for a Superman: you must\nfurnish a specification of the sort of man you want.  Unfortunately you\ndo not know what sort of man you want.  Some sort of goodlooking\nphilosopher-athlete, with a handsome healthy woman for his mate,\nperhaps.\n\nVague as this is, it is a great advance on the popular demand for a\nperfect gentleman and a perfect lady.  And, after all, no market demand\nin the world takes the form of exact technical specification of the\narticle required.  Excellent poultry and potatoes are produced to\nsatisfy the demand of housewives who do not know the technical\ndifferences between a tuber and a chicken.  They will tell you that the\nproof of the pudding is in the eating; and they are right.  The proof of\nthe Superman will be in the living; and we shall find out how to produce\nhim by the old method of trial and error, and not by waiting for a\ncompletely convincing prescription of his ingredients.\n\nCertain common and obvious mistakes may be ruled out from the beginning.\nFor example, we agree that we want superior mind; but we need not fall\ninto the football club folly of counting on this as a product of\nsuperior body.  Yet if we recoil so far as to conclude that superior\nmind consists in being the dupe of our ethical classifications of\nvirtues and vices, in short, of conventional morality, we shall fall out\nof the fryingpan of the football club into the fire of the Sunday\nSchool.  If we must choose between a race of athletes and a race of\n\"good\" men, let us have the athletes: better Samson and Milo than Calvin\nand Robespierre.  But neither alternative is worth changing for: Samson\nis no more a Superman than Calvin.  What then are we to do?\n\n\n\nII\n\nPROPERTY AND MARRIAGE\n\nLet us hurry over the obstacles set up by property and marriage.\nRevolutionists make too much of them.  No doubt it is easy to\ndemonstrate that property will destroy society unless society destroys\nit.  No doubt, also, property has hitherto held its own and destroyed\nall the empires.  But that was because the superficial objection to it\n(that it distributes social wealth and the social labor burden in a\ngrotesquely inequitable manner) did not threaten the existence of the\nrace, but only the individual happiness of its units, and finally the\nmaintenance of some irrelevant political form or other, such as a\nnation, an empire, or the like.  Now as happiness never matters to\nNature, as she neither recognizes flags and frontiers nor cares a straw\nwhether the economic system adopted by a society is feudal,\ncapitalistic, or collectivist, provided it keeps the race afoot (the\nhive and the anthill being as acceptable to her as Utopia), the\ndemonstrations of Socialists, though irrefutable, will never make any\nserious impression on property.  The knell of that over-rated\ninstitution will not sound until it is felt to conflict with some more\nvital matter than mere personal inequities in industrial economy.  No\nsuch conflict was perceived whilst society had not yet grown beyond\nnational communities too small and simple to overtax Man's limited\npolitical capacity disastrously.  But we have now reached the stage of\ninternational organization.  Man's political capacity and magnanimity\nare clearly beaten by the vastness and complexity of the problems forced\non him.  And it is at this anxious moment that he finds, when he looks\nupward for a mightier mind to help him, that the heavens are empty.  He\nwill presently see that his discarded formula that Man is the Temple of\nthe Holy Ghost happens to be precisely true, and that it is only through\nhis own brain and hand that this Holy Ghost, formally the most nebulous\nperson in the Trinity, and now become its sole survivor as it has always\nbeen its real Unity, can help him in any way.  And so, if the Superman\nis to come, he must be born of Woman by Man's intentional and\nwell-considered contrivance.  Conviction of this will smash everything\nthat opposes it.  Even Property and Marriage, which laugh at the\nlaborer's petty complaint that he is defrauded of \"surplus value,\" and\nat the domestic miseries of the slaves of the wedding ring, will\nthemselves be laughed aside as the lightest of trifles if they cross\nthis conception when it becomes a fully realized vital purpose of the\nrace.\n\nThat they must cross it becomes obvious the moment we acknowledge the\nfutility of breeding men for special qualities as we breed cocks for\ngame, greyhounds for speed, or sheep for mutton.  What is really\nimportant in Man is the part of him that we do not yet understand.  Of\nmuch of it we are not even conscious, just as we are not normally\nconscious of keeping up our circulation by our heart-pump, though if we\nneglect it we die.  We are therefore driven to the conclusion that when\nwe have carried selection as far as we can by rejecting from the list of\neligible parents all persons who are uninteresting, unpromising, or\nblemished without any set-off, we shall still have to trust to the\nguidance of fancy (alias Voice of Nature), both in the breeders and the\nparents, for that superiority in the unconscious self which will be the\ntrue characteristic of the Superman.\n\nAt this point we perceive the importance of giving fancy the widest\npossible field.  To cut humanity up into small cliques, and effectively\nlimit the selection of the individual to his own clique, is to postpone\nthe Superman for eons, if not for ever.  Not only should every person be\nnourished and trained as a possible parent, but there should be no\npossibility of such an obstacle to natural selection as the objection of\na countess to a navvy or of a duke to a charwoman.  Equality is\nessential to good breeding; and equality, as all economists know, is\nincompatible with property.\n\nBesides, equality is an essential condition of bad breeding also; and\nbad breeding is indispensable to the weeding out of the human race.\nWhen the conception of heredity took hold of the scientific imagination\nin the middle of last century, its devotees announced that it was a\ncrime to marry the lunatic to the lunatic or the consumptive to the\nconsumptive.  But pray are we to try to correct our diseased stocks by\ninfecting our healthy stocks with them?  Clearly the attraction which\ndisease has for diseased people is beneficial to the race.  If two\nreally unhealthy people get married, they will, as likely as not, have a\ngreat number of children who will all die before they reach maturity.\nThis is a far more satisfactory arrangement than the tragedy of a union\nbetween a healthy and an unhealthy person.  Though more costly than\nsterilization of the unhealthy, it has the enormous advantage that in\nthe event of our notions of health and unhealth being erroneous (which\nto some extent they most certainly are), the error will be corrected by\nexperience instead of confirmed by evasion.\n\nOne fact must be faced resolutely, in spite of the shrieks of the\nromantic.  There is no evidence that the best citizens are the offspring\nof congenial marriages, or that a conflict of temperament is not a\nhighly important part of what breeders call crossing.  On the contrary,\nit is quite sufficiently probable that good results may be obtained from\nparents who would be extremely unsuitable companions and partners, to\nmake it certain that the experiment of mating them will sooner or later\nbe tried purposely almost as often as it is now tried accidentally.  But\nmating such couples must clearly not involve marrying them.  In\nconjugation two complementary persons may supply one another's\ndeficiencies: in the domestic partnership of marriage they only feel\nthem and suffer from them.  Thus the son of a robust, cheerful, eupeptic\nBritish country squire, with the tastes and range of his class, and of a\nclever, imaginative, intellectual, highly civilized Jewess, might be\nvery superior to both his parents; but it is not likely that the Jewess\nwould find the squire an interesting companion, or his habits, his\nfriends, his place and mode of life congenial to her.  Therefore\nmarriage, whilst it is made an indispensable condition of mating, will\ndelay the advent of the Superman as effectually as Property, and will be\nmodified by the impulse towards him just as effectually.\n\nThe practical abrogation of Property and Marriage as they exist at\npresent will occur without being much noticed.  To the mass of men, the\nintelligent abolition of property would mean nothing except an increase\nin the quantity of food, clothing, housing, and comfort at their\npersonal disposal, as well as a greater control over their time and\ncircumstances.  Very few persons now make any distinction between\nvirtually complete property and property held on such highly developed\npublic conditions as to place its income on the same footing as that of\na propertyless clergyman, officer, or civil servant.  A landed\nproprietor may still drive men and women off his land, demolish their\ndwellings, and replace them with sheep or deer; and in the unregulated\ntrades the private trader may still spunge on the regulated trades and\nsacrifice the life and health of the nation as lawlessly as the\nManchester cotton manufacturers did at the beginning of last century.\nBut though the Factory Code on the one hand, and Trade Union\norganization on the other, have, within the lifetime of men still\nliving, converted the old unrestricted property of the cotton\nmanufacturer in his mill and the cotton spinner in his labor into a mere\npermission to trade or work on stringent public or collective\nconditions, imposed in the interest of the general welfare without any\nregard for individual hard cases, people in Lancashire still speak of\ntheir \"property\" in the old terms, meaning nothing more by it than the\nthings a thief can be punished for stealing.  The total abolition of\nproperty, and the conversion of every citizen into a salaried\nfunctionary in the public service, would leave much more than 99 per\ncent of the nation quite unconscious of any greater change than now\ntakes place when the son of a shipowner goes into the navy.  They would\nstill call their watches and umbrellas and back gardens their property.\n\nMarriage also will persist as a name attached to a general custom long\nafter the custom itself will have altered.  For example, modern English\nmarriage, as modified by divorce and by Married Women's Property Acts,\ndiffers more from early XIX century marriage than Byron's marriage did\nfrom Shakespear's.  At the present moment marriage in England differs\nnot only from marriage in France, but from marriage in Scotland.\nMarriage as modified by the divorce laws in South Dakota would be called\nmere promiscuity in Clapham.  Yet the Americans, far from taking a\nprofligate and cynical view of marriage, do homage to its ideals with a\nseriousness that seems old fashioned in Clapham.  Neither in England nor\nAmerica would a proposal to abolish marriage be tolerated for a moment;\nand yet nothing is more certain than that in both countries the\nprogressive modification of the marriage contract will be continued\nuntil it is no more onerous nor irrevocable than any ordinary commercial\ndeed of partnership.  Were even this dispensed with, people would still\ncall themselves husbands and wives; describe their companionships as\nmarriages; and be for the most part unconscious that they were any less\nmarried than Henry VIII.  For though a glance at the legal conditions of\nmarriage in different Christian countries shews that marriage varies\nlegally from frontier to frontier, domesticity varies so little that\nmost people believe their own marriage laws to be universal.\nConsequently here again, as in the case of Property, the absolute\nconfidence of the public in the stability of the institution's name,\nmakes it all the easier to alter its substance.\n\nHowever, it cannot be denied that one of the changes in public opinion\ndemanded by the need for the Superman is a very unexpected one.  It is\nnothing less than the dissolution of the present necessary association\nof marriage with conjugation, which most unmarried people regard as the\nvery diagnostic of marriage.  They are wrong, of course: it would be\nquite as near the truth to say that conjugation is the one purely\naccidental and incidental condition of marriage.  Conjugation is\nessential to nothing but the propagation of the race; and the moment\nthat paramount need is provided for otherwise than by marriage,\nconjugation, from Nature's creative point of view, ceases to be\nessential in marriage.  But marriage does not thereupon cease to be so\neconomical, convenient, and comfortable, that the Superman might safely\nbribe the matrimonomaniacs by offering to revive all the old inhuman\nstringency and irrevocability of marriage, to abolish divorce, to\nconfirm the horrible bond which still chains decent people to drunkards,\ncriminals, and wasters, provided only the complete extrication of\nconjugation from it were conceded to him.  For if people could form\ndomestic companionships on no easier terms than these, they would still\nmarry.  The Roman Catholic, forbidden by his Church to avail himself of\nthe divorce laws, marries as freely as the South Dakotan Presbyterians\nwho can change partners with a facility that scandalizes the old world;\nand were his Church to dare a further step towards Christianity and\nenjoin celibacy on its laity as well as on its clergy, marriages would\nstill be contracted for the sake of domesticity by perfectly obedient\nsons and daughters of the Church.  One need not further pursue these\nhypotheses: they are only suggested here to help the reader to analyse\nmarriage into its two functions of regulating conjugation and supplying\na form of domesticity.  These two functions are quite separable; and\ndomesticity is the only one of the two which is essential to the\nexistence of marriage, because conjugation without domesticity is not\nmarriage at all, whereas domesticity without conjugation is still\nmarriage: in fact it is necessarily the actual condition of all fertile\nmarriages during a great part of their duration, and of some marriages\nduring the whole of it.\n\nTaking it, then, that Property and Marriage, by destroying Equality and\nthus hampering sexual selection with irrelevant conditions, are hostile\nto the evolution of the Superman, it is easy to understand why the only\ngenerally known modern experiment in breeding the human race took place\nin a community which discarded both institutions.\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE PERFECTIONIST EXPERIMENT AT ONEIDA CREEK\n\nIn 1848 the Oneida Community was founded in America to carry out a\nresolution arrived at by a handful of Perfectionist Communists \"that we\nwill devote ourselves exclusively to the establishment of the Kingdom of\nGod.\"  Though the American nation declared that this sort of thing was\nnot to be tolerated in a Christian country, the Oneida Community held\nits own for over thirty years, during which period it seems to have\nproduced healthier children and done and suffered less evil than any\nJoint Stock Company on record.  It was, however, a highly selected\ncommunity; for a genuine communist (roughly definable as an intensely\nproud person who proposes to enrich the common fund instead of to spunge\non it) is superior to an ordinary joint stock capitalist precisely as an\nordinary joint stock capitalist is superior to a pirate.  Further, the\nPerfectionists were mightily shepherded by their chief Noyes, one of\nthose chance attempts at the Superman which occur from time to time in\nspite of the interference of Man's blundering institutions.  The\nexistence of Noyes simplified the breeding problem for the Communists,\nthe question as to what sort of man they should strive to breed being\nsettled at once by the obvious desirability of breeding another Noyes.\n\nBut an experiment conducted by a handful of people, who, after thirty\nyears of immunity from the unintentional child slaughter that goes on by\nignorant parents in private homes, numbered only 300, could do very\nlittle except prove that Communists, under the guidance of a Superman\n\"devoted exclusively to the establishment of the Kingdom of God,\" and\ncaring no more for property and marriage than a Camberwell minister\ncares for Hindoo Caste or Suttee, might make a much better job of their\nlives than ordinary folk under the harrow of both these institutions.\nYet their Superman himself admitted that this apparent success was only\npart of the abnormal phenomenon of his own occurrence; for when he came\nto the end of his powers through age, he himself guided and organized\nthe voluntary relapse of the communists into marriage, capitalism, and\ncustomary private life, thus admitting that the real social solution was\nnot what a casual Superman could persuade a picked company to do for\nhim, but what a whole community of Supermen would do spontaneously.  If\nNoyes had had to organize, not a few dozen Perfectionists, but the whole\nUnited States, America would have beaten him as completely as England\nbeat Oliver Cromwell, France Napoleon, or Rome Julius Caesar.  Cromwell\nlearnt by bitter experience that God himself cannot raise a people above\nits own level, and that even though you stir a nation to sacrifice all\nits appetites to its conscience, the result will still depend wholly on\nwhat sort of conscience the nation has got.  Napoleon seems to have\nended by regarding mankind as a troublesome pack of hounds only worth\nkeeping for the sport of hunting with them.  Caesar's capacity for\nfighting without hatred or resentment was defeated by the determination\nof his soldiers to kill their enemies in the field instead of taking\nthem prisoners to be spared by Caesar; and his civil supremacy was\npurchased by colossal bribery of the citizens of Rome.  What great\nrulers cannot do, codes and religions cannot do.  Man reads his own\nnature into every ordinance: if you devise a superhuman commandment so\ncunningly that it cannot be misinterpreted in terms of his will, he will\ndenounce it as seditious blasphemy, or else disregard it as either crazy\nor totally unintelligible.  Parliaments and synods may tinker as much as\nthey please with their codes and creeds as circumstances alter the\nbalance of classes and their interests; and, as a result of the\ntinkering, there may be an occasional illusion of moral evolution, as\nwhen the victory of the commercial caste over the military caste leads\nto the substitution of social boycotting and pecuniary damages for\nduelling.  At certain moments there may even be a considerable material\nadvance, as when the conquest of political power by the working class\nproduces a better distribution of wealth through the simple action of\nthe selfishness of the new masters; but all this is mere readjustment\nand reformation: until the heart and mind of the people is changed the\nvery greatest man will no more dare to govern on the assumption that all\nare as great as he than a drover dare leave his flock to find its way\nthrough the streets as he himself would.  Until there is an England in\nwhich every man is a Cromwell, a France in which every man is a\nNapoleon, a Rome in which every man is a Caesar, a Germany in which every\nman is a Luther plus a Goethe, the world will be no more improved by its\nheroes than a Brixton villa is improved by the pyramid of Cheops.  The\nproduction of such nations is the only real change possible to us.\n\n\n\nIV\n\nMAN'S OBJECTION TO HIS OWN IMPROVEMENT\n\nBut would such a change be tolerated if Man must rise above himself to\ndesire it?  It would, through his misconception of its nature.  Man does\ndesire an ideal Superman with such energy as he can spare from his\nnutrition, and has in every age magnified the best living substitute for\nit he can find.  His least incompetent general is set up as an\nAlexander; his king is the first gentleman in the world; his Pope is a\nsaint.  He is never without an array of human idols who are all nothing\nbut sham Supermen.  That the real Superman will snap his superfingers at\nall Man's present trumpery ideals of right, duty, honor, justice,\nreligion, even decency, and accept moral obligations beyond present\nhuman endurance, is a thing that contemporary Man does not foresee: in\nfact he does not notice it when our casual Supermen do it in his very\nface.  He actually does it himself every day without knowing it.  He\nwill therefore make no objection to the production of a race of what he\ncalls Great Men or Heroes, because he will imagine them, not as true\nSupermen, but as himself endowed with infinite brains, infinite courage,\nand infinite money.\n\nThe most troublesome opposition will arise from the general fear of\nmankind that any interference with our conjugal customs will be an\ninterference with our pleasures and our romance.  This fear, by putting\non airs of offended morality, has always intimidated people who have not\nmeasured its essential weakness; but it will prevail with those\ndegenerates only in whom the instinct of fertility has faded into a mere\nitching for pleasure.  The modern devices for combining pleasure with\nsterility, now universally known and accessible, enable these persons to\nweed themselves out of the race, a process already vigorously at work;\nand the consequent survival of the intelligently fertile means the\nsurvival of the partizans of the Superman; for what is proposed is\nnothing but the replacement of the old unintelligent, inevitable, almost\nunconscious fertility by an intelligently controlled, conscious\nfertility, and the elimination of the mere voluptuary from the\nevolutionary process.[1] Even if this selective agency had not been\ninvented, the purpose of the race would still shatter the opposition of\nindividual instincts.  Not only do the bees and the ants satisfy their\nreproductive and parental instincts vicariously; but marriage itself\nsuccessfully imposes celibacy on millions of unmarried normal men and\nwomen.  In short, the individual instinct in this matter, overwhelming\nas it is thoughtlessly supposed to be, is really a finally negligible\none.\n\n\n[1] The part played in evolution by the voluptuary will be the same as\nthat already played by the glutton.  The glutton, as the man with the\nstrongest motive for nourishing himself, will always take more pains\nthan his fellows to get food.  When food is so difficult to get that\nonly great exertions can secure a sufficient supply of it, the glutton's\nappetite develops his cunning and enterprise to the utmost; and he\nbecomes not only the best fed but the ablest man in the community.  But\nin more hospitable climates, or where the social organization of the\nfood supply makes it easy for a man to overeat, then the glutton eats\nhimself out of health and finally out of existence.  All other\nvoluptuaries prosper and perish in the same way; way; and this is why\nthe survival of the fittest means finally the survival of the\nself-controlled, because they alone can adapt themselves to the\nperpetual shifting of conditions produced by industrial progress.\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE POLITICAL NEED FOR THE SUPERMAN\n\nThe need for the Superman is, in its most imperative aspect, a political\none.  We have been driven to Proletarian Democracy by the failure of all\nthe alternative systems; for these depended on the existence of Supermen\nacting as despots or oligarchs; and not only were these Supermen not\nalways or even often forthcoming at the right moment and in an eligible\nsocial position, but when they were forthcoming they could not, except\nfor a short time and by morally suicidal coercive methods, impose\nsuperhumanity on those whom they governed; so, by mere force of \"human\nnature,\" government by consent of the governed has supplanted the old\nplan of governing the citizen as a public-schoolboy is governed.\n\nNow we have yet to see the man who, having any practical experience of\nProletarian Democracy, has any belief in its capacity for solving great\npolitical problems, or even for doing ordinary parochial work\nintelligently and economically.  Only under despotisms and oligarchies\nhas the Radical faith in \"universal suffrage\" as a political panacea\narisen.  It withers the moment it is exposed to practical trial, because\nDemocracy cannot rise above the level of the human material of which its\nvoters are made.  Switzerland seems happy in comparison with Russia; but\nif Russia were as small as Switzerland, and had her social problems\nsimplified in the same way by impregnable natural fortifications and a\npopulation educated by the same variety and intimacy of international\nintercourse, there might be little to choose between them.  At all\nevents Australia and Canada, which are virtually protected democratic\nrepublics, and France and the United States, which are avowedly\nindependent democratic republics, are neither healthy, wealthy, nor\nwise; and they would be worse instead of better if their popular\nministers were not experts in the art of dodging popular enthusiasms and\nduping popular ignorance.  The politician who once had to learn how to\nflatter Kings has now to learn how to fascinate, amuse, coax, humbug,\nfrighten, or otherwise strike the fancy of the electorate; and though in\nadvanced modern States, where the artizan is better educated than the\nKing, it takes a much bigger man to be a successful demagogue than to be\na successful courtier, yet he who holds popular convictions with\nprodigious energy is the man for the mob, whilst the frailer sceptic who\nis cautiously feeling his way towards the next century has no chance\nunless he happens by accident to have the specific artistic talent of\nthe mountebank as well, in which case it is as a mountebank that he\ncatches votes, and not as a meliorist.  Consequently the demagogue,\nthough he professes (and fails) to readjust matters in the interests of\nthe majority of the electors, yet stereotypes mediocrity, organizes\nintolerance, disparages exhibitions of uncommon qualities, and glorifies\nconspicuous exhibitions of common ones.  He manages a small job well: he\nmuddles rhetorically through a large one.  When a great political\nmovement takes place, it is not consciously led nor organized: the\nunconscious self in mankind breaks its way through the problem as an\nelephant breaks through a jungle; and the politicians make speeches\nabout whatever happens in the process, which, with the best intentions,\nthey do all in their power to prevent.  Finally, when social aggregation\narrives at a point demanding international organization before the\ndemagogues and electorates have learnt how to manage even a country\nparish properly much less internationalize Constantinople, the whole\npolitical business goes to smash; and presently we have Ruins of\nEmpires, New Zealanders sitting on a broken arch of London Bridge, and\nso forth.\n\nTo that recurrent catastrophe we shall certainly come again unless we\ncan have a Democracy of Supermen; and the production of such a Democracy\nis the only change that is now hopeful enough to nerve us to the effort\nthat Revolution demands.\n\n\n\nVI\n\nPRUDERY EXPLAINED\n\nWhy the bees should pamper their mothers whilst we pamper only our\noperatic prima donnas is a question worth reflecting on.  Our notion of\ntreating a mother is, not to increase her supply of food, but to cut it\noff by forbidding her to work in a factory for a month after her\nconfinement.  Everything that can make birth a misfortune to the parents\nas well as a danger to the mother is conscientiously done.  When a great\nFrench writer, Emil Zola, alarmed at the sterilization of his nation,\nwrote an eloquent and powerful book to restore the prestige of\nparentage, it was at once assumed in England that a work of this\ncharacter, with such a title as Fecundity, was too abominable to be\ntranslated, and that any attempt to deal with the relations of the sexes\nfrom any other than the voluptuary or romantic point of view must be\nsternly put down.  Now if this assumption were really founded on public\nopinion, it would indicate an attitude of disgust and resentment towards\nthe Life Force that could only arise in a diseased and moribund\ncommunity in which Ibsen's Hedda Gabler would be the typical woman.  But\nit has no vital foundation at all.  The prudery of the newspapers is,\nlike the prudery of the dinner table, a mere difficulty of education and\nlanguage.  We are not taught to think decently on these subjects, and\nconsequently we have no language for them except indecent language.  We\ntherefore have to declare them unfit for public discussion, because the\nonly terms in which we can conduct the discussion are unfit for public\nuse.  Physiologists, who have a technical vocabulary at their disposal,\nfind no difficulty; and masters of language who think decently can write\npopular stories like Zola's Fecundity or Tolstoy's Resurrection without\ngiving the smallest offence to readers who can also think decently.  But\nthe ordinary modern journalist, who has never discussed such matters\nexcept in ribaldry, cannot write a simple comment on a divorce case\nwithout a conscious shamefulness or a furtive facetiousness that makes\nit impossible to read the comment aloud in company.  All this ribaldry\nand prudery (the two are the same) does not mean that people do not feel\ndecently on the subject: on the contrary, it is just the depth and\nseriousness of our feeling that makes its desecration by vile language\nand coarse humor intolerable; so that at last we cannot bear to have it\nspoken of at all because only one in a thousand can speak of it without\nwounding our self-respect, especially the self-respect of women.  Add to\nthe horrors of popular language the horrors of popular poverty.  In\ncrowded populations poverty destroys the possibility of cleanliness; and\nin the absence of cleanliness many of the natural conditions of life\nbecome offensive and noxious, with the result that at last the\nassociation of uncleanliness with these natural conditions becomes so\noverpowering that among civilized people (that is, people massed in the\nlabyrinths of slums we call cities), half their bodily life becomes a\nguilty secret, unmentionable except to the doctor in emergencies; and\nHedda Gabler shoots herself because maternity is so unladylike.  In\nshort, popular prudery is only a mere incident of popular squalor: the\nsubjects which it taboos remain the most interesting and earnest of\nsubjects in spite of it.\n\n\n\nVII\n\nPROGRESS AN ILLUSION\n\nUnfortunately the earnest people get drawn off the track of evolution by\nthe illusion of progress.  Any Socialist can convince us easily that the\ndifference between Man as he is and Man as he might become, without\nfurther evolution, under millennial conditions of nutrition,\nenvironment, and training, is enormous.  He can shew that inequality and\niniquitous distribution of wealth and allotment of labor have arisen\nthrough an unscientific economic system, and that Man, faulty as he is,\nno more intended to establish any such ordered disorder than a moth\nintends to be burnt when it flies into a candle flame.  He can shew that\nthe difference between the grace and strength of the acrobat and the\nbent back of the rheumatic field laborer is a difference produced by\nconditions, not by nature.  He can shew that many of the most detestable\nhuman vices are not radical, but are mere reactions of our institutions\non our very virtues.  The Anarchist, the Fabian, the Salvationist, the\nVegetarian, the doctor, the lawyer, the parson, the professor of ethics,\nthe gymnast, the soldier, the sportsman, the inventor, the political\nprogram-maker, all have some prescription for bettering us; and almost\nall their remedies are physically possible and aimed at admitted evils.\nTo them the limit of progress is, at worst, the completion of all the\nsuggested reforms and the levelling up of all men to the point attained\nalready by the most highly nourished and cultivated in mind and body.\n\nHere, then, as it seems to them, is an enormous field for the energy of\nthe reformer.  Here are many noble goals attainable by many of those\npaths up the Hill Difficulty along which great spirits love to aspire.\nUnhappily, the hill will never be climbed by Man as we know him.  It\nneed not be denied that if we all struggled bravely to the end of the\nreformers' paths we should improve the world prodigiously.  But there is\nno more hope in that If than in the equally plausible assurance that if\nthe sky falls we shall all catch larks.  We are not going to tread those\npaths: we have not sufficient energy.  We do not desire the end enough:\nindeed in more cases we do not effectively desire it at all.  Ask any\nman would he like to be a better man; and he will say yes, most piously.\nAsk him would he like to have a million of money; and he will say yes,\nmost sincerely.  But the pious citizen who would like to be a better man\ngoes on behaving just as he did before.  And the tramp who would like\nthe million does not take the trouble to earn ten shillings: multitudes\nof men and women, all eager to accept a legacy of a million, live and\ndie without having ever possessed five pounds at one time, although\nbeggars have died in rags on mattresses stuffed with gold which they\naccumulated because they desired it enough to nerve them to get it and\nkeep it.  The economists who discovered that demand created supply soon\nhad to limit the proposition to \"effective demand,\" which turned out, in\nthe final analysis, to mean nothing more than supply itself; and this\nholds good in politics, morals, and all other departments as well: the\nactual supply is the measure of the effective demand; and the mere\naspirations and professions produce nothing.  No community has ever yet\npassed beyond the initial phases in which its pugnacity and fanaticism\nenabled it to found a nation, and its cupidity to establish and develop\na commercial civilization.  Even these stages have never been attained\nby public spirit, but always by intolerant wilfulness and brute force.\nTake the Reform Bill of 1832 as an example of a conflict between two\nsections of educated Englishmen concerning a political measure which was\nas obviously necessary and inevitable as any political measure has ever\nbeen or is ever likely to be.  It was not passed until the gentlemen of\nBirmingham had made arrangements to cut the throats of the gentlemen of\nSt. James's parish in due military form.  It would not have been passed\nto this day if there had been no force behind it except the logic and\npublic conscience of the Utilitarians.  A despotic ruler with as much\nsense as Queen Elizabeth would have done better than the mob of grown-up\nEton boys who governed us then by privilege, and who, since the\nintroduction of practically Manhood Suffrage in 1884, now govern us at\nthe request of proletarian Democracy.\n\nAt the present time we have, instead of the Utilitarians, the Fabian\nSociety, with its peaceful, constitutional, moral, economical policy of\nSocialism, which needs nothing for its bloodless and benevolent\nrealization except that the English people shall understand it and\napprove of it.  But why are the Fabians well spoken of in circles where\nthirty years ago the word Socialist was understood as equivalent to\ncut-throat and incendiary?  Not because the English have the smallest\nintention of studying or adopting the Fabian policy, but because they\nbelieve that the Fabians, by eliminating the element of intimidation\nfrom the Socialist agitation, have drawn the teeth of insurgent poverty\nand saved the existing order from the only method of attack it really\nfears.  Of course, if the nation adopted the Fabian policy, it would be\ncarried out by brute force exactly as our present property system is.\nIt would become the law; and those who resisted it would be fined, sold\nup, knocked on the head by policemen, thrown into prison, and in the\nlast resort \"executed\" just as they are when they break the present law.\nBut as our proprietary class has no fear of that conversion taking\nplace, whereas it does fear sporadic cut-throats and gunpowder plots,\nand strives with all its might to hide the fact that there is no moral\ndifference whatever between the methods by which it enforces its\nproprietary rights and the method by which the dynamitard asserts his\nconception of natural human rights, the Fabian Society is patted on the\nback just as the Christian Social Union is, whilst the Socialist who\nsays bluntly that a Social revolution can be made only as all other\nrevolutions have been made, by the people who want it killing, coercing,\nand intimidating the people who dont want it, is denounced as a\nmisleader of the people, and imprisoned with hard labor to shew him how\nmuch sincerity there is in the objection of his captors to physical\nforce.\n\nAre we then to repudiate Fabian methods, and return to those of the\nbarricader, or adopt those of the dynamitard and the assassin?  On the\ncontrary, we are to recognize that both are fundamentally futile.  It\nseems easy for the dynamitard to say \"Have you not just admitted that\nnothing is ever conceded except to physical force?  Did not Gladstone\nadmit that the Irish Church was disestablished, not by the spirit of\nLiberalism, but by the explosion which wrecked Clerkenwell prison?\"\nWell, we need not foolishly and timidly deny it.  Let it be fully\ngranted.  Let us grant, further, that all this lies in the nature of\nthings; that the most ardent Socialist, if he owns property, can by no\nmeans do otherwise than Conservative proprietors until property is\nforcibly abolished by the whole nation; nay, that ballots, and\nparliamentary divisions, in spite of their vain ceremony, of discussion,\ndiffer from battles only as the bloodless surrender of an outnumbered\nforce in the field differs from Waterloo or Trafalgar.  I make a present\nof all these admissions to the Fenian who collects money from\nthoughtless Irishmen in America to blow up Dublin Castle; to the\ndetective who persuades foolish young workmen to order bombs from the\nnearest ironmonger and then delivers them up to penal servitude; to our\nmilitary and naval commanders who believe, not in preaching, but in an\nultimatum backed by plenty of lyddite; and, generally, to all whom it\nmay concern.  But of what use is it to substitute the way of the\nreckless and bloodyminded for the way of the cautious and humane?  Is\nEngland any the better for the wreck of Clerkenwell prison, or Ireland\nfor the disestablishment of the Irish Church?  Is there the smallest\nreason to suppose that the nation which sheepishly let Charles and Laud\nand Strafford coerce it, gained anything because it afterwards, still\nmore sheepishly, let a few strongminded Puritans, inflamed by the\nmasterpieces of Jewish revolutionary literature, cut off the heads of\nthe three?  Suppose the Gunpowder plot had succeeded, and set a Fawkes\ndynasty permanently on the throne, would it have made any difference to\nthe present state of the nation?  The guillotine was used in France up\nto the limit of human endurance, both on Girondins and Jacobins.\nFouquier Tinville followed Marie Antoinette to the scaffold; and Marie\nAntoinette might have asked the crowd, just as pointedly as Fouquier\ndid, whether their bread would be any cheaper when her head was off.\nAnd what came of it all?  The Imperial France of the Rougon Macquart\nfamily, and the Republican France of the Panama scandal and the Dreyfus\ncase.  Was the difference worth the guillotining of all those unlucky\nladies and gentlemen, useless and mischievous as many of them were?\nWould any sane man guillotine a mouse to bring about such a result?\nTurn to Republican America.  America has no Star Chamber, and no feudal\nbarons.  But it has Trusts; and it has millionaires whose factories,\nfenced in by live electric wires and defended by Pinkerton retainers\nwith magazine rifles, would have made a Radical of Reginald Front de\nBoeuf.  Would Washington or Franklin have lifted a finger in the cause\nof American Independence if they had foreseen its reality?\n\nNo: what Caesar, Cromwell, Napoleon could not do with all the physical\nforce and moral prestige of the State in their hands, cannot be done by\nenthusiastic criminals and lunatics.  Even the Jews, who, from Moses to\nMarx and Lassalle, have inspired all the revolutions, have had to\nconfess that, after all, the dog will return to his vomit and the sow\nthat was washed to her wallowing in the mire; and we may as well make up\nour minds that Man will return to his idols and his cupidities, in spite\nof \"movements\" and all revolutions, until his nature is changed.  Until\nthen, his early successes in building commercial civilizations (and such\ncivilizations, Good Heavens!) are but preliminaries to the inevitable\nlater stage, now threatening us, in which the passions which built the\ncivilization become fatal instead of productive, just as the same\nqualities which make the lion king in the forest ensure his destruction\nwhen he enters a city.  Nothing can save society then except the clear\nhead and the wide purpose: war and competition, potent instruments of\nselection and evolution in one epoch, become ruinous instruments of\ndegeneration in the next.  In the breeding of animals and plants,\nvarieties which have arisen by selection through many generations\nrelapse precipitously into the wild type in a generation or two when\nselection ceases; and in the same way a civilization in which lusty\npugnacity and greed have ceased to act as selective agents and have\nbegun to obstruct and destroy, rushes downwards and backwards with a\nsuddenness that enables an observer to see with consternation the upward\nsteps of many centuries retraced in a single lifetime.  This has often\noccurred even within the period covered by history; and in every\ninstance the turning point has been reached long before the attainment,\nor even the general advocacy on paper, of the levelling-up of the mass\nto the highest point attainable by the best nourished and cultivated\nnormal individuals.\n\nWe must therefore frankly give up the notion that Man as he exists is\ncapable of net progress.  There will always be an illusion of progress,\nbecause wherever we are conscious of an evil we remedy it, and therefore\nalways seem to ourselves to be progressing, forgetting that most of the\nevils we see are the effects, finally become acute, of long-unnoticed\nretrogressions; that our compromising remedies seldom fully recover the\nlost ground; above all, that on the lines along which we are\ndegenerating, good has become evil in our eyes, and is being undone in\nthe name of progress precisely as evil is undone and replaced by good on\nthe lines along which we are evolving.  This is indeed the Illusion of\nIllusions; for it gives us infallible and appalling assurance that if\nour political ruin is to come, it will be effected by ardent reformers\nand supported by enthusiastic patriots as a series of necessary steps in\nour progress.  Let the Reformer, the Progressive, the Meliorist then\nreconsider himself and his eternal ifs and ans which never become pots\nand pans.  Whilst Man remains what he is, there can be no progress\nbeyond the point already attained and fallen headlong from at every\nattempt at civilization; and since even that point is but a pinnacle to\nwhich a few people cling in giddy terror above an abyss of squalor, mere\nprogress should no longer charm us.\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE CONCEIT OF CIVILIZATION\n\nAfter all, the progress illusion is not so very subtle.  We begin by\nreading the satires of our fathers' contemporaries; and we conclude\n(usually quite ignorantly) that the abuses exposed by them are things of\nthe past.  We see also that reforms of crying evils are frequently\nproduced by the sectional shifting of political power from oppressors to\noppressed.  The poor man is given a vote by the Liberals in the hope\nthat he will cast it for his emancipators.  The hope is not fulfilled;\nbut the lifelong imprisonment of penniless men for debt ceases; Factory\nActs are passed to mitigate sweating; schooling is made free and\ncompulsory; sanitary by-laws are multiplied; public steps are taken to\nhouse the masses decently; the bare-footed get boots; rags become rare;\nand bathrooms and pianos, smart tweeds and starched collars, reach\nnumbers of people who once, as \"the unsoaped,\" played the Jew's harp or\nthe accordion in moleskins and belchers.  Some of these changes are\ngains: some of them are losses.  Some of them are not changes at all:\nall of them are merely the changes that money makes.  Still, they\nproduce an illusion of bustling progress; and the reading class infers\nfrom them that the abuses of the early Victorian period no longer exist\nexcept as amusing pages in the novels of Dickens.  But the moment we\nlook for a reform due to character and not to money, to statesmanship\nand not to interest or mutiny, we are disillusioned.  For example, we\nremembered the maladministration and incompetence revealed by the\nCrimean War as part of a bygone state of things until the South African\nwar shewed that the nation and the War Office, like those poor Bourbons\nwho have been so impudently blamed for a universal characteristic, had\nlearnt nothing and forgotten nothing.  We had hardly recovered from the\nfruitless irritation of this discovery when it transpired that the\nofficers' mess of our most select regiment included a flogging club\npresided over by the senior subaltern.  The disclosure provoked some\ndisgust at the details of this schoolboyish debauchery, but no surprise\nat the apparent absence of any conception of manly honor and virtue, of\npersonal courage and self-respect, in the front rank of our chivalry.\nIn civil affairs we had assumed that the sycophancy and idolatry which\nencouraged Charles I.  to undervalue the Puritan revolt of the XVII\ncentury had been long outgrown; but it has needed nothing but favorable\ncircumstances to revive, with added abjectness to compensate for its\nlost piety.  We have relapsed into disputes about transubstantiation at\nthe very moment when the discovery of the wide prevalence of theophagy\nas a tribal custom has deprived us of the last excuse for believing that\nour official religious rites differ in essentials from those of\nbarbarians.  The Christian doctrine of the uselessness of punishment and\nthe wickedness of revenge has not, in spite of its simple common sense,\nfound a single convert among the nations: Christianity means nothing to\nthe masses but a sensational public execution which is made an excuse\nfor other executions.  In its name we take ten years of a thief's life\nminute by minute in the slow misery and degradation of modern reformed\nimprisonment with as little remorse as Laud and his Star Chamber clipped\nthe ears of Bastwick and Burton.  We dug up and mutilated the remains of\nthe Mahdi the other day exactly as we dug up and mutilated the remains\nof Cromwell two centuries ago.  We have demanded the decapitation of the\nChinese Boxer princes as any Tartar would have done; and our military\nand naval expeditions to kill, burn, and destroy tribes and villages for\nknocking an Englishman on the head are so common a part of our Imperial\nroutine that the last dozen of them has not called forth as much pity as\ncan be counted on by any lady criminal.  The judicial use of torture to\nextort confession is supposed to be a relic of darker ages; but whilst\nthese pages are being written an English judge has sentenced a forger to\ntwenty years penal servitude with an open declaration that the sentence\nwill be carried out in full unless he confesses where he has hidden the\nnotes he forged.  And no comment whatever is made, either on this or on\na telegram from the seat of war in Somaliland mentioning that certain\ninformation has been given by a prisoner of war \"under punishment.\" Even\nif these reports are false, the fact that they are accepted without\nprotest as indicating a natural and proper course of public conduct\nshews that we are still as ready to resort to torture as Bacon was.  As\nto vindictive cruelty, an incident in the South African war, when the\nrelatives and friends of a prisoner were forced to witness his\nexecution, betrayed a baseness of temper and character which hardly\nleaves us the right to plume ourselves on our superiority to Edward III.\nat the surrender of Calais.  And the democratic American officer\nindulges in torture in the Philippines just as the aristocratic English\nofficer did in South Africa.  The incidents of the white invasion of\nAfrica in search of ivory, gold, diamonds, and sport, have proved that\nthe modern European is the same beast of prey that formerly marched to\nthe conquest of new worlds under Alexander, Antony, and Pizarro.\nParliaments and vestries are just what they were when Cromwell\nsuppressed them and Dickens derided them.  The democratic politician\nremains exactly as Plato described him; the physician is still the\ncredulous impostor and petulant scientific coxcomb whom Moliere\nridiculed; the schoolmaster remains at best a pedantic child farmer and\nat worst a flagellomaniac; arbitrations are more dreaded by honest men\nthan lawsuits; the philanthropist is still a parasite on misery as the\ndoctor is on disease; the miracles of priestcraft are none the less\nfraudulent and mischievous because they are now called scientific\nexperiments and conducted by professors; witchcraft, in the modern form\nof patent medicines and prophylactic inoculations, is rampant; the\nlandowner who is no longer powerful enough to; set the mantrap of\nRhampsinitis improves on it by barbed wire; the modern gentleman who is\ntoo lazy to daub his face with vermilion as a symbol of bravery employs\na laundress to daub his shirt with starch as a symbol of cleanliness; we\nshake our heads at the dirt of the middle ages in cities made grimy with\nsoot and foul and disgusting with shameless tobacco smoking; holy water,\nin its latest form of disinfectant fluid, is more widely used and\nbelieved in than ever; public health authorities deliberately go through\nincantations with burning sulphur (which they know to be useless)\nbecause the people believe in it as devoutly as the Italian peasant\nbelieves in the liquefaction of the blood of St Januarius; and\nstraightforward public lying has reached gigantic developments, there\nbeing nothing to choose in this respect between the pickpocket at the\npolice station and the minister on the treasury bench, the editor in the\nnewspaper office, the city magnate advertizing bicycle tires that do not\nside-slip, the clergyman subscribing the thirty-nine articles, and the\nvivisector who pledges his knightly honor that no animal operated on in\nthe physiological laboratory suffers the slightest pain.  Hypocrisy is\nat its worst; for we not only persecute bigotedly but sincerely in the\nname of the cure-mongering witchcraft we do believe in, but callously\nand hypocritically in the name of the Evangelical creed that our rulers\nprivately smile at as the Italian patricians of the fifth century smiled\nat Jupiter and Venus.  Sport is, as it has always been, murderous\nexcitement; the impulse to slaughter is universal; and museums are set\nup throughout the country to encourage little children and elderly\ngentlemen to make collections of corpses preserved in alcohol, and to\nsteal birds' eggs and keep them as the red Indian used to keep scalps.\nCoercion with the lash is as natural to an Englishman as it was to\nSolomon spoiling Rehoboam: indeed, the comparison is unfair to the Jews\nin view of the facts that the Mosaic law forbade more than forty lashes\nin the name of humanity, and that floggings of a thousand lashes were\ninflicted on English soldiers in the XVIII and XIX centuries, and would\nbe inflicted still but for the change in the balance of political power\nbetween the military caste and the commercial classes and the\nproletariat.  In spite of that change, flogging is still an institution\nin the public school, in the military prison, on the training ship, and\nin that school of littleness called the home.  The lascivious clamor of\nthe flagellomaniac for more of it, constant as the clamor for more\ninsolence, more war, and lower rates, is tolerated and even gratified\nbecause, having no moral ends in view, we have sense enough to see that\nnothing but brute coercion can impose our selfish will on others.\nCowardice is universal; patriotism, public opinion, parental duty,\ndiscipline, religion, morality, are only fine names for intimidation;\nand cruelty, gluttony, and credulity keep cowardice in countenance.  We\ncut the throat of a calf and hang it up by the heels to bleed to death\nso that our veal cutlet may be white; we nail geese to a board and cram\nthem with food because we like the taste of liver disease; we tear birds\nto pieces to decorate our women's hats; we mutilate domestic animals for\nno reason at all except to follow an instinctively cruel fashion; and we\nconnive at the most abominable tortures in the hope of discovering some\nmagical cure for our own diseases by them.\n\nNow please observe that these are not exceptional developments of our\nadmitted vices, deplored and prayed against by all good men.  Not a word\nhas been said here of the excesses of our Neros, of whom we have the\nfull usual percentage.  With the exception of the few military examples,\nwhich are mentioned mainly to shew that the education and standing of a\ngentleman, reinforced by the strongest conventions of honor, esprit de\ncorps, publicity and responsibility, afford no better guarantees of\nconduct than the passions of a mob, the illustrations given above are\ncommonplaces taken from the daily practices of our best citizens,\nvehemently defended in our newspapers and in our pulpits.  The very\nhumanitarians who abhor them are stirred to murder by them: the dagger\nof Brutus and Ravaillac is still active in the hands of Caserio and\nLuccheni; and the pistol has come to its aid in the hands of Guiteau and\nCzolgosz.  Our remedies are still limited to endurance or assassination;\nand the assassin is still judicially assassinated on the principle that\ntwo blacks make a white.  The only novelty is in our methods: through\nthe discovery of dynamite the overloaded musket of Hamilton of\nBothwellhaugh has been superseded by the bomb; but Ravachol's heart\nburns just as Hamilton's did.  The world will not bear thinking of to\nthose who know what it is, even with the largest discount for the\nrestraints of poverty on the poor and cowardice on the rich.\n\nAll that can be said for us is that people must and do live and let live\nup to a certain point.  Even the horse, with his docked tail and bitted\njaw, finds his slavery mitigated by the fact that a total disregard of\nhis need for food and rest would put his master to the expense of buying\na new horse every second day; for you cannot work a horse to death and\nthen pick up another one for nothing, as you can a laborer.  But this\nnatural check on inconsiderate selfishness is itself checked, partly by\nour shortsightedness, and partly by deliberate calculation; so that\nbeside the man who, to his own loss, will shorten his horse's life in\nmere stinginess, we have the tramway company which discovers actuarially\nthat though a horse may live from 24 to 40 years, yet it pays better to\nwork him to death in 4 and then replace him by a fresh victim.  And\nhuman slavery, which has reached its worst recorded point within our own\ntime in the form of free wage labor, has encountered the same personal\nand commercial limits to both its aggravation and its mitigation.  Now\nthat the freedom of wage labor has produced a scarcity of it, as in\nSouth Africa, the leading English newspaper and the leading English\nweekly review have openly and without apology demanded a return to\ncompulsory labor: that is, to the methods by which, as we believe, the\nEgyptians built the pyramids.  We know now that the crusade against\nchattel slavery in the XIX century succeeded solely because chattel\nslavery was neither the most effective nor the least humane method of\nlabor exploitation; and the world is now feeling its way towards a still\nmore effective system which shall abolish the freedom of the worker\nwithout again making his exploiter responsible for him.\n\nStill, there is always some mitigation: there is the fear of revolt; and\nthere are the effects of kindliness and affection.  Let it be repeated\ntherefore that no indictment is here laid against the world on the score\nof what its criminals and monsters do.  The fires of Smithfield and of\nthe Inquisition were lighted by earnestly pious people, who were kind\nand good as kindness and goodness go.  And when a negro is dipped in\nkerosene and set on fire in America at the present time, he is not a\ngood man lynched by ruffians: he is a criminal lynched by crowds of\nrespectable, charitable, virtuously indignant, high-minded citizens,\nwho, though they act outside the law, are at least more merciful than\nthe American legislators and judges who not so long ago condemned men to\nsolitary confinement for periods, not of five months, as our own\npractice is, but of five years and more.  The things that our moral\nmonsters do may be left out of account with St. Bartholomew massacres\nand other momentary outbursts of social disorder.  Judge us by the\nadmitted and respected practice of our most reputable circles; and, if\nyou know the facts and are strong enough to look them in the face, you\nmust admit that unless we are replaced by a more highly evolved\nanimal--in short, by the Superman--the world must remain a den of\ndangerous animals among whom our few accidental supermen, our\nShakespears, Goethes, Shelleys, and their like, must live as\nprecariously as lion tamers do, taking the humor of their situation, and\nthe dignity of their superiority, as a set-off to the horror of the one\nand the loneliness of the other.\n\n\n\nIX\n\nTHE VERDICT OF HISTORY\n\nIt may be said that though the wild beast breaks out in Man and casts\nhim back momentarily into barbarism under the excitement of war and\ncrime, yet his normal life is higher than the normal life of his\nforefathers.  This view is very acceptable to Englishmen, who always\nlean sincerely to virtue's side as long as it costs them nothing either\nin money or in thought.  They feel deeply the injustice of foreigners,\nwho allow them no credit for this conditional highmindedness.  But there\nis no reason to suppose that our ancestors were less capable of it than\nwe are.  To all such claims for the existence of a progressive moral\nevolution operating visibly from grandfather to grandson, there is the\nconclusive reply that a thousand years of such evolution would have\nproduced enormous social changes, of which the historical evidence would\nbe overwhelming.  But not Macaulay himself, the most confident of Whig\nmeliorists, can produce any such evidence that will bear\ncross-examination.  Compare our conduct and our codes with those\nmentioned contemporarily in such ancient scriptures and classics as have\ncome down to us, and you will find no jot of ground for the belief that\nany moral progress whatever has been made in historic time, in spite of\nall the romantic attempts of historians to reconstruct the past on that\nassumption.  Within that time it has happened to nations as to private\nfamilies and individuals that they have flourished and decayed, repented\nand hardened their hearts, submitted and protested, acted and reacted,\noscillated between natural and artificial sanitation (the oldest house\nin the world, unearthed the other day in Crete, has quite modern\nsanitary arrangements), and rung a thousand changes on the different\nscales of income and pressure of population, firmly believing all the\ntime that mankind was advancing by leaps and bounds because men were\nconstantly busy.  And the mere chapter of accidents has left a small\naccumulation of chance discoveries, such as the wheel, the arch, the\nsafety pin, gunpowder, the magnet, the Voltaic pile and so forth: things\nwhich, unlike the gospels and philosophic treatises of the sages, can be\nusefully understood and applied by common men; so that steam locomotion\nis possible without a nation of Stephensons, although national\nChristianity is impossible without a nation of Christs.  But does any\nman seriously believe that the chauffeur who drives a motor car from\nParis to Berlin is a more highly evolved man than the charioteer of\nAchilles, or that a modern Prime Minister is a more enlightened ruler\nthan Caesar because he rides a tricycle, writes his dispatches by the\nelectric light, and instructs his stockbroker through the telephone?\n\nEnough, then, of this goose-cackle about Progress: Man, as he is, never\nwill nor can add a cubit to his stature by any of its quackeries,\npolitical, scientific, educational, religious, or artistic.  What is\nlikely to happen when this conviction gets into the minds of the men\nwhose present faith in these illusions is the cement of our social\nsystem, can be imagined only by those who know how suddenly a\ncivilization which has long ceased to think (or in the old phrase, to\nwatch and pray) can fall to pieces when the vulgar belief in its\nhypocrisies and impostures can no longer hold out against its failures\nand scandals.  When religious and ethical formulae become so obsolete\nthat no man of strong mind can believe them, they have also reached the\npoint at which no man of high character will profess them; and from,\nthat moment until they are formally disestablished, they stand at the\ndoor of every profession and every public office to keep out every able\nman who is not a sophist or a liar.  A nation which revises its parish\ncouncils once in three years, but will not revise its articles of\nreligion once in three hundred, even when those articles avowedly began\nas a political compromise dictated by Mr Facing-Both-Ways, is a nation\nthat needs remaking.\n\nOur only hope, then, is in evolution.  We must replace the man by the\nsuperman.  It is frightful for the citizen, as the years pass him, to\nsee his own contemporaries so exactly reproduced by the younger\ngeneration, that his companions of thirty years ago have their\ncounterparts in every city crowd, where he had to check himself\nrepeatedly in the act of saluting as an old friend some young man to\nwhom he is only an elderly stranger.  All hope of advance dies in his\nbosom as he watches them: he knows that they will do just what their\nfathers did, and that the few voices which will still, as always before,\nexhort them to do something else and be something better, might as well\nspare their breath to cool their porridge (if they can get any).  Men\nlike Ruskin and Carlyle will preach to Smith and Brown for the sake of\npreaching, just as St Francis preached to the birds and St Anthony to\nthe fishes.  But Smith and Brown, like the fishes and birds, remain as\nthey are; and poets who plan Utopias and prove that nothing is necessary\nfor their realization but that Man should will them, perceive at last,\nlike Richard Wagner, that the fact to be faced is that Man does not\neffectively will them.  And he never will until he becomes Superman.\n\nAnd so we arrive at the end of the Socialist's dream of \"the\nsocialization of the means of production and exchange,\" of the\nPositivist's dream of moralizing the capitalist, and of the ethical\nprofessor's, legislator's, educator's dream of putting commandments and\ncodes and lessons and examination marks on a man as harness is put on a\nhorse, ermine on a judge, pipeclay on a soldier, or a wig on an actor,\nand pretending that his nature has been changed.  The only fundamental\nand possible Socialism is the socialization of the selective breeding of\nMan: in other terms, of human evolution.  We must eliminate the Yahoo,\nor his vote will wreck the commonwealth.\n\n\n\nX\n\nTHE METHOD\n\nAs to the method, what can be said as yet except that where there is a\nwill, there is a way?  If there be no will, we are lost.  That is a\npossibility for our crazy little empire, if not for the universe; and as\nsuch possibilities are not to be entertained without despair, we must,\nwhilst we survive, proceed on the assumption that we have still energy\nenough to not only will to live, but to will to live better.  That may\nmean that we must establish a State Department of Evolution, with a seat\nin the Cabinet for its chief, and a revenue to defray the cost of direct\nState experiments, and provide inducements to private persons to achieve\nsuccessful results.  It may mean a private society or a chartered\ncompany for the improvement of human live stock.  But for the present it\nis far more likely to mean a blatant repudiation of such proposals as\nindecent and immoral, with, nevertheless, a general secret pushing of\nthe human will in the repudiated direction; so that all sorts of\ninstitutions and public authorities will under some pretext or other\nfeel their way furtively towards the Superman.  Mr Graham Wallas has\nalready ventured to suggest, as Chairman of the School Management\nCommittee of the London School Board, that the accepted policy of the\nSterilization of the Schoolmistress, however administratively\nconvenient, is open to criticism from the national stock-breeding point\nof view; and this is as good an example as any of the way in which the\ndrift towards the Superman may operate in spite of all our hypocrisies.\nOne thing at least is clear to begin with.  If a woman can, by careful\nselection of a father, and nourishment of herself, produce a citizen\nwith efficient senses, sound organs, and a good digestion, she should\nclearly be secured a sufficient reward for that natural service to make\nher willing to undertake and repeat it.  Whether she be financed in the\nundertaking by herself, or by the father, or by a speculative\ncapitalist, or by a new department of, say, the Royal Dublin Society, or\n(as at present) by the War Office maintaining her \"on the strength\" and\nauthorizing a particular soldier to marry her, or by a local authority\nunder a by-law directing that women may under certain circumstances have\na year's leave of absence on full salary, or by the central government,\ndoes not matter provided the result be satisfactory.\n\nIt is a melancholy fact that as the vast majority of women and their\nhusbands have, under existing circumstances, not enough nourishment, no\ncapital, no credit, and no knowledge of science or business, they would,\nif the State would pay for birth as it now pays for death, be exploited\nby joint stock companies for dividends, just as they are in ordinary\nindustries.  Even a joint stock human stud farm (piously disguised as a\nreformed Foundling Hospital or something of that sort) might well, under\nproper inspection and regulation, produce better results than our\npresent reliance on promiscuous marriage.  It may be objected that when\nan ordinary contractor produces stores for sale to the Government, and\nthe Government rejects them as not up to the required standard, the\ncondemned goods are either sold for what they will fetch or else\nscrapped: that is, treated as waste material; whereas if the goods\nconsisted of human beings, all that could be done would be to let them\nloose or send them to the nearest workhouse.  But there is nothing new\nin private enterprise throwing its human refuse on the cheap labor\nmarket and the workhouse; and the refuse of the new industry would\npresumably be better bred than the staple product of ordinary poverty.\nIn our present happy-go-lucky industrial disorder, all the human\nproducts, successful or not, would have to be thrown on the labor\nmarket; but the unsuccessful ones would not entitle the company to a\nbounty and so would be a dead loss to it.  The practical commercial\ndifficulty would be the uncertainty and the cost in time and money of\nthe first experiments.  Purely commercial capital would not touch such\nheroic operations during the experimental stage; and in any case the\nstrength of mind needed for so momentous a new departure could not be\nfairly expected from the Stock Exchange.  It will have to be handled by\nstatesmen with character enough to tell our democracy and plutocracy\nthat statecraft does not consist in flattering their follies or applying\ntheir suburban standards of propriety to the affairs of four continents.\nThe matter must be taken up either by the State or by some organization\nstrong enough to impose respect upon the State.\n\nThe novelty of any such experiment, however, is only in the scale of it.\nIn one conspicuous case, that of royalty, the State does already select\nthe parents on purely political grounds; and in the peerage, though the\nheir to a dukedom is legally free to marry a dairymaid, yet the social\npressure on him to confine his choice to politically and socially\neligible mates is so overwhelming that he is really no more free to\nmarry the dairymaid than George IV was to marry Mrs Fitzherbert; and\nsuch a marriage could only occur as a result of extraordinary strength\nof character on the part of the dairymaid acting upon extraordinary\nweakness on the part of the duke.  Let those who think the whole\nconception of intelligent breeding absurd and scandalous ask themselves\nwhy George IV was not allowed to choose his own wife whilst any tinker\ncould marry whom he pleased?  Simply because it did not matter a rap\npolitically whom the tinker married, whereas it mattered very much whom\nthe king married.  The way in which all considerations of the king's\npersonal rights, of the claims of the heart, of the sanctity of the\nmarriage oath, and of romantic morality crumpled up before this\npolitical need shews how negligible all these apparently irresistible\nprejudices are when they come into conflict with the demand for quality\nin our rulers.  We learn the same lesson from the case of the soldier,\nwhose marriage, when it is permitted at all, is despotically controlled\nwith a view solely to military efficiency.\n\nWell, nowadays it is not the King that rules, but the tinker.  Dynastic\nwars are no longer feared, dynastic alliances no longer valued.\nMarriages in royal families are becoming rapidly less political, and\nmore popular, domestic, and romantic.  If all the kings in Europe were\nmade as free to-morrow as King Cophetua, nobody but their aunts and\nchamberlains would feel a moment's anxiety as to the consequences.  On\nthe other hand a sense of the social importance of the tinker's marriage\nhas been steadily growing.  We have made a public matter of his wife's\nhealth in the month after her confinement.  We have taken the minds of\nhis children out of his hands and put them into those of our State\nschoolmaster.  We shall presently make their bodily nourishment\nindependent of him.  But they are still riff-raff; and to hand the\ncountry over to riff-raff is national suicide, since riff-raff can\nneither govern nor will let anyone else govern except the highest bidder\nof bread and circuses.  There is no public enthusiast alive of twenty\nyears' practical democratic experience who believes in the political\nadequacy of the electorate or of the bodies it elects.  The overthrow of\nthe aristocrat has created the necessity for the Superman.\n\nEnglishmen hate Liberty and Equality too much to understand them.  But\nevery Englishman loves and desires a pedigree.  And in that he is right.\nKing Demos must be bred like all other Kings; and with Must there is no\narguing.  It is idle for an individual writer to carry so great a matter\nfurther in a pamphlet.  A conference on the subject is the next step\nneeded.  It will be attended by men and women who, no longer believing\nthat they can live for ever, are seeking for some immortal work into\nwhich they can build the best of themselves before their refuse is\nthrown into that arch dust destructor, the cremation furnace.\n\n\n\n[Transcriber's Note: Shaw promoted spelling reform of his own invention.\nHis spelling reform included not using apostrophes for contractions,\nthus this text has 'dont' instead of 'don't' and -iz- instead of -is-\neven in words which standard English, both British or American, spells\nwith -is-, for example: partizan, artizan.  He had the goal of making\nspelling more phonetic.  He spelled it 'Shakespear'.  He spelled\n'Caesar' with an ae ligature.  He used diacritical on French words and\nnames.]","title":"Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":12835}