{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_30432/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_30432","id":"gutenberg_30432","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30432","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Great Britain -- Social conditions","Social problems"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA MODERN SYMPOSIUM\n\n\nBY\n\nG. LOWES DICKINSON\n\n\n\n\n  \"LIFE LIKE A DOME OF MANY-COLOURED GLASS\n  STAINS THE WHITE RADIANCE OF ETERNITY\"\n\n\n\nLONDON\n\nGEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD\n\nMUSEUM STREET\n\n\n\n\n  FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1905\n  REPRINTED 1930\n  REPRINTED 1934\n\n\n\n  PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY\n  UNWIN BROTHERS LTD., WOKING\n\n\n\n\n  FRATRUM SOCIETATI\n  FRATRUM MINIMUS\n\n\n\n\nTHE SPEAKERS\n\n\n  LORD CANTILUPE\n  A TORY\n\n  ALFRED REMENHAM\n  A LIBERAL\n\n  REUBEN MENDOZA\n  A CONSERVATIVE\n\n  GEORGE ALLISON\n  A SOCIALIST\n\n  ANGUS MACCARTHY\n  AN ANARCHIST\n\n  HENRY MARTIN\n  A PROFESSOR\n\n  CHARLES WILSON\n  A MAN OF SCIENCE\n\n  ARTHUR ELLIS\n  A JOURNALIST\n\n  PHILIP AUDUBON\n  A MAN OF BUSINESS\n\n  AUBREY CORYAT\n  A POET\n\n  SIR JOHN HARINGTON\n  A GENTLEMAN OF LEISURE\n\n  WILLIAM WOODMAN\n  A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS\n\n  GEOFFRY VIVIAN\n  A MAN OF LETTERS\n\n\n\n\nA MODERN SYMPOSIUM\n\nSOME of my readers may have heard of a club known as the Seekers.  It\nis now extinct; but in its day it was famous, and included a number of\nmen prominent in politics or in the professions.  We used to meet once\na fortnight on the Saturday night, in London during the winter, but in\nthe summer usually at the country house of one or other of the members,\nwhere we would spend the week-end together.  The member in whose house\nthe meeting was held was chairman for the evening; and after the paper\nhad been read it was his duty to call upon the members to speak in what\norder he thought best.  On the occasion of the discussion which I am to\nrecord, the meeting was held in my own house, where I now write, on the\nNorth Downs.  The company was an interesting one.  There was Remenham,\nthen Prime Minister, and his great antagonist Mendoza, both of whom\nwere members of our society.  For we aimed at combining the most\nopposite elements, and were usually able, by a happy tradition\ninherited from our founder, to hold them suspended in a temporary\nharmony.  Then there was Cantilupe, who had recently retired from\npublic life, and whose name, perhaps, is already beginning to be\nforgotten.  Of younger men we had Allison, who, though still engaged in\nbusiness, was already active in his socialist propaganda.  Angus\nMacCarthy, too, was there, a man whose tragic end at Saint Petersburg\nis still fresh in our minds.  And there were others of less note;\nWilson, the biologist, Professor Martin, Coryat, the poet, and one or\ntwo more who will be mentioned in their place.\n\nAfter dinner, the time of year being June, and the weather unusually\nwarm, we adjourned to the terrace for our coffee and cigars.  The air\nwas so pleasant and the prospect so beautiful, the whole weald of\nSussex lying before us in the evening light, that it was suggested we\nshould hold our meeting there rather than indoors.  This was agreed.\nBut it then transpired that Cantilupe, who was to have read the paper,\nhad brought nothing to read.  He had forgotten, or he had been too\nbusy.  At this discovery there was a general cry of protest.\nCantilupe's proposition that we should forgo our discussion was\nindignantly scouted; and he was pressed to improvise something on the\nlines of what he had intended to write.  This, however, he steadily\ndeclined to attempt; and it seemed as though the debate would fall\nthrough, until it occurred to me to intervene in my capacity as\nchairman.\n\n\"Cantilupe,\" I said, \"certainly ought to be somehow penalized.  And\nsince he declines to improvise a paper, I propose that he improvise a\nspeech.  He is accustomed to doing that; and since he has now retired\nfrom public life, this may be his last opportunity.  Let him employ it,\nthen, in doing penance.  And the penance I impose is, that he should\nmake a personal confession.  That he should tell us why he has been a\npolitician, why he has been, and is, a Tory, and why he is now retiring\nin the prime of life.  I propose, in a word, that he should give us his\npoint of view.  That will certainly provoke Remenham, on whom I shall\ncall next.  He will provoke someone else.  And so we shall all find\nourselves giving our points of view, and we ought to have a very\ninteresting evening.\"  This suggestion was greeted, if not with\nenthusiasm, at least with acquiescence.  Cantilupe at first objected\nstrongly, but yielded to pressure, and on my calling formally upon him\nrose reluctantly from his seat.  For a minute or two he stood silent,\nhumping his shoulders and smiling through his thick beard.  Then, in\nhis slow, deliberate way, he began as follows:\n\n\"Why I went into politics?  Why did I?  I'm sure I don't know.\nCertainly I wasn't intended for it.  I was intended for a country\ngentleman, and I hope for the rest of my life to be one; which,\nperhaps, if I were candid, is the real reason of my retirement.  But I\nwas pushed into politics when I was young, as a kind of family duty;\nand once in it's very hard to get out again.  I'm coming out now\nbecause, among other things, there's no longer any place for me.\nToryism is dead.  And I, as you justly describe me, am a Tory.  But you\nwant to know why?  Well, I don't know that I can tell you.  Perhaps I\nought to be able to.  Remenham, I know, can and will give you the\nclearest possible account of why he is a Liberal.  But then Remenham\nhas principles; and I have only prejudices.  I am a Tory because I was\nborn one, just as another man is a Radical because he was born one.\nBut Remenham, I really believe, is a Liberal, because he has convinced\nhimself that he ought to be one.  I admire him for it, but I am quite\nunable to understand him.  And, for my own part, if I am to defend, or\nrather to explain myself, I can only do so by explaining my prejudices.\nAnd really I am glad to have the opportunity of doing so, if only\nbecause it is a satisfaction occasionally to say what one thinks; a\nthing which has become impossible in public life.\n\n\"The first of my prejudices is that I believe in inequality.  I'm not\nat all sure that that is a prejudice confined to myself--most people\nseem to act upon it in practice, even in America.  But I not only\nrecognize the fact, I approve the ideal of inequality.  I don't want,\nmyself, to be the equal of Darwin or of the German Emperor; and I don't\nsee why anybody should want to be my equal.  I like a society properly\nordered in ranks and classes.  I like my butcher or my gardener to take\noff his hat to me, and I like, myself, to stand bareheaded in the\npresence of the Queen.  I don't know that I'm better or worse than the\nvillage carpenter; but I'm different; and I like him to recognize that\nfact, and to recognize it myself.  In America, I am told, everyone is\nalways informing you, in everything they do and say, directly or\nindirectly, that they are as good as you are.  That isn't true, and if\nit were, it isn't good manners to keep saying it.  I prefer a society\nwhere people have places and know them.  They always do have places in\nany possible society; only, in a democratic society, they refuse to\nrecognize them; and, consequently, social relations are much ruder,\nmore unpleasant and less humane than they are, or used to be, in\nEngland.  That is my first prejudice; and it follows, of course, that I\nhate the whole democratic movement.  I see no sense in pretending to\nmake people equal politically when they're unequal in every other\nrespect.  Do what you may, it will always be a few people that will\ngovern.  And the only real result of the extension of the franchise has\nbeen to transfer political power from the landlords to the trading\nclasses and the wire-pullers.  Well, I don't think the change is a good\none.  And that brings me to my second prejudice, a prejudice against\ntrade.  I don't mean, of course, that we can do without it.  A country\nmust have wealth, though I think we were a much better country when we\nhad less than we have now.  Nor do I dispute that there are to be found\nexcellent, honourable, and capable men of business.  But I believe that\nthe pursuit of wealth tends to unfit men for the service of the state.\nAnd I sympathize with the somewhat extreme view of the ancient world\nthat those who are engaged in trade ought to be excluded from public\nfunctions.  I believe in government by gentlemen; and the word\ngentleman I understand in the proper, old-fashioned English sense, as a\nman of independent means, brought up from his boyhood in the atmosphere\nof public life, and destined either for the army, the navy, the Church,\nor Parliament.  It was that kind of man that made Rome great, and that\nmade England great in the past; and I don't believe that a country will\never be great which is governed by merchants and shopkeepers and\nartisans.  Not because they are not, or may not be, estimable people;\nbut because their occupations and manner of life unfit them for public\nservice.\n\n\"Well, that is the kind of feeling--I won't call it a principle--which\ndetermined my conduct in public life.  And you will remember that it\nseemed to be far more possible to give expression to it when first I\nentered politics than it is now.  Even after the first Reform\nAct--which, in my opinion was conceived upon the wrong lines--the\nlanded gentry still governed England; and if I could have had my way\nthey would have continued to do so.  It wasn't really parliamentary\nreform that was wanted; it was better and more intelligent government.\nAnd such government the then ruling class was capable of supplying, as\nis shown by the series of measures passed in the thirties and forties,\nthe new Poor Law and the Public Health Acts and the rest.  Even the\nrepeal of the Corn Laws shows at least how capable they were of\nsacrificing their own interests to the nation; though otherwise I\nconsider that measure the greatest of their blunders.  I don't profess\nto be a political economist, and I am ready to take it from those whose\nbusiness it is to know that our wealth has been increased by Free\nTrade.  But no one has ever convinced me, though many people have\ntried, that the increase of wealth ought to be the sole object of a\nnation's policy.  And it is surely as clear as day that the policy of\nFree Trade has dislocated the whole structure of our society.  It has\nsubstituted a miserable city-proletariat for healthy labourers on the\nsoil; it has transferred the great bulk of wealth from the\ncountry-gentleman to the traders; and in so doing it has more and more\ntransferred power from those who had the tradition of using it to those\nwho have no tradition at all except that of accumulation.  The very\nthing which I should have thought must be the main business of a\nstatesman--the determination of the proper relations of classes to one\nanother--we have handed over to the chances of competition.  We have\nabandoned the problem in despair, instead of attempting to solve it;\nwith the result, that our population--so it seems to me--is daily\ndegenerating before our eyes, in physique, in morals, in taste, in\neverything that matters; while we console ourselves with the increasing\naggregate of our wealth.  Free Trade, in my opinion, was the first\ngreat betrayal by the governing class of the country and themselves,\nand the second was the extension of the franchise.  I do not say that I\nwould not have made any change at all in the parliamentary system that\nhad been handed down to us.  But I would never have admitted, even\nimplicitly, that every man has a right to vote, still less that all\nhave an equal right.  For society, say what we may, is not composed of\nindividuals but of classes; and by classes it ought to be represented.\nI would have enfranchised peasants, artisans, merchants, manufacturers,\nas such, taking as my unit the interest, not the individual, and\nassigning to each so much weight as would enable its influence to be\nfelt, while preserving to the landed gentry their preponderance.  That\nwould have been difficult, no doubt, but it would have been worth\ndoing; whereas it was, to my mind, as foolish as it was easy simply to\nadd new batches of electors, till we shall arrive, I do not doubt, at\nwhat, in effect, is universal suffrage, without having ever admitted to\nourselves that we wanted to have it.\n\n\"But what has been done is final and irremediable.  Henceforth,\nnumbers, or rather those who control numbers, will dominate England;\nand they will not be the men under whom hitherto she has grown great.\nFor people like myself there is no longer a place in politics.  And\nreally, so far as I am personally concerned, I am rather glad to know\nit.  Those who have got us into the mess must get us out of it.\nProbably they will do so, in their own way; but they will make, in the\nprocess, a very different England from the one I have known and\nunderstood and loved.  We shall have a population of city people,\nbetter fed and housed, I hope, than they are now, clever and quick and\nsmart, living entirely by their heads, ready to turn out in a moment\nfor use everything they know, but knowing really very little, and not\nknowing it very well.  There will be fewer of the kind of people in\nwhom I take pleasure, whom I like to regard as peculiarly English, and\nwho are the products of the countryside; fellows who grow like\nvegetables, and, without knowing how, put on sense as they put on flesh\nby an unconscious process of assimilation; who will stand for an hour\nat a time watching a horse or a pig, with stolid moon-faces as\nmotionless as a pond; the sort of men that visitors from town imagine\nto be stupid because they take five minutes to answer a question, and\nthen probably answer by asking another; but who have stored up in them\na wealth of experience far too extensive and complicated for them ever\nto have taken account of it.  They live by their instincts not their\nbrains; but their instincts are the slow deposit of long years of\npractical dealings with nature.  That is the kind of man I like.  And I\nlike to live among them in the way I do--in a traditional relation\nwhich it never occurs to them to resent, any more than it does to me to\nabuse it.  That sort of relation you can't create; it has to grow, and\nto be handed down from father to son.  The new men who come on to the\nland never manage to establish it.  They bring with them the isolation\nwhich is the product of cities.  They have no idea of any tie except\nthat of wages; the notion of neighbourliness they do not understand.\nAnd that reminds me of a curious thing.  People go to town for society;\nbut I have always found that there is no real society except in the\ncountry.  We may be stupid there, but we belong to a scheme of things\nwhich embodies the wisdom of generations.  We meet not in\ndrawing-rooms, but in the hunting-field, on the county-bench, at\ndinners of tenants or farmers' associations.  Our private business is\nintermixed with our public.  Our occupation does not involve\ncompetition; and the daily performance of its duties we feel to be\nitself a kind of national service.  That is an order of things which I\nunderstand and admire, as my fathers understood and admired it before\nme.  And that is why I am a Tory; not because of any opinions I hold,\nbut because that is my character.  I stood for Toryism while it meant\nsomething; and now that it means nothing, though I stand for it no\nlonger, still I can't help being it.  The England that is will last my\ntime; the England that is to be does not interest me; and it is as well\nthat I should have nothing to do with directing it.\n\n\"I don't know whether that is a sufficient account of the question I\nwas told to answer; but it's the best I can make, and I think it ought\nto be sufficient.  I always imagine myself saying to God, if He asks me\nto give an account of myself: 'Here I am, as you made me.  You can take\nme or leave me.  If I had to live again I would live just so.  And if\nyou want me to live differently, you must make me different.'  I have\nchampioned a losing cause, and I am sorry it has lost.  But I do not\nbreak my heart about it.  I can still live for the rest of my days the\nlife I respect and enjoy.  And I am content to leave the nation in the\nhands of Remenham, who, as I see, is all impatience to reply to my\nheresies.\"\n\nREMENHAM in fact was fidgeting in his chair as though he found it hard\nto keep his seat; and I should have felt bound in pity to call upon him\nnext, even if I had not already determined to do so.  He rose with\nalacrity; and it was impossible not to be struck by the contrast he\npresented to Cantilupe.  His elastic upright figure, his firm chin, the\nexuberance of his gestures, the clear ring of his voice, expressed\nadmirably the intellectual and nervous force which he possessed in a\nhigher degree than any man I have ever come across.  He began without\nhesitation, and spoke throughout with the trained and facile eloquence\nof which he was master.  \"I shall, I am sure, be believed,\" he said,\n\"when I emphatically assert that nothing could be more distressing to\nme than the notion--if I should be driven to accept it--that the\nliberal measures on which, in my opinion, the prosperity and the true\nwelfare of the country depends should have, as one of their incidental\nconcomitants, the withdrawal from public life of such men as our friend\nwho has just sat down.  We need all the intellectual and moral\nresources of the country; and among them I count as not the least\nvaluable and fruitful the stock of our ancient country gentlemen.  I\nregretted the retirement of Lord Cantilupe on public as well as on\npersonal grounds; and my regret is only tempered, not altogether\nremoved, when I see how well, how honourably and how happily he is\nemploying his well-deserved leisure.  But I am glad to know that we\nhave still, and to believe that we shall continue to have, in the great\nCouncil of the nation, men of his distinguished type and tradition to\nform one, and that not the least important, of the balances and\ncounter-checks in the great and complicated engine of state.\n\n\"When, however, he claims--or perhaps I should rather say desires--for\nthe distinguished order of which he is a member, an actual and\npermanent preponderance in the state, there, I confess, I must part\ncompany with him.  Nay, I cannot even accept the theory, to which he\ngave expression, of a fixed and stable representation of interests.  It\nis indeed true that society, by the mysterious dispensation of the\nDivine Being, is wonderfully compounded of the most diverse elements\nand classes, corresponding to the various needs and requirements of\nhuman life.  And it is an ancient theory, supported by the authority of\ngreat names, by Plato, my revered master, the poet-philosopher, by\nAristotle, the founder of political science, that the problem of a\nstatesman is so to adjust these otherwise discordant elements as to\nform once for all in the body-politic a perfect, a final and immutable\nharmony.  There is, according to this view, one simple chord and one\nonly, which the great organ of society is adapted to play; and the\nbusiness of the legislator is merely to tune the instrument so that it\nshall play it correctly.  Thus, if Plato could have had his way, his\ngreat common chord, his harmony of producers, soldiers and\nphilosophers, would still have been droning monotonously down the ages,\nwherever men were assembled to dwell together.  Doubtless the concord\nhe conceived was beautiful.  But the dissonances he would have\nsilenced, but which, with ever-augmenting force, peal and crash, from\nhis day to ours, through the echoing vault of time, embody, as I am apt\nto think, a harmony more august than any which even he was able to\nimagine, and in their intricate succession weave the plan of a\nworld-symphony too high to be apprehended save in part by our grosser\nsense, but perceived with delight by the pure intelligence of immortal\nspirits.  It is indeed the fundamental defect of all imaginary\npolities--and how much more of such as fossilize, without even\nidealizing, the actual!--that even though they be perfect, their\nperfection is relative only to a single set of conditions; and that\ncould they perpetuate themselves they would also perpetuate these,\nwhich should have been but brief and transitory phases in the history\nof the race.  Had it been possible for Plato to establish over the\nhabitable globe his golden chain of philosophic cities, he would have\nriveted upon the world for ever the institutions of slavery and caste,\nwould have sealed at the source the springs of science and invention,\nand imprisoned in perennial impotence that mighty genius of empire\nwhich alone has been able to co-ordinate to a common and beneficent end\nthe stubborn and rebellious members of this growing creature Man.  And\nif the imagination of a Plato, permitted to work its will, would thus\nhave sterilized the germs of progress, what shall we say of such men as\nourselves imposing on the fecundity of nature the limits and rules of\nour imperfect mensuration!  Rather should we, in humility, submit\nourselves to her guidance, and so adapt our institutions that they\nshall hamper as little as may be the movements and forces operating\nwithin them.  For it is by conflict, as we have now learnt, that the\nhigher emerges from the lower, and nature herself, it would almost\nseem, does not direct but looks on, as her world emerges in painful\ntoil from chaos.  We do not find her with precipitate zeal intervening\nto arrest at a given point the ferment of creation; stretching her hand\nwhen she sees the gleam of the halcyon or the rose to bid the process\ncease that would destroy them; and sacrificing to the completeness of\nthose lower forms the nobler imperfection of man and of what may lie\nbeyond him.  She looks always to the end; and so in our statesmanship\nshould we, striving to express, not to limit, by our institutions the\nforces with which we have to deal.  Our polity should grow, like a\nskin, upon the living tissue of society.  For who are we that we should\nsay to this man or that, go plough, keep shop, or govern the state?\nThat we should say to the merchant, 'thus much power shall be yours,'\nand to the farmer, 'thus much yours?'  No! rather let us say to each\nand to all, Take the place you can, enjoy the authority you can win!\nLet our constitution express the balance of forces in our society, and\nas they change let the disposition of power change with them!  That is\nthe creed of liberalism, supported by nature herself, and sanctioned, I\nwould add with reverence, by the Almighty Power, in the disposition and\norder of His stupendous creation.\n\n\"But it is not a creed that levels, nor one that destroys.  None can\nhave more regard than I--not Cantilupe himself--for our ancient crown,\nour hereditary aristocracy.  These, while they deserve it--and long may\nthey do so!--will retain their honoured place in the hearts and\naffections of the people.  Only, alongside of them, I would make room\nfor all elements and interests that may come into being in the natural\ncourse of the play of social forces.  But these will be far too\nnumerous, far too inextricably interwoven, too rapidly changing in\nrelative weight and importance, for the intelligence of man to attempt,\nby any artificial scheme, to balance and adjust their conflicting\nclaims.  Open to all men equally, within the limits of prudence, the\navenue to political influence, and let them use, as they can and will,\nin combined or isolated action, the opportunities thus liberally\nbestowed.  That is the key-note of the policy which I have consistently\nadopted from my entrance into public life, and which I am prepared to\nprosecute to the end, though that end should be the universal suffrage\nso dreaded by the last speaker.  He tells me it is a policy of reckless\nabandonment.  But abandonment to what?  Abandonment to the people!  And\nthe question is, Do we trust the people?  I do; he does not!  There, I\nventure to think, is the real difference between us.\n\n\"Yes, I am not ashamed to say it, I trust the People!  What should I\ntrust, if I could not trust them?  What else is a nation but an\nassemblage of the talents, the capacities, the virtues of the citizens\nof whom it is composed?  To utilize those talents, to evoke those\ncapacities, to offer scope and opportunity to those virtues, must be\nthe end and purpose of every great and generous policy; and to that\nend, up to the measure of my powers, I have striven to minister, not\nrashly, I hope, nor with impatience, but in the spirit of a sober and\nassured faith.\n\n\"Such is my conception of liberalism.  But if liberalism has its\nmission at home, not less important are its principles in the region of\ninternational relations.  I will not now embark on the troubled sea of\nforeign policy.  But on one point I will touch, since it was raised by\nthe last speaker, and that is the question of our foreign trade.  In no\ndepartment of human activity, I will venture to say, are the intentions\nof the Almighty more plainly indicated, than in this of the interchange\nof the products of labour.  To each part of the habitable globe have\nbeen assigned its special gifts for the use and delectation of Man; to\nevery nation its peculiar skill, its appropriate opportunities.  As the\nworld was created for labour, so it was created for exchange.  Across\nthe ocean, bridged at last by the indomitable pertinacity of art, the\ngranaries of the new world call, in their inexhaustible fecundity for\nthe iron and steel, the implements and engines of the old.  The\nshepherd-kings of the limitless plains of Australia, the Indian ryot,\nthe now happily emancipated negro of Georgia and Carolina, feed and are\nfed by the factories and looms of Manchester and Bradford.  Pall Mall\nis made glad with the produce of the vineyards of France and Spain; and\nthe Italian peasant goes clad in the labours of the Leicester artisan.\nThe golden chain revolves, the silver buckets rise and fall; and one to\nthe other passes on, as it fills and overflows, the stream that pours\nfrom Nature's cornucopia!  Such is the law ordained by the Power that\npresides over the destinies of the world; and not all the interferences\nof man with His beneficent purposes can avail altogether to check and\nfrustrate their happy operation.  Yet have the blind cupidity, the\nignorant apprehensions of national zeal dislocated, so far as was\npossible, the wheels and cogs of the great machine, hampered its\nworking and limited its uses.  And if there be anything of which this\ngreat nation may justly boast, it is that she has been the first to\ntear down the barriers and dams of a perverted ingenuity, and to admit\nin unrestricted plenitude to every channel of her verdant meadows the\nlimpid and fertilizing stream of trade.\n\n\"Verily she has had her reward!  Search the records of history, and you\nwill seek in vain for a prosperity so immense, so continuous, so\nprogressive, as that which has blessed this country in the last\nhalf-century of her annals.  This access of wealth was admitted indeed\nby the speaker who preceded me.  But he complained that we had taken no\naccount of the changes which the new system was introducing into the\ncharacter and occupations of the people.  It is true; and he would be a\nrash man who should venture to forecast and to determine the remoter\nresults of such a policy; or should shrink from the consequences of\nliberty on the ground that he cannot anticipate their character.  Which\nof us would have the courage, even if he had the power, to impose upon\na nation for all time the form of its economic life, the type of its\ncharacter, the direction of its enterprise?  The possibilities that lie\nin the womb of Nature are greater than we can gauge; we can but\nfacilitate their birth, we may not prescribe their anatomy.  The evils\nof the day call for the remedies of the day; but none can anticipate\nwith advantage the necessities of the future.  And meantime what cause\nis there for misgiving?  I confess that I see none.  The policy of\nfreedom has been justified, I contend, by its results.  And so\nconfident am I of this, that the time, I believe, is not far distant,\nwhen other countries will awake at last to their own true interests and\nemulate, not more to their advantage than to ours, our fiscal\nlegislation.  I see the time approaching when the nations of the world,\nlaying aside their political animosities, will be knitted together in\nthe peaceful rivalry of trade; when those barriers of nationality which\nbelong to the infancy of the race will melt and dissolve in the\nsunshine of science and art; when the roar of the cannon will yield to\nthe softer murmur of the loom, and the apron of the artisan, the blouse\nof the peasant be more honourable than the scarlet of the soldier; when\nthe cosmopolitan armies of trade will replace the militia of death;\nwhen that which God has joined together will no longer be sundered by\nthe ignorance, the folly, the wickedness of man; when the labour and\nthe invention of one will become the heritage of all; and the peoples\nof the earth meet no longer on the field of battle, but by their chosen\ndelegates, as in the vision of our greatest poet, in the 'Parliament of\nMan, the Federation of the World.'\"\n\nWITH this peroration Remenham resumed his seat.  He had spoken, as\nindeed was his habit, rather as if he were addressing a public meeting\nthan a company of friends.  But at least he had set the ball rolling.\nTo many of those present, as I well knew, his speech and his manner\nmust have been eminently provocative; and naturally to none more than\nto Mendoza.  I had, therefore, no hesitation in signalling out the\nConservative chief to give us the opposite point of view.  He responded\nwith deliberation, lifting from his chest his sinister Jewish face, and\nslowly unfolding his long body, while a malicious smile played about\nhis mouth.\n\n\"One,\" he began, \"who has not the privilege of immediate access to the\ncounsels of the Divine Being cannot but feel himself at a disadvantage\nin following a man so favoured as my distinguished friend.  The\ndisadvantage, however, is one to which I have had, perforce, to grow\naccustomed during long years of parliamentary strife, I have resigned\nmyself to creeping where he soars, to guessing where he prophesies.\nBut there is compensation everywhere.  And, perhaps, there are certain\npoints which may be revealed to babes and sucklings, while they are\nconcealed from beings more august.  The worm, I suppose, must be aware\nof excrescences and roughnesses of the soil which escape the more\ncomprehensive vision of the eagle; and to the worm, at least, these are\nof more importance than mountain ranges and oceans which he will never\nreach.  It is from that humble point of view that I shall offer a few\nremarks supplementary to, perhaps even critical of, the eloquent\napostrophe we have been permitted to enjoy.\n\n\"The key-note of my friend's address was liberty.  There is no British\nheart which does not beat higher at the sound of that word.  But while\nI listened to his impassioned plea, I could not help wondering why he\ndid not propose to dispense to us in even larger and more liberal\nmeasure the supreme and precious gift of freedom.  True, he has done\nmuch to remove the barriers that separated nation from nation, and man\nfrom man.  But how much remains to be accomplished before we can be\ntruly said to have brought ourselves into line with Nature!  Consider,\nfor example, the policeman!  Has my friend ever reflected on all that\nis implied in that solemn figure; on all that it symbolizes of\ninterference with the purposes of a beneficent Creator?  The policeman\nis a permanent public defiance of Nature.  Through him the weak rule\nthe strong, the few the many, the intelligent the fools.  Through him\nsurvive those whom the struggle for existence should have eliminated.\nHe substitutes the unfit for the fit.  He dislocates the economy of the\nuniverse.  Under his shelter take root and thrive all monstrous and\nparasitic growths.  Marriage clings to his skirts, property nestles in\nhis bosom.  And while these flourish, where is liberty?  The law of\nNature we all know:\n\n  The good old rule, the ancient plan\n  That he should take who has the power,\n  And he should keep who can!\n\n\n\"But this, by the witchcraft of property, we have set aside.  Our walls\nof brick and stone we have manned with invisible guards.  We have\nthronged with fiery faces and arms the fences of our gardens and parks.\nThe plate-glass of our windows we have made more impenetrable than\nadamant.  To our very infants we have given the strength of giants.\nBabies surfeit, while strong men starve; and the foetus in the womb\nstretches out unformed hands to annex a principality.  Is this liberty?\nIs this Nature?  No!  It is a Merlin's prison!  Yet, monstrous, it\nsubsists!  Has our friend, then, no power to dissolve the charm?  Or,\ncan it be that he has not the will?\n\n\"Again, can we be said to be free, can we be said to be in harmony with\nNature, while we endure the bonds of matrimony?  While we fetter the\nhappy promiscuity of instinct, and subject our roving fancy to the\ndominion of 'one unchanging wife?'  Here, indeed, I frankly admit,\nNature has her revenges; and an actual polygamy flourishes even under\nthe aegis of our law.  But the law exists; it is the warp on which, by\nthe woof of property, we fashion that Nessus-shirt, the Family, in\nwhich, we have swathed the giant energies of mankind.  But while that\nshirt clings close to every limb, what avails it, in the name of\nliberty, to snap, here and there, a button or a lace?  A more heroic\nwork is required of the great protagonist, if, indeed, he will follow\nhis mistress to the end.  He shakes his head.  What!  Is his service,\nthen, but half-hearted after all?  Or, can it be, that behind the mask\nof the goddess he begins to divine the teeth and claws of the brute?\nBut if nature be no goddess, how can we accept her as sponsor for\nliberty?  And if liberty be taken on its own merits, how is it to be\ndistinguished from anarchy?  How, but by the due admixture of coercion?\nAnd, that admitted, must we not descend from the mountain-top of\nprophecy to the dreary plains of political compromise?\"\n\nUp to this point Mendoza had preserved that tone of elaborate irony\nwhich, it will be remembered, was so disconcerting to English\naudiences, and stood so much in the way of his popularity.  But now his\nmanner changed.  Becoming more serious, and I fear I must add, more\ndull than I had ever heard him before, he gave us what I suppose to be\nthe most intimate exposition he had ever permitted himself to offer of\nthe Conservative point of view as he understood it.\n\n\"These,\" he resumed, \"are questions which I must leave my friend to\nanswer for himself.  The ground is too high for me.  I have no skill in\nthe flights of speculation.  I take no pleasure in the enunciation of\nprinciples.  To my restricted vision, placed as I am upon the earth,\nisolated facts obtrude themselves with a capricious particularity which\ndefies my powers of generalization.  And that, perhaps, is the reason\nwhy I attached myself to the party to which I have the honour to\nbelong.  For it is, I think, the party which sees things as they are;\nas they are, that is, to mere human vision.  Remenham, in his haste,\nhas called us the party of reaction.  I would rather say, we are the\nparty of realism.  We have in view, not Man, but Englishmen; not ideal\npolities, but the British Constitution; not Political Economy, but the\nactual course of our trade.  Through this great forest of fact, this\ntangle of old and new, these secular oaks, sturdy shrubs, beautiful\nparasitic creepers, we move with a prudent diffidence, following the\nold tracks, endeavouring to keep them open, but hesitating to cut new\nroutes till we are clear as to the goal for which we are asked to\nsacrifice our finest timber.  Fundamental changes we regard as\nexceptional and pathological.  Yet, being bound by no theories, when we\nare convinced of their necessity, we inaugurate them boldly and carry\nthem through to the end.  And thus it is that having decided that the\ntime had come to call the people to the councils of the nation, we\nstruck boldly and once for all by a measure which I will never\nadmit--and here I regret that Cantilupe is not with me--which I will\nnever admit to be at variance with the best, and soundest traditions of\nconservatism.\n\n\"But such measures are exceptional, and we hope they will be final.  We\ntake no delight in tinkering the constitution.  The mechanism of\ngovernment we recognize to be only a means; the test of the statesman\nis his power to govern.  And remaining, as we do, inaccessible to that\ngospel of liberty of which our opponents have had a special revelation,\nwe find in the existing state of England much that appears to us to\nneed control.  We are unable to share the optimism which animates\nRemenham and his friends as to the direction and effects of the new\nforces of industry.  Above the whirr of the spindle and the shaft we\nhear the cry of the poor.  Behind our flourishing warehouses and shops\nwe see the hovels of the artisan.  We watch along our highroads the\nlong procession of labourers deserting their ancestral villages for the\ncities; we trace them to the slum and the sweater's den; we follow them\nto the poorhouse and the prison; we see them disappear engulfed in the\nabyss, while others press at their heels to take their place and share\ntheir destiny.  And in face of all this we do not think it to be our\nduty to fold our arms and invoke the principle of liberty.  We feel\nthat we owe it to the nation to preserve intact its human heritage, the\nonly source of its greatness and its wealth; and we are prepared, with\nsuch wisdom as we have, to legislate to that end, undeterred by the\nfear of incurring the charge of socialism.\n\n\"But while we thus concern ourselves with the condition of these\nislands, we have not forgotten that we have relations to the world\noutside.  If, indeed, we could share the views to which Remenham has\ngiven such eloquent expression, this is a matter which would give us\nlittle anxiety.  He beholds, as in a vision, the era of peace and\ngood-will ushered in by the genius of commerce.  By a mysterious\ndispensation of Providence he sees cupidity and competition furthering\nthe ends of charity and peace.  But here once more I am unable to\nfollow his audacious flight.  Confined to the sphere of observation, I\ncannot but note that in the long and sanguinary course of history there\nhas been no cause so fruitful of war as the rivalries of trade.  Our\nown annals at every point are eloquent of this truth; nor do I see\nanything in the conditions of the modern world that should limit its\napplication.  We have been told that all nations will adopt our fiscal\npolicy.  Why should they, unless it is to their interest?  We adopted\nit because we thought it was to ours; and we shall abandon it if we\never change our opinion.  And when I say 'interest' I would not be\nunderstood to mean economic interest in the narrower sense.  A nation,\nlike an individual, I conceive, has a personality to maintain.  It must\nbe its object not to accumulate wealth at all costs, but to develop and\nmaintain capacity, to be powerful, energetic, many-sided, and above all\nindependent.  Whether the policy we have adopted will continue to\nguarantee this result, I am not prophet enough to venture to affirm.\nBut if it does not, I cannot doubt that we shall be driven to revise\nit.  Nor can I believe that other nations, not even our own colonies,\nwill follow us in our present policy, if to do so would be to jeopardy\ntheir rising industries and unduly to narrow the scope of their\neconomic energies.  I do not, then, I confess, look forward with\nenthusiasm or with hope to the Crystal Palace millennium that inspired\nthe eloquence of Remenham.  I see the future pregnant with wars and\nrumours of wars.  And in particular I see this nation, by virtue of its\nwealth, its power, its unparalleled success, the target for the envy,\nthe hatred, the cupidity of all the peoples of Europe.  I see them\nlooking abroad for outlets for their expanding population, only to find\nevery corner of the habitable globe preoccupied by the English race and\novershadowed by the English flag.  But from this, which is our main\ndanger, I conjure my main hope for the future.  England is more than\nEngland.  She has grown in her sleep.  She has stretched over every\ncontinent huge embryo limbs which wait only for the beat of her heart,\nthe motion of her spirit, to assume their form and function as members\nof one great body of empire.  The spirit, I think, begins to stir, the\nblood to circulate.  Our colonies, I believe, are not destined to drop\nfrom us like ripe fruit; our dependencies will not fall to other\nmasters.  The nation sooner or later will wake to its imperial mission.\nThe hearts of Englishmen beyond the seas will beat in unison with ours.\nAnd the federation I foresee is not the federation of Mankind, but that\nof the British race throughout the world.\"\n\nHe paused, and in the stillness that followed we became aware of the\ngathering dusk.  The first stars were appearing, and the young moon was\nlow in the west.  From the shadow below we heard the murmur of a\nfountain, and the call of a nightingale sounded in the wood.  Something\nin the time and the place must have worked on Mendoza's mood; for when\nhe resumed it was in a different key.\n\n\"Such,\" he began, \"is my vision, if I permit myself to dream.  But who\nshall say whether it is more than a dream?  There is something in the\nair to-night which compels candour.  And if I am to tell my inmost\nthought, I must confess on what a flood of nescience we, who seem to\ndirect the affairs of nations, are borne along together with those whom\nwe appear to control.  We are permitted, like children, to lay our\nhands upon the reins; but it is a dark and unknown genius who drives.\nWe are his creatures; and it is his ends, not ours, that are furthered\nby our contests, our efforts, our ideals.  In the arena Remenham and I\nmust play our part, combat bravely, and be ready to die when the crowd\nturn down their thumbs.  But here in a moment of withdrawal, I at least\ncannot fail to recognize behind the issues that divide us the tie of a\ncommon destiny.  We shall pass and a new generation will succeed us; a\ngeneration to whom our ideals will be irrelevant, our catch-words\nempty, our controversies unintelligible.\n\n  Hi motus animorum atque haec certamina tanta\n    Pulveris exigui jactu compressa quiescunt.\n\n\n\"The dust of oblivion will bury our debates.  Something we shall have\nachieved, but not what we intended.  My dream may, perhaps, be\nfurthered by Remenham, and his by me, or, it may be, neither his nor\nmine by either.  The Providence whose purposes he so readily divines is\ndark to me.  And perhaps, for that reason, I am able to regard him with\nmore charity than he has always been willing, I suspect, to extend to\nme.  This, at any rate, is the moment of truce.  The great arena is\nempty, the silent benches vanish into the night.  Under the glimmer of\nthe moon figures more than mortal haunt the scene of our ephemeral\ncontests.  It is they which stand behind us and deal the blows which\nseem to be ours.  When we are laid in the dust they will animate other\ncombatants; when our names are forgotten they will blazon others in\nperishable gold.  Why, then, should we strive and cry, even now in the\ntwilight hour?  The same sky encompasses us, the same stars are above\nus.  What are my opinions, what are Remenham's?  Froth on the surface!\nThe current bears all alike along to the destined end.  For a moment\nlet us meet and feel its silent, irresistible force; and in this moment\nreach across the table the hand of peace.\"\n\nWith that he stretched his hand to Remenham, with a kind of pathos of\nappeal that the other, though I think he did not altogether like it,\ncould hardly refuse to entertain.  It was theatrical, it was\nun-English, but somehow, it was successful.  And the whole episode, the\nclosing words and the incomparable gesture, left me with a sense as\nthough a curtain had been drawn upon a phase of our history.  Mendoza,\nsomehow, had shut out Remenham, even more than himself, from the field\non which the issues of the future were to be fought.  And it was this\nfeeling that led me, really a little against my inclination, to select\nas the next speaker the man who of all who, made up our company, in\nopinions was the most opposed to Remenham, and in temperament to\nMendoza.  My choice was Allison, more famous now than he was then, but\nknown even at that time as an unsparing critic of both parties.  He\nresponded readily enough; and as he began a spell seemed to snap.  The\nnight and the hour were forgotten, and we were back on the dusty field\nof controversy.\n\n\"THIS is all very touching,\" he began, \"but Mendoza is shaking hands\nwith the wrong person.  He's much nearer to me than he is to Remenham,\nand I don't at all despair of converting him.  For he does at least\nunderstand that the character of every society depends upon its law of\nproperty; and he even seems to have a suspicion that the law, as we\nhave it, is not what you would call absolute perfection.  It's true\nthat he shows no particular inclination to alter it.  But that may\ncome; and I'm not without hope of seeing, before I die, a\nTory-Socialist party.  Remenham's is a different case, and I fear\nthere's nothing to be made of him.  He does, I believe, really think\nthat in some extraordinary way the law of property, like the Anglican\nChurch, is one of the dispensations of Providence; and that if he\nremoves all other restrictions, leaving that, he will have what he\ncalls a natural society.  But Nature, as Mendoza has pointed out, is\nanarchy.  Civilization means restriction; and so does socialism.  So\nfar from being anarchy, it is the very antithesis of it.  Anarchy is\nthe goal of liberalism, if liberalism could ever be persuaded to be\nlogical.  So the scarecrow of anarchy, at least, need not frighten away\nany would-be convert to socialism.  There remains, it is true, the\nother scarecrow, revolution; and that, I admit, has more life in it.\nSocialism is revolutionary; but so is liberalism, or was, while it was\nanything.  Revolution does not imply violence.  On the contrary,\nviolence is the abortion of revolution.  Do I, for instance, look like\na Marat or a Danton?  I ask you, candidly!\"\n\nHe certainly did not.  On the contrary, with his short squat figure,\npointed beard and spectacles, he presented a curious blend of the\nmiddle-class Englishman and the German savant.  There was a burst of\nlaughter at his question, in which he joined himself.  But when he\nresumed it was in a more serious tone and somewhat in the manner of a\nlecturer.  It was indeed, at that time, very largely by lectures that\nhe carried on his propaganda.\n\n\"No,\" he said, \"socialism may roar; but, in England at any rate, it\nroars as gently as any sucking-dove.  Revolution I admit is the goal;\nbut the process is substitution.  We propose to transform society\nalmost without anyone knowing it; to work from the foundation upwards\nwithout unduly disturbing the superstructure.  By a mere adjustment of\nrates and taxes we shall redistribute property; by an extension of the\npowers of local bodies we shall nationalize industry.  But in all this\nthere need be no shock, no abrupt transition.  On the contrary, it is\nessential to our scheme that there should not be.  We are men of\nscience and we realize that the whole structure of society rests upon\nhabit.  With the new organization must therefore grow the new habit\nthat is to support it.  To precipitate organic change is merely to\ncourt reaction.  That is the lesson of all revolution; and it is one\nwhich English socialists, at any rate, have learnt.  We think,\nmoreover, that capitalist society is, by its own momentum, travelling\ntowards the goal which we desire.  Every consolidation of business upon\na grand scale implies the development of precisely those talents of\norganization without which the socialistic state could not come into\nbeing or maintain itself; while at the same time the substitution of\nmonopoly for competition removes the only check upon the power of\ncapital to exploit society, and brings home to every citizen in his\ntenderest point--his pocket--the necessity for that public control from\nwhich he might otherwise be inclined to shrink.  Capitalist society is\nthus preparing its own euthanasia; and we socialists ought to be\nregarded not as assassins of the old order, but as midwives to deliver\nit of the child with which it is in travail.\n\n\"That child will be a society not of liberty but of regulation.  It is\nhere that we join issue not only with doctrinaire liberals, but with\nthat large body of ordinary common-sense Englishmen who feel a general\nand instinctive distrust of all state interference.  That distrust, I\nwould point out, is really an anachronism.  It dates from a time when\nthe state was at once incompetent and unpopular, from the days of\nmonarchic or aristocratic government carried on frankly in the\ninterests of particular classes or persons.  But the democratic\nrevolution and the introduction of bureaucracy has swept all that away;\nand governments in every civilized country are now moving towards the\nideal of an expert administration controlled by an alert and\nintelligent public opinion.  Much, it is true, has yet to be done\nbefore that ideal will be realized.  In some countries, notably in the\nUnited States, the necessity of the expert has hardly made itself felt.\nIn others, such as Germany, popular control is very inadequately\nprovided for.  But the tendency is clear; and nowhere clearer than in\nthis country.  Here at any rate we may hopefully look forward to a\ncontinual extension both of the activity and of the intelligence of\npublic officials; while at the same time, by an appropriate development\nof the representative machinery, we may guard ourselves against the\ndanger of an irresponsible bureaucracy.  The problem of reconciling\nadministrative efficiency with popular control is no doubt a difficult\none; but I feel confident that it can be solved.  This perhaps is\nhardly the place to develop my favourite idea of the professional\nrepresentative; but I may be permitted to refer to it in passing.  By a\nprofessional representative I mean one trained in a scientific and\nsystematic way to elicit the real opinion of his constituents, and to\nembody it in practicable proposals.  He will have to study what they\nreally want, not what they think they want, and to discover for himself\nin what way it can be obtained.  Such men need not be elected; indeed I\nam inclined to think that the plan of popular election has had its day.\nThe essential is that they should be selected by some test of\nefficiency, such as examination or previous record, and that they\nshould keep themselves in constant touch with their constituents.  But\nI must not dwell upon details.  My main object is to show that when\ngovernment is in the hands of expert administrators, controlled by\nexpert representatives, there need be no anxiety felt in extending\nindefinitely the sphere of the state.\n\n\"This extension will of course be primarily economic, for, as is now\ngenerally recognized, the whole character of a society depends upon its\neconomic organization.  Revolution, if it is to be profound, must begin\nwith the organization of industry; but it does not follow that it will\nend there.  It is a libel on the socialist ideal to call it\nmaterialistic, to say that it is indifferent or hostile to the higher\nactivities.  No one, to begin with, is more conscious than a true\nsocialist of the importance of science.  Not only is the sociology on\nwhich his position is based a branch of science; but it is a\nfundamental part of his creed that the progress of man depends upon his\nmastery of Nature, and that for acquiring that mastery science is his\nonly weapon.  Again, it is absurd to accuse us of indifference to\nethics.  Our standards, indeed, may not be the same as those of\nbourgeois society; if they were, that would be their condemnation; for\na new economic regime necessarily postulates a new ethic.  But every\nregime requires and produces its appropriate standards; and the\nsocialist regime will be no exception.  Our feeling upon that subject\nis simply that we need not trouble about the ethic because it will\nfollow of itself upon the economic revolution.  For, as we read\nhistory, the economic factor determines all the others.  'Man ist was\ner isst,' as the German said; and morals, art, religion, all the\nso-called 'ideal activities,' are just allotropic forms of bread and\nmeat.  They will come by themselves if they are wanted; and in the\nsocialist state they will be better not worse provided for than under\nthe present competitive system.  For here again the principle of the\nexpert will come in.  It will be the business of the state, if it\ndetermines that such activities ought to be encouraged, to devise a\nmachinery for selecting and educating men of genius, in proportion to\nthe demand, and assigning to them their appropriate sphere of activity\nand their sufficient wage.  This will apply, I conceive, equally to the\nministers of religion as to the professors of the various branches of\nart.  Nor would I suggest that the socialist community should establish\nany one form of religion, seeing that we are not in a position to\ndetermine scientifically which, or whether any, are true.  I would give\nencouragement to all and several, of course under the necessary\nrestrictions, in the hope that, in course of time, by a process of\nnatural selection, that one will survive which is the best adapted to\nthe new environment.  But meantime the advantage of the new over the\nold organization is apparent.  We shall hear no more of genius starving\nin a garret; of ill-paid or over-paid ministers of the gospel; of\nprivileged and unprivileged sects.  All will be orderly, regular, and\nsecure, as it should be in a civilized state; and for the first time in\nhistory society will be in a position to extract the maximum of good\nfrom those strange and irregular human organizations whose subsistence\nhitherto has been so precarious and whose output so capricious and\nuncertain.  A socialist state, if I may say so, will pigeon-hole\nreligion, literature and art; and if these are really normal and\nfruitful functions they cannot fail, like other functions, to profit by\nsuch treatment.\n\n\"I have thus indicated in outline the main features of the socialist\nscheme--an economic revolution accomplished by a gradual and peaceful\ntransition and issuing in a system of collectivism so complete as to\ninclude all the human activities that are really valuable.  But what I\nshould find it hard to convey, except to an audience prepared by years\nof study, is the enthusiasm or rather the grounds for the enthusiasm,\nthat animates us.  Whereas all other political parties are groping in\nthe dark, relying upon partial and outworn formulae, in which even they\nthemselves have ceased to believe, we alone advance in the broad\ndaylight, along a road whose course we clearly trace backward and\nforward, towards a goal distinctly seen on the horizon.  History and\nanalysis are our guides; history for the first time comprehended,\nanalysis for the first time scientifically applied.  Unlike all the\nrevolutionists of the past, we derive our inspiration not from our own\nintuitions or ideals, but from the ascertained course of the world.  We\nco-operate with the universe; and hence at once our confidence and our\npatience.  We can afford to wait because the force of events is bearing\nus on of its own accord to the end we desire.  Even if we rest on our\noars, none the less we are drifting onwards; or if we are checked for a\nmoment the eddy in which we are caught is merely local.  Alone among\nall politicians we have faith; but our faith is built upon science, and\nit is therefore a faith which will endure.\"\n\nWITH that Allison concluded; and almost before he had done MacCarthy,\nwithout waiting my summons, had leapt to his feet and burst into an\nimpassioned harangue.  With flashing eyes and passionate gestures he\ndelivered himself as follows, his Irish accent contrasting pleasantly\nwith that of the last speaker.\n\n\"May God forgive me,\" he cried, \"that ever I have called myself a\nsocialist, if this is what socialism means!  But it does not!  I will\nrescue the word!  I will reclaim it for its ancient nobler\nsense--socialism the dream of the world, the light of the grail on the\nmarsh, the mystic city of Sarras, the vale of Avalon!  Socialism the\nsoul of liberty, the bond of brotherhood, the seal of equality!  Who is\nhe that with sacrilegious hands would seize our Ariel and prison him in\nthat tree of iniquity the State?  Day is not farther from night, nor\nGood from Evil, than the socialism of the Revolution from this of the\ndesk and the stool, from this enemy wearing our uniform and flaunting\nour coat of arms.  For nigh upon a century we have fought for liberty;\nand now they would make us gaolers to bind our own souls.  1789, 1830,\n1848--are these dates branded upon our hearts, only to stamp us as\npatient sheep in the flock of bureaucracy?  No!  They are the symbols\nof the spirit; and those whom they set apart, outcasts from the\nkingdoms of this world and citizens of the kingdom of God, wherever\nthey wander are living flames to consume institutions and laws, and to\nlight in the hearts of men the fires of pity and wrath and love.  Our\ncity is not built with Blue books, nor cemented with office dust; nor\nis it bonds of red-tape that make and keep it one.  No! it is the\nattraction, uncompelled, of spirits made free; the shadowing into\noutward form of the eternal joy of the soul!\"\n\nHe paused and seemed to collect himself; and then in a quieter tone:\n\"Socialism,\" he proceeded, \"is one with anarchy!  I know the terrors of\nthat word; but they are the terrors of an evil conscience; for it is\nonly an order founded on iniquity that dreads disorder.  Why do you\nfear for your property and lives, you who fear anarchy?  It is because\nyou have stolen the one and misdevoted the other; because you have\ncreated by your laws the man you call the criminal; because you have\nbred hunger, and hunger has bred rage.  For this I do not blame you,\nany more than I blame myself.  You are yourselves victims of the system\nyou maintain, and your enemy, no less than mine, if you knew it, is\ngovernment.  For government means compulsion, exclusion, distinction,\nseparation; while anarchy is freedom, union and love.  Government is\nbased on egotism and fear, anarchy on fraternity.  It is because we\ndivide ourselves into nations that we endure the oppression of\narmaments; because we isolate ourselves as individuals that we invoke\nthe protection of laws.  If I did not take what my brother needs I\nshould not fear that he would take it from me; if I did not shut myself\noff from his want, I should not deem it less urgent than my own.  All\ngoverning persons are persons set apart.  And therefore it is that\nwhether they will or no they are oppressors, or, at best, obstructors.\nShut off from the breath of popular instinct, which is the breath of\nlife, they cannot feel, and therefore cannot think, rightly.  And, in\nany case, how could they understand, even with the best will in the\nworld, the multifarious interests they are expected to control?  A man\nknows nothing but what he practises; and in every branch of work only\nthose are fitted to direct who are themselves the workers.\nIntellectually, as well as morally, government is eternally bankrupt;\nand what is called representative government is no better than any\nother, for the governors are equally removed in sympathy and knowledge\nfrom the governed.  Nay, experience shows, if we would but admit it,\nthat under no system have the rulers been more incompetent and corrupt\nthan under this which we call democratic.  Is not the very word\n'politician' everywhere a term of reproach?  Is not a government office\neverywhere synonymous with incapacity and sloth?  What a miserable\nposition is that of a Member of Parliament, compelled to give his vote\non innumerable questions of which he does not understand the rudiments,\nand giving it at the dictation of party chiefs who themselves are\ncontrolled by the blind and brainless mechanism of the caucus!  The\npeople are the slaves of their representatives, the representatives of\ntheir chiefs, and the chiefs of a conscienceless machine!  And that is\nthe last word of governmental science!  Oh, divine spirit of man, in\nwhat chains have you bound yourself, and call it liberty, and clap your\nhands!\n\n\"And then comes one and says, 'because you are free, tie yourself\ntighter and tighter in your own bonds!'  Are these hands not yours that\nfasten the knots?  Why then do you fear?  Here is a limb free; fasten\nit quick!  Your head still turns; come, fix it in a vice!  Now you are\nfast!  Now you cannot move!  How beautiful, how orderly, how secure!\nAnd this, and this is socialism!  And it was to accomplish this that\nFrance opened the sluices that have deluged the earth with blood!\nWhat! we have broken the bonds of iron to bind ourselves in tape!  We\nhave discrowned Napoleon to crown ... to crown....\"\n\nHe looked across at Allison, and suddenly pulled himself up.  Then,\nattempting the tone of exposition, \"There is only one way out of it,\"\nhe resumed, \"the extension of free co-operation in every department of\nactivity, including those which at present are regulated by the State.\nYou will say that this is impracticable; but why?  Already, in all that\nyou most care about, that is the method you actually adopt.  The\nactivities of men that are freest in the society in which we live are\nthose of art and science and amusement.  And all these are, I will not\nsay regulated by, but expressed in, voluntary organizations, clubs,\nacademies, societies, what you will.  The Royal Society and the British\nAssociation are types of the right way of organizing; and it is a way\nthat should and must be applied throughout the whole structure.  Every\ntrade and business should be conducted by a society voluntarily formed\nof all those who choose to engage in it, electing and removing their\nown officials, determining their own policy, and co-operating by free\narrangement with other similar bodies.  A complex interweaving of such\nassociations, with order everywhere, compulsion nowhere, is the form of\nsociety to which I look forward, and which I see already growing up\nwithin the hard skin of the older organisms.  Rules there will be but\nnot laws, rules gladly obeyed because they will have been freely\nadopted, and because there will be no compulsion upon anyone to remain\nwithin the brotherhood that approves and maintains them.  Anarchy is\nnot the absence of order, it is absence of force; it is the free\noutflowing of the spirit into the forms in which it delights; and in\nsuch forms alone, as they grow and change, can it find an expression\nwhich is not also a bondage.  You will say this is chimerical.  But\nlook at history!  Consider the great achievements of the Middle Age!\nWere they not the result of just such a movement as I describe?  It was\nmen voluntarily associating in communes and grouping themselves in\nguilds that built the towers and churches and adorned them with the\nglories of art that dazzles us still in Italy and France.  The history\nof the growth of the state, of public authority and compulsion, is the\nhistory of the decline from Florence and Nuremberg to London and New\nYork.  As the power of the state grows the energy of the spirit\ndwindles; and if ever Allison's ideal should be realized, if ever the\nactivity of the state should extend through and through to every\ndepartment of life, the universal ease and comfort which may thus be\ndisseminated throughout society will have been purchased dearly at the\nprice of the soul.  The denizens of that city will be fed, housed and\nclothed to perfection; only--and it is a serious drawback--only they\nwill be dead.\n\n\"Oh!\" he broke out, \"if I could but get you to see that this whole\norder under which you live is artificial and unnecessary!  But we are\nbefogged by the systems we impose upon our imagination and call\nscience.  We have been taught to regard history as a necessary process,\nuntil we come to think it must also be a good one; that all that has\never happened ought to have happened just so and no otherwise.  And\nthus we justify everything past and present, however palpably in\ncontradiction with our own intuitions.  But these are mere figments of\nthe brain.  History, for the most part, believe me, is one gigantic\nerror and crime.  It ought to have been other than it was; and we ought\nto be other than we are.  There is no natural and inevitable evolution\ntowards good; no co-operating with the universe, other than by\nconnivance at its crimes.  That little house the brain builds to\nshelter its own weakness must be torn down if we would face the truth\nand pursue the good.  Then we shall see amid what blinding storms of\nwind and rain, what darkness of elements hostile or indifferent, our\nroad lies across the mountains towards the city of our desire.  Then\nand then only shall we understand the spirit of revolution.  That there\nare things so bad that they can only be burnt up by fire; that there\nare obstructions so immense that they can only be exploded by dynamite;\nthat the work of destruction is a necessary preliminary to the work of\ncreation, for it is the destruction of the prison walls wherein the\nspirit is confined; and that in that work the spirit itself is the only\nagent, unhelped by powers of nature or powers of a world beyond--that\nis the creed--no, I will not say the creed, that is the insight and\nvision by which we of the Revolution live.  By that I believe we shall\ntriumph.  But whether we triumph or no, our life itself is a victory,\nfor it is a life lived in the spirit.  To shatter material bonds that\nwe may bind closer the bonds of the soul, to slough dead husks that we\nmay liberate living forms, to abolish institutions that we may evoke\nenergies, to put off the material and put on the spiritual body, that,\nwhether we fight with the tongue or the sword, is the inspiration of\nour movement, that, and that only, is the true and inner meaning of\nanarchy.\n\n\"Anarchy is identified with violence; and I will not be so hypocritical\nand base as to deny that violence must be one of our means of action.\nForce is the midwife of society; and never has radical change been\naccomplished without it.  What came by the sword by the sword must be\ndestroyed: and only through violence can violence come to an end.  Nay,\nI will go further and confess, since here if anywhere we are candid,\nthat it is the way of violence to which I feel called myself, and that\nI shall die as I have lived, an active revolutionary.  But because\nforce is a way, is a necessary way, is my way, I do not imagine that\nthere is no other.  Were it not idle to wish, I could rather wish that\nI were a poet or a saint, to serve the same Lord by the gentler weapons\nof the spirit.  There are anarchists who never made a speech and never\ncarried a rifle, whom we know as our brothers, though perhaps they know\nnot us.  Two I will name who live for ever, Shelley, the first of\npoets, were it not that there is one greater than he, the mystic\nWilliam Blake.  We are thought of as men of blood; we are hounded over\nthe face of the globe.  And who of our persecutors would believe that\nthe song we bear in our hearts, some of us, I may speak at least for\none, is the most inspired, the most spiritual challenge ever flung to\nyour obtuse, flatulent, stertorous England:\n\n  Bring me my bow of burning gold,\n  Bring me my arrows of desire,\n  Bring me my spear; O clouds unfold!\n  Bring me my chariot of fire!\n\n  I will not cease from mental fight,\n  Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,\n  Till I have built Jerusalem\n  In England's green and pleasant land.\n\n\n\"England!  No, not England, but Europe, America, the world!  Where is\nMan, the new Man, there is our country.  But the new Man is buried in\nthe old; and wherever he struggles in his tomb, wherever he knocks we\nare there to help to deliver him.  When the guards sleep, in the\nsilence of the dawn, rises the crucified Christ.  And the angel that\nsits at the grave is the angel of Anarchy.\"\n\nTHUS abruptly he brought to a close his extraordinary peroration, to\nwhich I fear the written word has done but poor justice.  A long\nsilence followed; in it there was borne to us from below the murmur of\nthe hidden fountain, the wail of the nightingale.  It was night now;\nthe moon had set, and the sky was thick with stars.  Among them one\nplanet was blazing red, just opposite where I sat; and I saw the eyes\nof my neighbour, Henry Martin, fixed upon it.  He was so lost in\nthought that he did not hear me at first when I asked him whether he\nwould care to follow on.  But he assented willingly enough as soon as\nhe understood.  And as he rose I could not help admiring, as I had\noften done before, the singular beauty of his countenance.  His books,\nI think, do him injustice; they are cold and academic.  But there was\nnothing of that in the man himself; never was spirit so alert; and that\nalertness was reflected in his person and bearing, his erect figure,\nhis brilliant eyes, and the tumultuous sweep of his now whitening\nbeard.  He stood for a moment silent, with his eyes still fixed on the\nred star; then began to speak as follows:\n\n\"If,\" he said, \"it be true, as certain mystics maintain, that the world\nis an effect of the antagonisms of spiritual beings, having their\nstations in opposite quarters of the heavens, then, I think, MacCarthy\nand myself must represent such a pair of contraries, and move in an\nantithetic balance through the cycle of experience.  I, perhaps, am the\nUrthona of his prophet Blake, and he the Urizen, or vice versa, it may\nbe, I cannot tell.  But our opposition involves, on my part at least,\nno hostility; and looking across to his quarter of the sky I can\nreadily conceive how proud a fate it must be to burn there, so red, so\nsumptuous, and so superb.  My own light is pale by comparison, a mere\ngreen and blue; yet it is equally essential; and without it there might\nbe a danger that he would consume the world.  I speak in metaphors,\nthat I may effect as gently as possible the necessary transition, so\ncold and abrupt, from the prophet to the critic.  But you, sir, in\ncalling upon me, knew what you were doing.  You knew well that you were\ninviting Aquarius to empty his watering-pot on Mars.  And Mars, I am\nsure, will pardon me if I obey.  Unlike all the previous speakers, I\nam, by vocation, a sceptic; and the vocation I hold to be a noble one.\nThere are people who think, perhaps, indeed, there is almost nobody who\ndoes not think, that action is the sole end of life.  Criticism, they\nhold, is a kind of disease to which some people are subject, and which,\nin extreme cases, may easily be fatal.  The healthy state, on the other\nhand, they think, is that of the enthusiast; of the man who believes\nand never doubts.  Now, that such a state is happy I am very ready to\nadmit; but I cannot hold that it is healthy.  How could it be, unless\nit were based upon a sound, intellectual foundation?  But no such\nfoundation has been or will be reached except through criticism; and\nall criticism implies and engenders doubt.  A man who has never\nexperienced, nay, I will say who is not constantly reiterating, the\nprocess of criticism, is a man who has no right to his enthusiasm.  For\nhe has won it at the cost of drugging his mind with passion; and that I\nmaintain is a bad and wrong thing.  I maintain it to be bad and wrong\nin itself, and quite apart from any consequences it may produce; for it\nis a primary duty to seek what is true and eschew what is false.  But\neven from the secondary point of view of consequences, I have the\ngravest doubts as to the common assumption that the effects of\nenthusiasm are always preponderantly if not wholly good.  When I\nconsider, for example, the history of religion, I find no warrant for\naffirming that its services have outweighed its disservices.  Jesus\nChrist, the greatest and, I think, the sanest of enthusiasts, lit the\nfires of the Inquisition and set up the Pope at Rome.  Mahomet deluged\nthe earth with blood, and planted the Turk on the Bosphorus.  Saint\nFrances created a horde of sturdy beggars.  Luther declared the Thirty\nYears War.  Criticism would have arrested the course of these men; but\nwould the world have been the worse?  I doubt it.  There would have\nbeen less heat; but there might have been more light.  And, for my\npart, I believe in light.  It may, indeed, be true that intellect\nwithout passion is barren; but it is certain that passion without\nintellect is mischievous.  And since these powers, which should be\nunited, are, in fact, at war in the great duel which runs through\nhistory, I take my stand with the intellect.  If I must choose, I would\nrather be barren than mischievous.  But it is my aim to be fruitful and\nto be fruitful through criticism.  That means, I fear, that I am bound\nto make myself unpleasant to everybody.  But I do it, not of malice\nprepense, but as in duty bound.  You will say, perhaps, that that only\nmakes the matter worse.  Well, so be it!  I will apologize no more, but\nproceed at once to my disagreeable task.\n\n\"Let me say then first, that in listening to the speakers who have\npreceded me, while admiring the beauty and ingenuity of the\nsuperstructures they have raised, I have been busy, according to my\npractice, in questioning the foundations.  And this is the kind of\nresult I have arrived at.  All political convictions vary between the\ntwo extremes which I will call Collectivism and Anarchy.  Each of these\npursues at all costs a certain end--Collectivism, order, and Anarchy,\nliberty.  Each is held as a faith and propagated as a religion.  And\nbetween them lie those various compromises between faith and\nexperience, idea and fact, which are represented by liberalism,\nconservatism, and the like.  Now, the degree of enthusiasm which\naccompanies a belief, is commonly in direct proportion to its freedom\nfrom empirical elements.  Simplicity and immediacy are the\ncharacteristics of all passionate conviction.  But a critic like myself\ncannot believe that in politics, or anywhere in the field of practical\naction, any such simple and immediate beliefs are really and wholly\ntrue.  Thus, in the case before us, I would point out that neither\nliberty nor order are sufficient ends in themselves, though each, I\nthink, is part of the end.  The liberty that is desirable is that of\ngood people pursuing Good in order; and the order that is desirable is\nthat of good people pursuing Good in liberty.  This is a correction\nwhich, perhaps, both collectivist and anarchist would accept.  What\nthey want, they would say, is that kind of liberty and that kind of\norder which I have described.  But as liberty and order, so conceived,\nimply one another, the difference between the two positions ceases to\nbe one of ends and becomes one of means.  But every problem of means is\none of extreme complexity which can only be solved, in the most\ntentative way, by observation and experiment.  And opinions based upon\nsuch a process, though they may be strongly held, cannot be held with\nthe simplicity and force of a religious or ethical intuition.  We\nmight, conceivably, on this basis adopt the position either of the\ncollectivist or of the anarchist; but we should do so not as\nenthusiasts, but as critics, with a full consciousness that we are\nresting not upon an absolute principle, but upon a balance of\nprobabilities.\n\n\"This, then, is the first point I wished to make, that the whole\nquestion is one to be attacked by criticism, not by intuition.  But\nnow, tested by criticism, both the extreme positions suggest the\ngravest possible difficulties and doubts.  In the case of anarchy,\nespecially, these force themselves upon the most superficial view.  The\nanarchist maintains, in effect, that to bring about his ideal of\nordered liberty all you have to do is to abolish government.  But he\ncan point to no experience that will justify such a belief.  It is\nbased upon a theory of human nature which is contradicted by all the\nfacts known to us.  For if men, were it not for government, might be\nliving in the garden of Eden, how comes it that they ever emerged from\nthat paradise?  No, it is not government that is the root of our\ntroubles, it is the niggardliness of Nature and the greed of man.  And\nboth these are primitive facts which would be strengthened, not\ndestroyed, by anarchy.  Can it be believed that the result would be\nsatisfactory?  The anarchist may indeed reply that anything would be\nbetter than what exists.  And I can well understand how some generous\nand sensitive souls, or some victims of intolerable oppression, may be\ndriven into such counsels.  But they are surely counsels of despair.\nOr is it possible really to hold--as MacCarthy apparently does--that on\nthe eve of a bloody revolution, whereby all owners of property will be\nsummarily deprived of all they have, the friendly and co-operative\ninstincts of human nature will immediately come into play without\nfriction; that the infinitely complex problems of production and\ndistribution will solve themselves, as it were, of their own accord;\nthat there will be a place ready for everybody to do exactly the work\nhe wants; that everybody will want to work at something, and will be\ncontented with the wage assigned him, that there will be no shortage,\nno lack of adaptation of demand to supply; and all this achieved, not\nby virtue of any new knowledge or new capacity, but simply by a\nrearrangement of existing elements?  Does anyone, does MacCarthy\nreally, in a calm moment, believe all this?  And is he prepared to\nstake society upon his faith?  If he be, he is indeed beyond the reach\nof my watering-pot.  I leave him, therefore, burning luridly and\nunsubdued, and pass on to Allison.\n\n\"Allison's flame is gentler; and I would not wish, even if I could,\naltogether to extinguish it.  But I am anxious, I confess, to temper\nit; for in colour, to my taste, it is a little ghastly; and I fear that\nif it increased in intensity, it might even become too hot, though I do\nnot suggest that that is a present danger.  To drop the metaphor, my\nobjections to collectivism are not as fundamental as my objections to\nanarchy, nor are they based upon any lack of appreciation of the\nadvantages of that more equitable distribution of the opportunities of\nlife which I take to be at the bottom of the collectivist ideal.  I do\nnot share--no man surely who has reflected could share--the common\nprejudice that there is something fundamental, natural, and inevitable\nabout the existing organization of property.  On the contrary, it is\nclear to me that it is inequitable; and that the substitution of the\nsystem advocated by collectivists would be an immense improvement, if\nit could be successfully carried out, and if it did not endanger other\nGoods, which may be even more important than equality of opportunity.\nNor do I hold that in a collectivist state there need be any dangerous\nrelaxation of that motive of self-interest which every reasonable man\nmust admit to be, up to a point, the most potent source of all\npractical energy.  I do not see why the state should not pay its\nservants according to merit just as private companies do, and make the\nrewards of ambition depend on efficiency.  In this purely economic\nregion there is not, so it seems to me, anything absurd or chimerical\nin the socialist ideal.  My difficulty here is of a different kind.  I\ndo not see how, by the democratic machinery contemplated, it will be\npossible to secure officials sufficiently competent and disinterested\nto be entrusted with functions so important and so difficult as those\nwhich would be demanded of them under the socialist regime.  In a\ndemocracy the government can hardly rise above--in practice, I think,\nit tends to fall below--the average level of honesty and intelligence.\nIn the United States, for example, it is notorious that the whole\nmachinery of government, and especially of local government, where the\neconomic functions are important, is exploited by the more unscrupulous\nmembers of the community; and this tendency must be immensely\naccentuated in every society in proportion as the functions of\ngovernment become important.  A socialist state badly administered\nwould, I believe, be worse than the state under which we live, to the\nsame degree in which, when well administered, it would be better.  And\nI do not, I confess, see what guarantees socialists can offer that the\nadministration will be good.  I have far less confidence than Allison\nin mere machinery; and I am sure that no machinery will produce good\nresults in a society where a large proportion of the citizens have no\nother idea than to exploit the powers of government in their own\ninterest.  But such, I believe, is the case in existing societies; and\nI do not see by what miracle they are going to be transformed.\n\n\"Such is my first difficulty with regard to collectivism.  And though\nit would not prevent me from supporting, as in fact I do support,\ncautious and tentative experiments in the direction of practical\nsocialism, it does prevent me from looking to a collectivist future\nwith anything like the breezy confidence which animates Allison.  And I\nwill go further: I will say that no man who possesses an adequate\nintelligence, and does not deliberately stifle it, has a right to any\nsuch confidence.  Setting aside, however, for the sake of argument,\nthis difficulty, and admitting the possibility of an honest and\nefficient collectivist state, I am confronted with a further and even\ngraver cause of hesitation.  For while I consider that the distribution\nof the opportunities of life is, under the existing system, in the\nhighest degree capricious and inequitable, yet I would prefer such\ninequity to the most equitable arrangement in the world if it afforded\na better guarantee for the realization of certain higher goods than\nwould be afforded by the improved system.  And I am not clear in my own\nmind, and I do not see how anyone can be clear, that collectivism gives\nas good a security as the present system for the realization of these\nhigher goods.  And this brings me back to the question of liberty.  On\nthis point there is, I am well aware, a great deal of cant talked, and\nI have no wish to add to it.  Under our present arrangements, I admit,\nfor the great mass of people, there is no liberty worth the name;\nseeing that they are bound and tied all their lives to the meanest\nnecessities.  And yet we see that out of the midst of all this chaos of\nwrong, there have emerged and do emerge artists, poets, men of science,\nsaints.  And the appearance of such men seems to me to depend on the\nfact that a considerable minority have the power to choose, for good or\nfor evil, their own life, to follow their bent, even in the face of\ntremendous difficulties, and perhaps because of those difficulties, in\nthe more fortunate cases, to realize, at whatever cost of suffering,\ngreat works and great lives.  But under the system sketched by Allison\nI have the gravest doubts whether any man of genius would ever emerge.\nThe very fact that everybody's career will be regulated for him, and\nhis difficulties smoothed away, that, in a word, the open road will\nimply the beaten track, will, I fear, diminish, if not destroy, the\nenterprise, the innate spirit of adventure, in the spiritual as in the\nphysical world, on which depends all that we call, or ought to call,\nprogress.  A collectivist state, it is true, might establish and endow\nacademies; but would it ever produce a Shakespeare or a Michelangelo?\nIt might engender and foster religious orthodoxy; but would it have a\nplace for the reformer or the saint?  Should we not have to pay for the\ngeneral level of comfort and intelligence, by suppressing the only\nthing good in itself, the manifestation of genius?  I do not say\ndogmatically that it would be so: I do not even say dogmatically that,\neven if it were, the argument would be conclusive against the\ncollectivist state.  But the issue is so tremendous that it necessarily\nmakes me pause, as it must, I contend, any candid man, who is not\nprejudiced by a preconceived ideal.\n\n\"Now, it is not for the sake of recommending any opinion of my own that\nI have dwelt on these considerations.  It is, rather, to illustrate and\ndrive home the point with which I began, that the intellect has its\nrights, that it enters into every creed, and that it undermines, in\nevery creed, all elements of mere irrational or anti-rational faith;\nthat this fact can only be disguised by a conscious or unconscious\npredetermination, not to let the intellect have its say; and that such\npredetermination is a very serious error and vice.  It is without shame\nand without regret, on the contrary it is with satisfaction and\nself-approval, that I find in my own case, my intelligence daily more\nand more undermining my instinctive beliefs.  If, as some have held, it\nwere necessary to choose between reason and passion, I would choose\nreason.  But I find no such necessity; for reason to me herself is a\npassion.  Men think the life of reason cold.  How little do they know\nwhat it is to be responsive to every call, solicited by every impulse,\nyet still, like the magnet, vibrate ever to the north, never so tense,\nnever so aware of the stress and strain of force as when most\nirremovably fixed upon that goal.  The intensity of life is not to be\nmeasured by the degree of oscillation.  It is at the stillest point\nthat the most tremendous energies meet; and such a point is the\nintelligence open to infinity.  For such stillness I feel myself to be\ndestined, if ever I could attain it.  But others, I suppose, like\nMacCarthy, have a different fate.  In the celestial world of souls, the\nhierarchy of spirits, there is need of the planet no less than of its\nsun.  The station and gravity of the one determines the orbit of the\nother, and the antagonism that keeps them apart also knits them\ntogether.  There is no motion of MacCarthy's but I vibrate to it; and\nabout my immobility he revolves.  But both of us, as I am inclined to\nthink, are included in a larger system and move together on a remoter\ncentre.  And the very law of our contention, as perhaps one day we may\ncome to see, is that of a love that by discord achieves harmony.\"\n\nTHE conclusion of Martin's speech left me somewhat in doubt how to\nproceed.  All of the company who were primarily interested in politics\nhad now spoken; and I was afraid there might be a complete break in the\nsubject of our discourse.  Casting about, I could think of nothing\nbetter than to call upon Wilson, the biologist.  For though he was a\nspecialist, he regarded everything as a branch of his specialty; and\nwould, I knew, be as ready to discourse on society as on anything else.\nAlthough, therefore, I disliked a certain arrogance he was wont to\ndisplay, I felt that, since he was to speak, this was the proper place\nto introduce him.  I asked him accordingly to take up the thread of the\ndebate; and without pause his aggressive voice began to assail our ears.\n\n\"I don't quite know,\" he began, \"why a mere man of science should be\ninvited to intervene in a debate on these high subjects.  Politics, I\nhave always understood, is a kind of mystery, only to be grasped by a\nfavoured few, and then not by any processes of thought, but by some\nkind of intuition.  But of late years something seems to have happened.\nThe intuition theory was all very well when the intuitions did not\nconflict, or when, at least, those who were possessed by one, never\ncame into real intellectual contact with those who were possessed by\nanother.  But here, to-night, have we met together upon this terrace,\nbeen confronted with the most opposite principles jostling in the\nroughest way, and, as it seems to the outsider, simply annihilating one\nanother.  Whence Martin's plea for criticism; a plea with which I most\nheartily sympathize, only that he gave no indication of the basis on\nwhich criticism itself is to rest.  And perhaps that is where and why I\ncome in.  I have been watching to-night with curiosity, and I must\nconfess with a little amusement, one building after another laboriously\nraised by each speaker in turn, only to collapse ignominiously at the\nfirst touch administered by his successor.  And why?  For the ancient\nreason, that the structures were built upon the sand.  Well, I have\nraised no building myself to speak of.  But I am one of an obscure\ngroup of people who are working at solid foundations; which is only\nanother way of saying that I am a man of science.  Only a biologist, it\nis true; heaven forfend that I should call myself a sociologist!  But\nbiology is one of the disciplines that are building up that general\nview of Nature and the world which is gradually revolutionizing all our\nsocial conceptions.  The politicians, I am afraid, are hardly aware of\nthis.  And that is why--if I may say so without offence--their\nutterances are coming to seem more and more a kind of irrelevant\nprattle.  The forces that really move the world have passed out of\ntheir control.  And it is only where the forces are at work that the\nliving ideas move upon the waters.  Politicians don't study science;\nthat is the extraordinary fact.  And yet every day it becomes clearer\nthat politics is either an applied science or a charlatanism.  Only,\nunfortunately, as the most important things are precisely the last to\nbe known about, and it is exactly where it is most imperative to act\nthat our ignorance is most complete, the science of politics has hardly\nyet even begun to be studied.  Hence our forlorn paralysis of doubt\nwhenever we pause to reflect; and hence the kind of blind desperation\nwith which earnest people are impelled to rush incontinently into\npractice.  The position of MacCarthy is very intelligible, however much\nit be, to my mind--what shall I say?--regrettable.  There is, in fact,\nhardly a question that has been raised to-night that is at present\ncapable of scientific determination.  And with that word I ought\nperhaps, in my capacity of man of science, to sit down.\n\n\"And so I would, if it were not that there is something else, besides\npositive conclusions, that results from a long devotion to science.\nThere is a certain attitude towards life, a certain sense of what is\nimportant and what is not, a view of what one may call the commonplaces\nof existence, that distinguishes, I think, all competent people who\nhave been trained in that discipline.  For we do think about politics,\nor rather about society, even we specialists.  And between us we are\ngradually developing a sort of body of first principles which will be\nat the basis of any future sociology.  It is these that I feel tempted\nto try to indicate.  And the more so, because they are so foreign to\nmuch that has been spoken here to-night.  I have had a kind of feeling,\nto tell the truth, throughout this whole discussion, of dwelling among\nthe tombs and listening to the voices of the dead.  And I feel a kind\nof need to speak for the living, for the new generation with which I\nbelieve I am in touch.  I want to say how the problems you have raised\nlook to us, who live in the dry light of physical science.\n\n\"Let me say, then, to begin with, that for us the nineteenth century\nmarks a breach with the whole past of the world to which there is\nnothing comparable in human annals.  We have developed wholly new\npowers; and, coincidentally and correspondingly, a wholly new attitude\nto life.  Of the powers I do not intend to speak; the wonders of steam\nand electricity are the hackneyed theme of every halfpenny paper.  But\nthe attitude to life, which is even more important, is something that\nhas hardly yet been formulated.  And I shall endeavour to give some\nfirst rough expression to it.\n\n\"The first constituent, then, of the new view is that of continuity.\nWe of the new generation realize that the present is a mere transition\nfrom the past into the future; that no event and no moment is isolated;\nthat all things, successive as well as coincident, are bound in a\nsingle system.  Of this system the general formula is causation.  But,\nin human society, the specifically important case of it is the nexus of\nsuccessive generations.  We do not now, we who reflect, regard man as\nan individual, nor even as one of a body of contemporaries; we regard\nhim as primarily a son and a father.  In other words, what we have in\nmind is always the race: whereas hitherto the central point has been\nthe individual or the citizen.  But this shifting in the point of view\nimplies a revolution in ethics and politics.  With the ancients, the\nmaintenance of the existing generation was the main consideration, and\npatriotism its formula.  To Marcus Aurelius, to the Stoics, as later to\nthe Christians, the subject of all moral duties was the individual\nsoul, and personal salvation became for centuries the corner-stone of\nthe ethical structure.  Well, all the speculation, all the doctrine,\nall the literature based upon that conception has become irrelevant and\nmeaningless in the light of the new ideal.  We no longer conceive the\nindividual save as one in a chain of births.  Fatherless, he is\ninconceivable; sonless, he is abortive.  His soul, if he have one, is\ninseparable from its derivation from the past and its tradition to the\nfuture.  His duty, his happiness, his value, are all bound up with the\nfact of paternity; and the same, mutatis mutandis, is true of women.\nThe new generation in a word has a totally new code of ethics; and that\ncode is directed to the end of the perfection of the race.  For, and\nthis is the second constituent of the modern view, the series of births\nis also the vehicle of progress.  It is this discovery that gives to\nour outlook on life its exhilaration and zest.  The ancients conceived\nthe Golden Age as lying in the past; the men of the Middle Ages removed\nit to an imaginary heaven.  Both in effect despaired of this world; and\nconsequently their characteristic philosophy is that of the tub or the\nhermitage.  So soon as the first flush of youth was past, pessimism\nclouded the civilization of Greece and of Rome; and from this\nChristianity escaped only to take refuge in an imaginary bliss beyond\nthe grave.  But we, by means of science, have established progress.  We\nlook to a future, a future assured, and a future in this world.  Our\neyes are on the coming generations; in them centres our hope and our\nduty.  To feed them, to clothe them, to educate them, to make them\nbetter than ourselves, to do for them all that has hitherto been so\nscandalously neglected, and in doing it to find our own life and our\nown satisfaction--that is our task and our privilege, ours of the new\ngeneration.\n\n\"And this brings me to the third point in our scheme of life.  We\nbelieve in progress; but we do not believe that progress is fated.  And\nhere, too, our outlook is essentially new.  Hitherto, the conceptions\nof Fate and Providence have divided the empire of the world.  We of the\nnew generation accept neither.  We believe neither in a good God\ndirecting the course of events; nor in a blind power that controls them\nindependently and in despite of human will.  We know that what we do or\nfail to do matters.  We know that we have will; that will may be\ndirected by reason; and that the end to which reason points is the\nprogress of the race.  This much we hold to be established; more than\nthis we do not need.  And it is the acceptance of just this that cuts\nus off from the past, that makes its literature, its ethics, its\npolitics, meaningless and unintelligible to us, that makes us, in a\nword, what we are, the first of the new generation.\n\n\"Well, now, assuming this standpoint let us go on to see how some of\nthe questions look which have been touched upon to-night.  Those\nquestions have been connected mainly with government and property.  And\nupon these two factors, it would seem, in the opinion of previous\nspeakers, all the interests of society turn.  But from the point where\nwe now stand we see clearly that there is a third factor to which these\nare altogether subordinate--I mean the family.  For the family is the\nimmediate agent in the production and rearing of children; and this, as\nwe have seen, is the end of society.  With the family therefore social\nreconstruction should start.  And we may lay down as the fundamental\nethical and social axiom that everybody not physically disqualified\nought to marry, and to produce at least four children.  The only\nquestion here is whether the state should intervene and endeavour so to\nregulate marriages as to bring together those whose union is most\nlikely to result in good offspring.  This is a point on which the\nancients, I am aware, in their light-hearted sciolism laid great\nstress.  Only, characteristically enough, they ignored the fundamental\ndifficulty, that nothing is known--nothing even now, and how much less\nthen!--of the conditions necessary to produce the desired result.  If\never the conditions should come to be understood--and the problem is\npre-eminently one for science; and if ever--what is even more\ndifficult--we should come to know clearly and exactly for what points\nwe ought to breed; then, no doubt, it may be desirable for government\nto undertake the complete regulation of marriage.  Meantime, we must\nconfine our efforts to the simpler and more manageable task of securing\nfor the children when they are born the best possible environment,\nphysical, intellectual and moral.  But this may be done, even without a\nradical reconstruction of the law of property simply by proceeding\nfurther on the lines on which we are already embarked, by insisting on\na certain standard, and that a high one, of house-room, sanitation,\nfood, and the like.  We could thus ensure from the beginning for every\nchild at least a sound physical development; and that without\nundermining the responsibility of parents.  What else the state can do\nit must do by education; a thing which, at present, I do not hesitate\nto say, does not exist among us.  We have an elementary system of cram\nand drill directed by the soulless automata it has itself produced; a\nsecondary system of athletics and dead languages presided over by\ngentlemanly amateurs; and a university system which--well, of which I\ncannot trust myself to speak.  I wish only to indicate that, in the\neyes of the new generation, breeding and education are the two cardinal\npillars of society.  All other questions, even those of property and\ngovernment, are subordinate; and only as subordinate can they be\nfruitfully approached.  Take, for example, property.  On this point we\nhave no prejudices, either socialistic or anti-socialistic.  Property,\nas we view it, is simply a tool for producing and perfecting men.\nWhether it will serve that purpose best if controlled by individuals or\nby the state, or partly by the one and partly by the other, we regard\nas an open question, to be settled by experiment.  We see no principle\none way or the other.  Property is not a right, nor a duty, nor a\nprivilege, either of individuals or of the community.  It is simply and\nsolely, like everything else, a function of the chain of births.\nWhoever owns it, however it is administered, it has only one object, to\nensure for every child that is born a sufficiency of physical goods,\nand for the better-endowed all that they require in the way of training\nto enable them to perform efficiently the higher duties of society.\n\n\"And as property is merely a means, so is government.  To us of the new\ngeneration nothing is more surprising and more repugnant, than the\nimportance attached by politicians to formulae which have long since\nlost whatever significance they may once have possessed.  Democracy,\nrepresentation, trust in the people and the rest, all this to us is the\nidlest verbiage.  It is notorious, even to those who make most play\nwith these phrases, that the people do not govern themselves, that they\ncannot do so, and that they would make a great mess of it if they\ncould.  The truth is, that we are living politically on a tradition\nwhich arose when by government was meant government by a class, when\none man or a few exploited the rest in the name of the state, and when\ntherefore it was of imperative importance to bring to bear upon those\nwho were in power the brute and unintelligent weight of the mass.  The\nwhole democratic movement, though it assumed a positive intellectual\nform, was in fact negative in its aim and scope.  It meant simply, we\nwill not be exploited.  But that end has now been attained.  There is\nno fear now that government will be oppressive; and the only problem of\nthe future is, how to make it efficient.  But efficiency, it is\ncertain, can never be secured by democratic machinery.  We must, as\nAllison rightly maintains, have trained and skilled persons.  How these\nare to be secured is a matter of detail, though no doubt of important\ndetail; and it is one that the new generation will have to solve.  What\nthey will want, in any case, is government.  MacCarthy's idea of\nanarchy is--well, if he will pardon my saying so, it is hardly worthy\nof his intelligence.  You cannot regulate society, any more than you\ncan spin cotton, by the light of nature and a good heart.  MacCarthy\nmistakes the character of government altogether, when he imagines its\nessence to be compulsion.  Its essence is direction; and direction,\nwhatever the form of society, is, or should be, reserved for the wise.\nIt is for wise direction that the coming generations cry; and it is our\nbusiness to see that they get it.\n\n\"I have thus indicated briefly the view of social and political\nquestions which I believe will be that of the future.  And my reason\nfor thinking so is, that that view is based upon science.  It is this\nthat distinguishes the new generation from all others.  Hitherto the\naffairs of the world have been conducted by passion, interest,\nsentiment, religion, anything but reasoned knowledge.  The end of that\nregime, which has dominated all history, is at hand.  The old\ninfluences, it is true, still survive, and even appear to be supreme.\nWe have had ample evidence to-night of their apparent vitality.  But\nunderneath them is growing up the sturdy plant of science.  Already it\nhas dislodged their roots; and though they still seem to bear flower,\nthe flower is withering before our eyes.  In its place, before long,\nwill appear the new and splendid blossom whose appearance ends and\nbegins an epoch of evolution.  That is a consummation nothing can\ndelay.  We need not fret or hurry.  We have only to work on silently at\nthe foundations.  The city, it is true, seems to be rising apart from\nour labours.  There, in the distance, are the stately buildings, there\nis the noise of the masons, the carpenters, the engineers.  But see!\nthe whole structure shakes and trembles as it grows.  Houses fall as\nfast as they are erected; foundations sink, towers settle, domes and\npinnacles collapse.  All history is the building of a dream-city,\nfantastic as that ancient one of the birds, changeful as the sunset\nclouds.  And no wonder; for it is building on the sand.  There is only\none foundation of rock, and that is being laid by science.  Only wait!\nTo us will come sooner or later, the people and the architects.  To us\nthey will submit the great plans they have striven so vainly to\nrealize.  We shall pronounce on their possibility, their suitability,\neven their beauty.  Caesar and Napoleon will give place to Comte and\nHerbert Spencer; and Newton and Darwin sit in judgment on Plato and\nAquinas.\"\n\nWITH that he concluded.  And as he sat down a note was passed along to\nme from Ellis, asking permission to speak next.  I assented willingly;\nfor Ellis, though some of us thought him frivolous, was, at any rate,\nnever dull.  His sunburnt complexion, his fair curly hair, and the\nlight in his blue eyes made a pleasant impression, as he rose and\nlooked down upon us from his six feet.\n\n\"This,\" he began, \"is really an extraordinary discovery Wilson has\nmade, that fathers have children, and children fathers!  One wonders\nhow the world has got on all these centuries in ignorance of it.  It\nseems so obvious, once it has been stated.  But that, of course, is the\nnature of great truths; as soon as they are announced they seem to have\nbeen always familiar.  It is possible, for that very reason, that many\npeople may under-estimate the importance of Wilson's pronouncement,\nforgetting that it is the privilege of genius to formulate for the\nfirst time what everyone has been dimly feeling.  We ought not to be\nungrateful; but perhaps it is our duty to be cautious.  For great ideas\nnaturally suggest practical applications, and it is here that I foresee\ndifficulties.  What Wilson's proposition in fact amounts to, if I\nunderstand him rightly, is that we ought to open as wide as possible\nthe gates of life, and make those who enter as comfortable as we can.\nNow, I think we ought to be very careful about doing anything of the\nkind.  We know, of course, very little about the conditions of the\nunborn.  But I think it highly probable that, like labour, as described\nby the political economists, they form throughout the universe a single\nmobile body, with a tendency to gravitate wherever the access is freest\nand the conditions most favourable.  And I should be very much afraid\nof attracting what we may call, perhaps, the unemployed of the universe\nin undue proportions to this planet, by offering them artificially\nbetter terms than are to be obtained elsewhere.  For that, as you know,\nwould defeat our own object.  We should merely cause an exodus, as it\nwere, from the outlying and rural districts.  Mars, or the moon, or\nwhatever the place may be; and the amount of distress and difficulty on\nthe earth would be greater than ever.  At any rate, I should insist,\nand I dare say Wilson agrees with me there, on some adequate test.  And\nI would not advertise too widely what we are doing.  After all, other\nplanets must be responsible for their own unborn; and I don't see why\nwe should become a kind of dumping-ground of the universe for everyone\nwho may imagine he can better himself by migrating to the earth.  For\nthat reason, among others, I would not open the gate too wide.  And,\nperhaps, in view of this consideration, we might still permit some\npeople not to marry.  At any rate, I wouldn't go further, I think, than\na fine for recalcitrant bachelors.  Wilson, I dare say, would prefer\nimprisonment for a second offence, and in case of contumacy, even\ncapital punishment.  On such a point I am not, I confess, an altogether\nimpartial judge, as I should certainly incur the greater penalty.\nStill, as I have said, in the general interests of society, and in view\nof the conditions of the universal market, I would urge caution and\ndeliberation.  And that is all I have to say at present on this very\ninteresting subject.\n\n\"The other point that interested me in Wilson's remarks was not,\nindeed, so novel as the discovery about fathers having children, but it\nwas, in its way, equally important.  I mean, the announcement made with\nauthority that the human race really does, as has been so often\nconjectured, progress.  We may take it now, I suppose, that that is\nestablished, or Wilson would not have proclaimed it.  And we are,\ntherefore, in a position roughly to determine in what progress\nconsists.  This is a task which, I believe, I am more competent to\nattempt perhaps even than Wilson himself, because I have had unusual\nopportunities of travel, and have endeavoured to utilize them to clear\nmy mind of prejudices.  I flatter myself that I can regard with perfect\nimpartiality the ideals of different countries, and in particular those\nof the new world which, I presume, are to dominate the future.  In\nattempting to estimate what progress means, one could not do better, I\nsuppose, than describe the civilization of the United States.  For in\ndescribing that, one will be describing the whole civilization of the\nfuture, seeing that what America is our colonies are, or will become,\nand what our colonies are we, too, may hope to attain, if we make the\nproper sacrifices to preserve the unity of the empire.  Let us see,\nthen, what, from an objective point of view, really is the future of\nthis progressing world of ours.\n\n\"Perhaps, however, before proceeding to analyse the spiritual ideals of\nthe American people, I had better give some account of their country.\nFor environment, as we all know now, has an incalculable effect upon\ncharacter.  Consider, then, the American continent!  How simple it is!\nHow broad!  How large!  How grand in design!  A strip of coast, a range\nof mountains, a plain, a second range, a second strip of coast!  That\nis all!  Contrast the complexity of Europe, its lack of symmetry, its\nvariety, irregularity, disorder and caprice!  The geography of the two\ncontinents already foreshadows the differences in their civilizations.\nOn the one hand simplicity and size; on the other a hole-and-corner\nvariety; there immense rivers, endless forests, interminable plains,\nindefinite repetition of a few broad ideas; here distracting\ntransitions, novelties, surprises, shocks, distinctions in a word,\nalready suggesting Distinction.  Even in its physical features America\nis the land of quantity, while Europe is that of quality.  And as with\nthe land, so with its products.  How large are the American fruits!\nHow tall the trees!  How immense the oysters!  What has Europe by\ncomparison!  Mere flavour and form, mere beauty, delicacy and grace!\nAmerica, one would say, is the latest work of the great artist--we are\ntold, indeed, by geologists, that it is the youngest of the\ncontinents--conceived at an age when he had begun to repeat himself,\nbroad, summary, impressionist, audacious in empty space; whereas Europe\nwould seem to represent his pre-Raphaelite period, in its wealth of\ndetail, its variety of figure, costume, architecture, landscape, its\ncrudely contrasted colours and minute precision of individual form.\n\n\"And as with the countries, so with their civilizations.  Europe is the\nhome of class, America of democracy.  By democracy I do not mean a mere\nform of government--in that respect, of course, America is less\ndemocratic than England: I mean the mental attitude that implies and\nengenders Indistinction.  Indistinction, I say, rather than equality,\nfor the word equality is misleading, and might seem to imply, for\nexample, a social and economic parity of conditions, which no more\nexists in America than it does in Europe.  Politically, as well as\nsocially, America is a plutocracy; her democracy is spiritual and\nintellectual; and its essence is, the denial of all superiorities save\nthat of wealth.  Such superiorities, in fact, hardly exist across the\nAtlantic.  All men there are intelligent, all efficient, all energetic;\nand as these are the only qualities they possess, so they are the only\nones they feel called upon to admire.  How different is the case with\nEurope!  How innumerable and how confusing the gradations!  For\ndiversities of language and race, indeed, we may not be altogether\nresponsible; but we have superadded to these, distinctions of manner,\nof feeling, of perception, of intellectual grasp and spiritual insight,\nunknown to the simpler and vaster consciousness of the West.  In\naddition, in short, to the obvious and fundamentally natural standard\nof wealth, we have invented others impalpable and artificial in their\ncharacter; and however rapidly these may be destined to disappear as\nthe race progresses, and the influence of the West begins to dominate\nthe East, they do, nevertheless, still persist, and give to our effete\ncivilization the character of Aristocracy, that is of Caste.  In all\nthis we see, as I have suggested, the influence of environment.  The\nold-world stock, transplanted across the ocean, imitates the\ncharacteristics of its new home.  Sloughing off artificial\ndistinctions, it manifests itself in bold simplicity, broad as the\nplains, turbulent as the rivers, formless as the mountains, crude as\nthe fruits of its adopted country.\"\n\n\"Yet while thus forming themselves into the image of the new world, the\nAmericans have not disdained to make use of such acquisitions of the\nPast as might be useful to them in the task that lay before them.  They\nhave rejected our ideals and our standards; but they have borrowed our\ncapital and our inventions.  They have thus been able--a thing unknown\nbefore in the history of the world--to start the battle against Nature\nwith weapons ready forged.  On the material results they have thus been\nable to achieve it is the less necessary for me to dilate, that they\nkeep us so fully informed of them themselves.  But it may be\ninteresting to note an important consequence in their spiritual life,\nwhich has commonly escaped the notice of observers.  Thanks to Europe,\nAmerica has never been powerless in the face of Nature; therefore has\nnever felt Fear; therefore never known Reverence; and therefore never\nexperienced Religion.  It may seem paradoxical to make such an\nassertion about the descendants of the Puritan Fathers; nor do I forget\nthe notorious fact that America is the home of the sects, from the\nfollowers of Joseph Smith to those of Mrs. Eddy.  But these are the\nphenomena that illustrate my point.  A nation which knew what religion\nwas, in the European sense; whose roots were struck in the soil of\nspiritual conflict, of temptations and visions in haunted forests or\ndesert sands by the Nile, of midnight risings, scourgings of the flesh,\ndirges in vast cathedrals, and the miracle of the Host solemnly veiled\nin a glory of painted light--such a nation would never have accepted\nChristian Science as a religion.  No!  Religion in America is a\nparasite without roots.  The questions that have occupied Europe from\nthe dawn of her history, for which she has fought more fiercely than\nfor empire or liberty, for which she has fasted in deserts, agonized in\ncells, suffered on the cross, and at the stake, for which she has\nsacrificed wealth, health, ease, intelligence, life, these questions of\nthe meaning of the world, the origin and destiny of the soul, the life\nafter death, the existence of God, and His relation to the universe,\nfor the American people simply do not exist.  They are as inaccessible,\nas impossible to them, as the Sphere to the dwellers in Flatland.  That\nwhole dimension is unknown to them.  Their healthy and robust\nintelligence confines itself to the things of this world.  Their\nreligion, if they have one, is what I believe they call\n'healthy-mindedness.'  It consists in ignoring everything that might\nsuggest a doubt as to the worth of existence, and so conceivably\nparalyse activity.  'Let us eat and drink,' they say, with a hearty and\nrobust good faith; omitting as irrelevant and morbid the discouraging\nappendix, 'for to-morrow we die.'  Indeed!  What has death to do with\nbuildings twenty-four stories high, with the fastest trains, the\nnoisiest cities, the busiest crowds in the world, and generally the\nlargest, the finest, the most accelerated of everything that exists?\nAmerica has sloughed off religion; and as, in the history of Europe,\nreligion has underlain every other activity, she has sloughed off,\nalong with it, the whole European system of spiritual life.\nLiterature, for instance, and Art, do not exist across the Atlantic.  I\nam aware, of course, that Americans write books and paint pictures.\nBut their books are not Literature, nor their pictures Art, except in\nso far as they represent a faint adumbration of the European tradition.\nThe true spirit of America has no use for such activities.  And even\nif, as must occasionally happen in a population of eighty millions,\nthere is born among them a man of artistic instincts, he is immediately\nand inevitably repelled to Europe, whence he derives his training and\nhis inspiration, and where alone he can live, observe and create.  That\nthis must be so from the nature of the case is obvious when we reflect\nthat the spirit of Art is disinterested contemplation, while that of\nAmerica is cupidous acquisition.  Americans, I am aware, believe that\nthey will produce Literature and Art, as they produce coal and steel\nand oil, by the judicious application of intelligence and capital; but\nhere they do themselves injustice.  The qualities that are making them\nmasters of the world, unfit them for slighter and less serious\npursuits.  The Future is for them, the kingdom of elevators, of\ntelephones, of motor-cars, of flying-machines.  Let them not idly hark\nback, misled by effete traditions, to the old European dream of the\nkingdom of heaven.  '_Excudent alii_,' let them say, 'for Europe,\nLetters and Art; _tu regere argento populos, Morgane, memento_, let\nAmerica rule the world by Syndicates and Trusts!'  For such is her true\ndestiny; and that she conceives it to be such, is evidenced by the\ndetermination with which she has suppressed all irrelevant activities.\nEvery kind of disinterested intellectual operation she has severely\nrepudiated.  In Europe we take delight in the operations of the mind as\nsuch, we let it play about a subject, merely for the fun of the thing;\nwe approve knowledge for its own sake; we appreciate irony and wit.\nBut all this is unknown in America.  The most intelligent people in the\nworld, they severely limit their intelligence to the adaptation of\nmeans to ends.  About the ends themselves they never permit themselves\nto speculate; and for this reason, though they calculate, they never\nthink, though they invent, they never discover, and though they talk,\nthey never converse.  For thought implies speculation; discovery,\nreflection; conversation, leisure; and all alike imply a\ndisinterestedness which has no place in the American system.  For the\nsame reason they do not play; they have converted games into battles;\nand battles in which every weapon is legitimate so long as it is\nvictorious.  An American football match exhibits in a type the American\nspirit, short, sharp, scientific, intense, no loitering by the road, no\nenjoyment of the process, no favour, no quarter, but a fight to the\ndeath with victory as the end, and anything and everything as the means.\n\n\"A nation so severely practical could hardly be expected to attach the\nsame importance to the emotions as has been attributed to them by\nEuropeans.  Feeling, like Intellect, is not regarded, in the West, as\nan end in itself.  And it is not uninteresting to note that the\nAmericans are the only great nation that have not produced a single\nlyric of love worth recording.  Physically, as well as spiritually,\nthey are a people of cold temperament.  Their women, so much and, I do\nnot doubt, so legitimately admired, are as hard as they are brilliant;\ntheir glitter is the glitter of ice.  Thus happily constituted,\nAmericans are able to avoid the immense waste of time and energy\ninvolved in the formation and maintenance of subtle personal relations.\nThey marry, of course, they produce children, they propagate the race;\nbut, I would venture to say, they do not love, as Europeans have loved;\nthey do not exploit the emotion, analyse and enjoy it, still less\nexpress it in manners, in gesture, in epigram, in verse.  And hence the\nkind of shudder produced in a cultivated European by the treatment of\nemotion in American fiction.  The authors are trying to express\nsomething they have never experienced, and to graft the European\ntradition on to a civilization which has none of the elements necessary\nto nourish and support it.\n\n\"From this brief analysis of the attitude of Americans towards life,\nthe point with which I started will, I hope, have become clear, that it\nis idle to apply to them any of the tests which we apply to a European\ncivilization.  For they have rejected, whether they know it or not, our\nwhole scheme of values.  What, then, is their own?  What do they\nrecognize as an end?  This is an interesting point on which I have\nreflected much in the course of my travels.  Sometimes I have thought\nit was wealth, sometimes power, sometimes activity.  But a poem, or at\nleast a production in metre, which I came across in the States, gave me\na new idea upon the subject.  On such a point I speak with great\ndiffidence; but I am inclined to think that my author was right; that\nthe real end which Americans set before themselves is Acceleration.  To\nbe always moving, and always moving faster, that they think is the\nbeatific life; and with their happy detachment from philosophy and\nspeculation, they are not troubled by the question, Whither?  If they\nare asked by Europeans, as they sometimes are, what is the point of\ngoing so fast? their only feeling is one of genuine astonishment.  Why,\nthey reply, you go fast!  And what more can be said?  Hence, their\ncontempt for the leisure so much valued by Europeans.  Leisure they\nfeel, to be a kind of standing still, the unpardonable sin.  Hence,\nalso, their aversion to play, to conversation, to everything that is\nnot work.  I once asked an American who had been describing to me the\nscheme of his laborious life, where it was that the fun came in?  He\nreplied, without hesitation and without regret, that it came in\nnowhere.  How should it?  It could only act as a brake; and a brake\nupon Acceleration is the last thing tolerable to the American genius.\n\n\"The American genius, I say: but after all, and this is the real point\nof my remarks, what America is, Europe is becoming.  We, who sit here,\nwith the exception, of course, of Wilson, represent the Past, not the\nFuture.  Politicians, professors, lawyers, doctors, no matter what our\ncalling, our judgments are determined by the old scale of values.\nIntellect, Beauty, Emotion, these are the things we count precious; to\nwealth and to progress we are indifferent, save as conducing to these.\nAnd thus, like the speakers who preceded me, we venture to criticize\nand doubt, where the modern man, American or European, simply and\nwholeheartedly accepts.  For this it would be idle for us to blame\nourselves, idle even to regret; we should simply and objectively note\nthat we are out of court.  All that we say may be true, but it is\nirrelevant.  'True,' says the man of the Future, 'we have no religion,\nliterature, or art; we don't know whence we come, nor whither we go;\nbut, what is more important, we don't care.  What we do know is, that\nwe are moving faster than any one ever moved before; and that there is\nevery chance of our moving faster and faster.  To inquire \"whither\" is\nthe one thing that we recognize as blasphemous.  The principle of the\nUniverse is Acceleration, and we are its exponents; what is not\naccelerated will be extinguished; and if we cannot answer ultimate\nquestions, that is the less to be regretted in that, a few centuries\nhence, there will be nobody left to ask them.'\n\n\"Such is the attitude which I believe to be that of the Future, both in\nthe West and in the East.  I do not pretend to sympathize with it; but\nmy perception of it gives a peculiar piquancy to my own position.  I\nrejoice that I was born at the end of an epoch; that I stand as it were\nat the summit, just before the plunge into the valley below; and\nlooking back, survey and summarize in a glance the ages that are past.\nI rejoice that my friends are Socrates and Plato, Dante, Michelangelo,\nGoethe instead of Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Pierpont Morgan.  I rejoice that\nI belong to an effete country; and that I sit at table with almost the\nlast representatives of the culture, the learning and the ideals of\ncenturies of civilization.  I prefer the tradition of the Past to that\nof the Future; I value it the more for its contrast with that which is\nto come; and I am the more at ease inasmuch as I feel myself divested\nof all responsibility towards generations whose ideals and standards I\nam unable to appreciate.\n\n\"All this shows, of course, merely that I am not one of the people so\naptly described by Wilson as the 'new generation.'  But I flatter\nmyself that my intellectual apprehension is not coloured by the\ncircumstances of my own case, and that I have given you a clear and\nobjective picture of what it is that really constitutes progress.  And\nwith that proud consciousness in my mind, I resume my seat.\"\n\nTHE conclusion of this speech was greeted with a hubbub of laughter,\napproval, and protest confusedly mixed; in the midst of which it\noccurred to me that I would select Audubon as the next speaker.  My\nreason was that Ellis, as I thought, under cover of an extravagant fit\nof spleen, had made rather a formidable attack on the doctrine of\nprogress as commonly understood by social reformers.  He had given us,\nas it were, the first notes of the Negative.  But Audubon, I knew,\nwould play the tune through to the end; and I thought we might as well\nhave it all, and have it before it should be too late for the possible\ncorrectives of other speakers.  Audubon was engaged in some occupation\nin the city, and how he came to be a member of our society I cannot\ntell; for he professed an uncompromising aversion to all speculation.\nHe was, however, a regular attendant and spoke well, though always in\nthe sense that there was nothing worth speaking about.  On this\noccasion he displayed, as usual, some reluctance to get on to his feet;\nand even when he was overruled began, characteristically, with a\nprotest.\n\n\"I don't see why it should be a rule that everybody must speak.  I\nbelieve I have said something of the kind before\"--but here he was\ninterrupted by a general exclamation that he had said it much too\noften; whereupon he dropped the subject, but maintained his tone of\nprotest.  \"You don't understand,\" he went on, \"what a difficult\nposition I am in, especially in a discussion of this kind.  My\nstandpoint is radically different from that of the rest of you; and\nanything I say is bound to be out of key.  You're all playing what you\nthink to be the game of life, and playing it willingly.  But I play\nonly under compulsion; if you call it playing, when one is hounded out\nto field in all weathers without ever having a chance of an innings.\nOr, rather, the game's more like tennis than cricket, and we're the\nlittle boys who pick up the balls--and that, in my opinion, is a damned\nhumiliating occupation.  And surely you must all really think so too!\nOf course, you don't like to admit it.  Nobody does.  In the pulpit, in\nthe press, in conversation, even, there's a conspiracy of silence and\nbluff.  It's only in rare moments, when a few men get together in the\nsmoking-room, that the truth comes out.  But when it does come out it's\nalways the same refrain, 'cui bono, cui bono?'  I don't take much\naccount of myself; but, if there is one thing of which I am proud, it\nis that I have never let myself be duped.  From the earliest days I can\nremember I realized what the nature of this world really is.  And all\nexperience has confirmed that first intuition.  That other people don't\nseem to have it, too, is a source of constant amazement to me.  But\nreally, and without wishing to be arrogant, I believe the reason is\nthat they choose to be duped and I don't.  They intend, at all costs,\nto be happy, or interested, or whatever it is that they prefer to call\nit.  And I don't say they are not wise in their generation.  But I'm\nnot made like that; I just see things as they are; and I see that\nthey're very bad--a point in which I differ from the Creator.\n\n\"Well, now, to come to to-night's discussion, and my attitude towards\nit.  You have assumed throughout, as, of course, you were bound to do,\nthat things are worth while.  But if they aren't, what becomes of all\nyour aims, all your views, all your problems and disputes?  The basis\non which you are all agreed, however much you may differ in detail, is\nthat things can be made better, and that it's worth while to make them\nso.  But if one denies both propositions, what happens to the\nsuperstructure?  And I do deny them; and not only that, but I can't\nconceive how anyone ever came to accept them.  Surely, if one didn't\napproach the question with an irrational bias towards optimism, one\nwould never imagine that there is such a thing as progress in anything\nthat really matters.  Or are even we here impressed by such silly and\nirrelevant facts as telephones and motor-cars?  Ellis, I should think,\nhas said enough to dispel that kind of illusion; and I don't want to\nlabour a tedious point.  If we are to look for progress at all we must\nlook for it, I suppose, in men.  And I have never seen any evidence\nthat men are generally better than they used to be; on the contrary, I\nthink there is evidence that they are worse.  But anyhow, even granting\nthat we could make things a bit better, what would be the use of doing\nit in a world like this?  If the whole structure of the universe is\nbad, what's the good of fiddling with the details?  You might as well\nwaste your time in decorating the saloon of a sinking ship.  Granting\nthat you can improve the distribution of property, and raise the\nstandard of health and intelligence and all the rest of it, granting\nyou could to-morrow introduce your socialist state, or your liberal\nstate, or your anarchical co-operation, or whatever the plan may\nbe--how would you be better off in anything that matters?  The main\ngoverning facts would be unaltered.  Men, for example, would still be\nborn, without being asked whether they want it or no.  And that alone,\nto my mind, is enough to condemn the whole business.  I can't think how\nit is that people don't resent more than they do the mere insult to\ntheir self-respect involved in such a situation.  Nothing can cure it,\nnothing can improve it.  It's a fundamental condition of life.\n\n\"If that were all it would be bad enough.  But that's only the\nbeginning.  For the world into which we are thus ignominiously flung\nturns out to be incalculable and irrational.  There are, of course, I\nknow, what are called the laws of nature.  But I--to tell the honest\ntruth--I don't believe in them.  I mean, I see no reason to suppose\nthat the sun will rise to-morrow, or that the seasons will continue to\nobserve their course, or that any of our most certain expectations will\nbe fulfilled in the future as they have been in the past.  We import\ninto the universe our own prejudice in favour of order; and the\nuniverse, I admit, up to a point appears to conform to it.  But I don't\ntrust the conformity.  Too many evidences abound of frivolous and\nincalculable caprice.  Why should not the appearance of order be but\none caprice the more, or even a crowning device of calculated malice?\nAnd anyhow, the things that most concern us, tempests, epidemics,\naccidents, from the catastrophe of birth to the deliverance of death,\nwe have no power to foresee or to forestall.  Yet, in face of all this,\nborne home to us every hour of every day, we cling to the creed of\nuniversal law; and on the flux of chaos write our 'credo quia\nimpossibile.'\n\n\"Well, that is a heresy of mine I have never found anyone to share.\nBut no matter.  My case is so strong I can afford to give it away point\nby point.  Granting then, that there were order in the universe, how\ndoes that make it any better?  Does it not rather make it worse, if the\norder is such as to produce evil?  And how great that evil is I need\nnot insist.  For it has been presupposed in everything that has been\nsaid to-night.  If it were a satisfactory world you wouldn't all be\nwanting to alter it.  Still, you may say--people always do--'if there\nis evil there is also good.'  But it is just the things people call\ngood, even more than those they admit to be evil, that make me despair\nof the world.  How anyone with self-respect can accept, and accept\nthankfully, the sort of things people do accept is to me a standing\nmystery.  It is surely the greatest triumph achieved by the Power that\nmade the universe that every week there gather into the churches\ncongregations of victims to recite their gratitude for 'their creation,\npreservation, and all the blessings of this life.'  The blessings!\nWhat are they?  Money?  Success?  Reputation?  I don't profess, myself,\nto be anything better than a man of the world; but that those things\nshould be valued as they are by men of the world is a thing that passes\nmy understanding.  'Well, but,' says the moralist, 'there's always duty\nand work.'  But what is the value of work if there's nothing worth\nworking for?  'Ah, but,' says the poet, 'there's beauty and love.'  But\nthe beauty and love he seeks is something he never finds.  What he\ngrasps is the shadow, not the thing.  And even the shadow flits past\nand eludes him on the stream of time.\n\n\"And just there is the final demonstration of the malignity of the\nscheme of things.  Time itself works against us.  The moments that are\nevil it eternalizes; the moments that might be good it hurries to\nannihilation.  All that is most precious is most precarious.  Vainly do\nwe cry to the moment: 'Verweile doch, du bist so schoen!'  Only the\nheavy hours are heavy-footed.  The winged Psyche, even at the moment of\nbirth, is sick with the pangs of dissolution.\n\n\"These, surely, are facts, not imaginations.  Why, then, is it that men\nrefuse to look them in the face?  Or, if they do, turn at once away to\nconstruct some other kind of world?  For that is the most extraordinary\nthing of all, that men invent systems, and that those systems are\noptimistic.  It is as though they said: 'Things must be good.  But as\nthey obviously are not good, they must really be other than they are.'\nAnd hence these extraordinary doctrines, so pitiful, so pathetic, so\nabsurd, of the eternal good God who made this bad world, of the\nAbsolute whose only manifestation is the Relative, of the Real which\nhas so much less reality than the Phenomenal.  Or, if all that be\nrejected, we transfer our heaven from eternity to time, and project\ninto the future the perfection we miss in the present or in the past.\n'True,' we say, 'a bad world! but then how good it will be!'  And with\nthat illusion generation after generation take up their burden and\nmarch, because beyond the wilderness there must be a Promised Land into\nwhich some day some creatures unknown will enter.  As though the evil\nof the past could be redeemed by any achievement of the future, or the\nperfection of one make up for the irremediable failure of another!\n\n\"Such ideas have only to be stated for their absurdity to be palpable.\nYet none the less they hold men.  Why?  I cannot tell.  I only know\nthat they do not and cannot hold me; that I look like a stranger from\nanother world upon the business of this one; that I am among you, but\nnot of you; that your motives and aims to me are utterly\nunintelligible; that you can give no account of them to which I can\nattach any sense; that I have no clue to the enigma you seem so lightly\nto solve by your religion, your philosophy, your science; that your\nhopes are not mine, your ambitions not mine, your principles not mine;\nthat I am shipwrecked, and see around me none but are shipwrecked too;\nyet, that these, as they cling to their spars, call them good ships and\ntrue, speak bravely of the harbour to which they are prosperously\nsailing, and even as they are engulfed, with their last breath, cry,\n'lo, we are arrived, and our friends are waiting on the quay!'  Who,\nunder these circumstances is mad?  Is it I?  Is it you?  I can only\ndrift and wait.  It may be that beyond these waters there is a harbour\nand a shore.  But I cannot steer for it, for I have no rudder, no\ncompass, no chart.  You say you have.  Go on, then, but do not call to\nme.  I must sink or swim alone.  And the best for which I can hope is\nspeedily to be lost in the silent gulf of oblivion.\"\n\nOFTEN as I had heard Audubon express these sentiments before, I had\nnever known him to reveal so freely and so passionately the innermost\nbitterness of his soul.  There was, no doubt, something in the\ncircumstances of the time and place that prompted him to this personal\nnote.  For it was now the darkest and stillest hour of the night; and\nwe sat in the dim starlight, hardly seeing one another, so that it\nseemed possible to say, as behind a veil, things that otherwise it\nwould have been natural to suppress.  A long silence followed Audubon's\nlast words.  They went home, I dare say to many of us more than we\nshould have cared to confess.  And I felt some difficulty whom to\nchoose of the few who had not yet spoken, so as to avoid, as far as\npossible, a tone that would jar upon our mood.  Finally, I selected\nCoryat, the poet, knowing he was incapable of a false note, and hoping\nhe might perhaps begin to pull us, as it were, up out of the pit into\nwhich we had slipped.  He responded from the darkness, with the\nhesitation and incoherence which, in him, I have always found so\ncharming.\n\n\"I don't know,\" he began, \"of course--well, yes, it may be all very\nbad--at least for some people.  But I don't believe it is.  And I doubt\nwhether Audubon really--well, I oughtn't to say that, I suppose.  But\nanyhow, I'm sure most people don't agree with him.  At any rate, for my\npart, I find life extraordinarily good, just as it is, not mine only, I\nmean, but everybody's; well, except Audubon's, I suppose I ought to\nsay, and even he, perhaps finds it rather good to be able to find it so\nbad.  But I'm not going to argue with him, because I know it's no use.\nIts all the other people I want to quarrel with--except Ellis, who has\nI believe some idea of the things that really count.  But I don't think\nAllison has, or Wilson, or most of the people who talk about progress.\nBecause, if you project, so to speak, all your goods into the future,\nthat shows that you don't appreciate those that belong to life just as\nit is and wherever it is.  And there must, I am sure, be something\nwrong about a view that makes the past and the present merely a means\nto the future.  It's as though one were to take a bottle and turn it\nupside down, emptying the wine out without noticing it; and then plan\nhow tremendously one will improve the shape of the bottle.  Well, I'm\nnot interested in the shape of bottles.  And I am interested in wine.\nAnd--which is the point--I know that the wine is always there.  It was\nthere in the past, it's here in the present, and it will be there in\nthe future; yes, in spite of you all!\"  He flung this out with a kind\nof defiance that made us laugh.  Whereupon he paused, as if he had done\nsomething indiscreet, and then after looking in vain for a bridge to\ntake him across to his next starting-place, decided, as it seemed, to\njump, and went on as follows: \"There's Wilson, for instance, tells us\nthat the new generation have no use for--I don't know that he used that\ndreadful phrase, but that's what he meant--that they have 'no use for'\nthe Greeks, or the Romans, or the Middle Ages, or the eighteenth\ncentury, or anything but themselves.  Well, I can only say I'm very\nsorry for them, and very glad I'm not one of them.  Why, just think of\nthe extraordinary obliquity, or rather blindness of it!  Because you\ndon't agree with Plato, or Marcus Aurelius, or Saint Francis, you think\nthey're only fit for the ash-heap.  You might as well say you wouldn't\ndrink any wine except what was made to-day!  The literature and art of\nthe past can never be dead.  It's the flask where the geni of life is\nimprisoned; you've only to open it and the life is yours.  And what\nlife!  That it's different from ours is just its merit.  I don't mean\nthat it's necessarily better; but it preserves for us the things we\nhave dropped out.  Because we, no more than the men of the past,\nexhaust all the possibilities.  The whole wonderful drama of life is\nunfolded in time, and we of this century are only one scene of it; not\nthe most passionate either or the most absorbing.  As actors, of\ncourse, we're concerned only with this scene.  But the curious thing\nis, we're spectators, too, or can be if we like.  And from the\nspectator's point of view, many of the episodes in the past are much\nmore interesting, if not more important, than those of the present.  I\nmean, it seems to me so stupid--I oughtn't to say stupid, I suppose,\nbecause of course you aren't exactly----\"  Whereat we laughed again,\nand he pulled himself up.  \"What I mean is, that to take the philosophy\nor the religion of the past and put it into your laboratory and test it\nfor truth, and throw it away if it doesn't answer the test, is to\nmisconceive the whole value and meaning of it.  The real question is,\nWhat extraordinary, fascinating, tragic or comic life went to produce\nthis precious specimen?  What new revelation does it give of the\npossibilities of the world?  That's how you look at it, if you have the\nsense of life.  You feel after life everywhere.  You love it when you\ntouch it.  You ask it no questions about being good or bad.  It just\nis, and you are akin to it.  Fancy, for instance, a man being able to\nwalk through the British Museum and pass the frieze of the Parthenon,\nand say he has no use for it!  And why?  Because, I suppose, we don't\ndress like that now, and can't ride horses bareback.  Well, so much the\nworse for us!  But just think.  There shrieking from the wall--no, I\nought to say singing with the voice of angels--is the spirit of life in\nits loveliest, strongest, divinest incarnation, saying 'love me,\nunderstand me, be like me!'  And the new generation passes by with its\nnose in the air sniffing, 'No!  You're played out!  You didn't know\nscience.  And you didn't produce four children a-piece, as we mean to.\nAnd your education was rhetorical, and your philosophy absurd, and your\nvices--oh, unmentionable!  No, no, young men!  Not for us, thank you!'\nAnd so they stalk on, don't you see them, with their rational costume,\nand their rational minds, and their hard little hearts, and the empty\nplace where their imagination ought to be!  Dreadful, dreadful!  Or\nperhaps they go, say, to Assisi, and Saint Francis comes to talk to\nthem.  And 'Look,' he says, 'what a beautiful world, if you'd only get\nrid of your encumbrances!  Money, houses, clothes, food, it's all so\nmuch obstruction!  Come and see the real thing; come and live with the\nlife of the soul; burn like a flame, blossom like a flower, flow like a\nmountain stream!'  'My dear sir,' they reply, 'you're unclean, impudent\nand ignorant!  Moreover you're encouraging mendicancy and superstition.\nNot to-day, thank you!'  And off they go to the Charity Organisation\nCommittee.  It's--it's----\"  He pulled himself up again, and then went\non more quietly.  \"Well, one oughtn't to get angry, and I dare say I'm\nmisrepresenting everybody.  Besides, I haven't said exactly what I\nwanted to say.  I wanted to say--what was it?  Oh, yes! that this kind\nof attitude is bound up with the idea of progress.  It comes of taking\nall the value out of the past and present, in order to put it into the\nfuture.  And then you _don't_ put it there!  You can't!  It evaporates\nsomehow, in the process.  Where is it then?  Well, I believe it's\nalways there, in life, and in every kind of life.  It's there all the\ntime, in all the things you condemn.  Of course the things really are\nbad that you say are bad.  But they're so good as well!  I mean--well,\nthe other day I read one of those dreadful articles--at least, of\ncourse they're very useful I suppose--about the condition of the\nagricultural labourer.  Well, then I took a ride in the country, and\nsaw it all in its setting and complete, with everything the article had\nleft out; and it wasn't so bad after all.  I don't mean to say it was\nall good either, but it was just wonderful.  There were great horses\nwith shaggy fetlocks resting in green fields, and cattle wading in\nshallow fords, and streams fringed with willows, and little cheeping\nbirds among the reeds, and larks and cuckoos and thrushes.  And there\nwere orchards white with blossom, and little gardens in the sun, and\nshadows of clouds brushing over the plain.  And the much-discussed\nlabourer was in the midst of all this.  And he really wasn't an\nincarnate grievance!  He was thinking about his horses, or his bread\nand cheese, or his children squalling in the road, or his pig and his\ncocks and hens.  Of course I don't suppose he knew how beautiful\neverything was; but I'm sure he had a sort of comfortable feeling of\nbeing a part of it all, of being somehow all right.  And he wasn't\nworrying about his condition, as you all worry for him.  I don't mean\nyou aren't right to worry, in a way; except that no one ought to worry.\nBut you oughtn't to suppose it's all a dreadful and intolerable thing,\njust because you can imagine something better.  That, of course, is\nonly one case; but I believe it's the same everywhere; yes, even in the\nbig cities, which, to my taste, look from outside much more repulsive\nand terrible.  There's a quality in the inevitable facts of life, in\nmaking one's living, and marrying and producing children, in the ending\nof one and the beginning of another day, in the uncertainties and fears\nand hopes, in the tragedies as well as the comedies, something that\narrests and interests and absorbs, even if it doesn't delight.  I'm not\nsaying people are happy; sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't.\nBut anyhow they are interested.  And life itself is the interest.  And\nthat interest is perennial, and of all ages and all classes.  And if\nyou leave it out you leave out the only thing that counts.  That's why\nideals are so empty; just because, I mean, they don't exist.  And I\nassure you--now I'm going to confess--that often, when I come away from\nsome meeting or from reading some dreadful article on social reform, I\nfeel as if I could embrace everything and everyone I come across,\nsimply for being so good as to exist--the 'bus-drivers, the cabmen, the\nshop-keepers, the slum-landlords, the slum-victims, the prostitutes,\nthe thieves.  There they are, anyhow, in their extraordinary setting,\nfloating on the great river of life, that was and is and will be,\nitself its own justification, through whatever country it may flow.\nAnd if you don't realize that--if you have a whole community that\ndoesn't realize it--then, however happy and comfortable and equitable\nand all the rest of it you make your society, you haven't really done\nmuch for them.  Their last state may even be worse than the first,\nbecause they will have lost the natural instinctive acceptance of life,\nwithout learning how to accept it on the higher plane.\n\n\"And that is why--now comes what I really do care about, and what I've\nbeen wanting to say--that is why there is nothing so important for the\nfuture or the present of the world as poetry.  Allison, for instance,\nand Wilson would be different men if only they would read my works!\nI'm not sure even if I may say so, that Remenham himself wouldn't be\nthe better.\"  Remenham, however, smilingly indicated that he had read\nthem.  Whereat Coryat rather comically remarked, \"Oh, well!  Yes!\nPerhaps then my poetry isn't quite good enough.  But there's\nShakespeare, and Milton, and--I don't care who it is, so long as it has\nthe essential of all great poetry, and that is to make you feel the\nworth of things.  I don't mean by that the happiness, but just the\nextraordinary value, of which all these unsolved questions about Good\nand Evil are themselves part.  No one, I am sure, ever laid down a\ngreat tragedy--take the most terrible of all, take 'Lear'--without an\noverwhelming sense of the value of life; life as it is, life at its\nmost pitiless and cruel, with all its iniquities, suffering,\nperplexity; without feeling he would far rather have lived and had all\nthat than not have lived at all.  But tragedy is an extreme case.  In\nevery simpler and more common case the poet does the same thing for us.\nHe shows us that the lives he touches have worth, worth of pleasure, of\nhumour, of patience, of wisdom painfully acquired, of endurance, of\nhope, even I will say of failure and despair.  He doesn't blink\nanything, he looks straight at it all, but he sees it in the true\nperspective, under a white light, and seeing all the Evil says\nnevertheless with God, 'Behold, it is very good.'  You see,\" he added,\nwith his charming smile, turning to Audubon, \"I agree with God, not\nwith you.  And perhaps if you were to read poetry ... but, you know,\nyou must not only read it; you've got to feel it.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said Audubon, \"but that I'm afraid is the difficulty.\"\n\n\"I suppose it is.  Well--I don't know that I can say any more.\"\n\nAnd without further ado he dropped back into his seat.\n\nSITTING next to Coryat was a man who had not for a long time been\npresent at our meetings.  His name was Harington.  He was a wealthy\nman, the head of a very ancient family; and at one time had taken a\nprominent part in politics.  But, of late, he had resided mainly in\nItaly devoting himself to study and to the collection of works of art.\nI did not know what his opinions were, for it so happened that I had\nnever heard him speak or had any talk with him.  I had no idea,\ntherefore, when I called upon him, what he would be likely to say, and\nI waited with a good deal of curiosity as he stood a few moments\nsilent.  It was now beginning to get light, and I could see his face,\nwhich was unusually handsome and distinguished.  He had indeed the air\nof a seventeenth-century nobleman, and might, except for the costume,\nhave stepped out of a canvas of Van Dyck.  Presently he spoke in a rich\nmellow voice and with a gravity that harmonized with his bearing.\n\n\"Let me begin with a confession, perhaps I ought even to say an\napology.  To be among you again after so many years is a privilege; but\nit is one which brings with it elements of embarrassment.  I have lived\nso long in a foreign land that I feel myself an alien here.  I hear\nvoices familiar of old, but I have forgotten their language; I see\nforms once well known, but the atmosphere in which they move seems\nstrange.  I am fresh from Italy; and England comes upon me with a\nshock.  Even her physical aspect I see as I never saw it before.  I\nfind it lovely, with a loveliness peculiar and unique.  But I miss\nsomething to which I have become accustomed in the south; I miss light,\nform, greatness, and breadth.  Instead, there is grey or golden haze,\nblurred outlines, tender skies, lush luxurious greenery.  Italy rings\nlike metal; England is a muffled drum.  The one has the ardour of\nBeauty; the other the charm of the Picturesque.  I dwell upon this\nbecause I seem to see--perhaps I am fanciful--a kindred distinction\nbetween the north and the south in quality of mind.  The Greek\nintelligence, and the Italian, is pitiless, searching, white as the\nMediterranean sunshine; the English and German is kindly, discreet,\namiably and tenderly confused.  The one blazes naked in a brazen sky;\nthe other is tempered by vapours of sentiment.  The English, in\nparticular, I think, seldom make a serious attempt to face the truth.\nTheir prejudices and ideals shut them in, like their green hedges; and\nthey live, even intellectually, in a country of little fields.  I do\nnot deny that this is soothing and restful; but I feel it--shall I\nconfess--intolerably cooping.  I long for the searching light, the wide\nprospect; for the vision of things as they really are.  I have\nconsorted too long with Aristotle and Machiavelli to find myself at\nhome in the country of the Anglican Church and of Herbert Spencer.\"\nHere he paused, and seemed to hesitate, while we wondered what he could\nbe leading up to.  Then, resuming, \"This may seem,\" he went on, \"a long\nintroduction; but it is not irrelevant; though I feel some hesitation\nin applying it.  But, if the last speaker will permit me to take my\ntext from him, I would ask him, is it not a curiously indiscriminate\nprocedure to affirm indifferently value in all life?  A poet\nsurely--and Coryat's practice, if he will allow me to say so, is\nsounder than his theory--a poet seeks to render, wherever he can find\nit, the exquisite, the choice, the distinguished and the rare.  Not\nlife, but beauty is his quest.  He does not reproduce Nature, he\nimposes upon her a standard.  And so it is with every art, including\nthe art of life itself.  Life as such is neither good nor bad, and,\nAudubon's undistinguishing censure is surely as much out of place as\nCoryat's undistinguishing approval.  Life is raw material for the\nartist, whether he be the private man carrying out his own destiny, or\nthe statesman shaping that of a nation.  The end of the artist in\neither case is the good life; and on his own conception of that will\ndepend the value of his work.\n\n\"I recall to your minds these obvious facts, at the risk of being\ntedious, because to-night, seeing the turn that our discussion has\ntaken, we must regard ourselves as statesmen, or as would-be statesmen.\nAnd I, in that capacity, finding myself in disagreement with everybody,\nexcept perhaps Cantilupe, and asking myself the reason why, can only\nconclude that I have a different notion of the end to be pursued, and\nof the means whereby it can be attained.  All of you, I think, except\nCantilupe, have assumed that the good life, whatever it may be, can be\nattained by everybody; and that society should be arranged so as to\nsecure that result.  That is, in fact, the democratic postulate, which\nis now so generally accepted not only in this company but in the world\nat large.  But it is that postulate that I dispute.  I hold that the\ngood life must either be the privilege of a few, or not exist at all.\nThe good life in my view, is the life of a gentleman.  That word, I\nknow, has been degraded; and there is no more ominous sign of the\ndegradation of the English people.  But I use it in its true and noble\nsense.  I mean by a gentleman a man of responsibility; one who because\nhe enjoys privileges recognizes duties; a landed proprietor who is\nalso, and therefore, a soldier and a statesman; a man with a natural\ncapacity and a hereditary tradition to rule; a member, in a word, of a\ngoverning aristocracy.  Not that the good life consists in governing;\nbut only a governing class and those who centre round them are capable\nof the good life.  Nobility is a privilege of the nobleman, and\nnobility is essential to goodness.  We are told indeed, that Good is to\nbe found in virtue, in knowledge, in art, in love.  I will not dispute\nit; but we must add that only a noble man can be virtuous greatly, know\nwisely, perceive and feel finely.  And virtue that is mean, knowledge\nthat is pedantic, art that is base, love that is sensual are not Goods\nat all.  A noble man of necessity feels and expresses himself nobly.\nHis speech is literature, his gesture art, his action drama, his\naffections music.  About him centres all that is great in literature,\nscience, art.  Magnificent buildings, exquisite pictures, statues,\npoems, songs, crowd about his habitation and attend him from the cradle\nto the grave.  His fine intelligence draws to itself those of like\ndisposition.  He seeks genius, but he shuns pedantry; for his knowledge\nis part of his life.  All that is great he instinctively apprehends,\nbecause it is akin to himself.  And only so can anything be truly\napprehended.  For every man and every class can only understand and\npractise the virtues appropriate to their occupations.  A professor\nwill never be a hero, however much he reads the classics.  A\nshop-walker will never be a poet, however much he reads poetry.  If you\nwant virtue, in the ancient sense, the sense of honour, of courage, of\nself-reliance, of the instinct to command, you must have a class of\ngentlemen.  Otherwise virtue will be at best a mere conception in the\nhead, a figment of the brain, not a character and a force.  Why is the\nteaching of the classics now discredited among you?  Not because it is\nnot as valuable as ever it was, but because there is no one left to\nunderstand its value.  The tradesmen who govern you feel instinctively\nthat it is not for them, and they are right.  It is above and beyond\nthem.  But it was the natural food of gentlemen.  And the example may\nserve to illustrate the general truth, that you cannot revolutionize\nclasses and their relations without revolutionizing culture.  It is\nidle to suppose you can communicate to a democracy the heritage of an\naristocracy.  You may give them books, show them pictures, offer them\nexamples.  In vain!  The seed cannot grow in the new soil.  The masses\nwill never be educated in the sense that the classes were.  You may\nrejoice in the fact, or you may regret it; but at least it should be\nrecognized.  For my own part I regret it, and I regret it because I\nconceive that the good life is the life of the gentleman.\n\n\"From this it follows that my ideal of a polity is aristocratic.  For a\nclass of gentlemen presupposes classes of workers to support it.  And\nthese, from the ideal point of view, must be regarded as mere means.  I\ndo not say that that is just; I do not say it is what we should choose;\nbut I am sure it is the law of the world in which we live.  Through the\nwhole realm of nature every kind exists only to be the means of\nsupporting life in another.  Everywhere the higher preys upon the\nlower; everywhere the Good is parasitic on the Bad.  And as in nature,\nso in human society.  Read history with an impartial mind, read it in\nthe white light, and you will see that there has never been a great\ncivilization that was not based upon iniquity.  Those who have eyes to\nsee have always admitted, and always will, that the greatest\ncivilization of Europe was that of Greece.  And of that civilization\nnot merely an accompaniment but the essential condition was slavery.\nTake away that and you take away Pericles, Phidias, Sophocles, Plato.\nDismiss Greece, if you like.  Where then will you turn?  To the Middle\nAges?  You encounter feudalism and serfdom.  To the modern world?  You\nrun against wage-labour.  Ah, but, you say, we look to the future.  We\nshall abolish wage-labour, as we have abolished slavery.  We shall have\nan equitable society in which everybody will do productive work, and\nnobody will live at the cost of others.  I do not know whether you can\ndo this; it is possible you may; but I ask you to count the cost.  And\nfirst let me call your attention to what you have actually done during\nthe course of the past century.  You have deposed your aristocracy and\nset up in their place men who work for their living, instead of for the\npublic good, merchants, bankers, shop-keepers, railway directors,\nbrewers, company-promoters.  Whether you are better and more justly\ngoverned I do not pause to enquire.  You appear to be satisfied that\nyou are.  But what I see, returning to England only at rare intervals,\nand what you perhaps cannot so easily see, is that you are ruining all\nyour standards.  Dignity, manners, nobility, nay, common honesty\nitself, is rapidly disappearing from among you.  Every time I return I\nfind you more sordid, more petty, more insular, more ugly and\nunperceptive.  For the higher things, the real goods, were supported\nand sustained among you by your class of gentlemen, while they deserved\nthe name.  But by depriving them of power you have deprived them of\nresponsibility, which is the salt of privilege; and they are rotting\nbefore your eyes, crumbling away and dropping into the ruck.  Whether\nthe general level of your civilization is rising I do not pronounce.  I\ndo not even think the question of importance; for any rise must be\nalmost imperceptible.  The salient fact is that the pinnacles are\ndisappearing; that soon there will be nothing left that seeks the\nstars.  Your middle classes have no doubt many virtues; they are, I\nwill presume, sensible, capable, industrious, and respectable.  But\nthey have no notion of greatness, nay, they have an instinctive hatred\nof it.  Whatever else they may have done, they have destroyed all\nnobility.  In art, in literature, in drama, in the building of palaces\nor villas, _nihil tetigerunt quod non faedaverunt_.  Such is the result\nof entrusting power to men who make their own living, instead of to a\nclass set apart by hereditary privilege to govern and to realize the\ngood life.  But, you may still urge, this is only a temporary stage.\nWe still have a parasitic class, the class of capitalists.  It is only\nwhen we have got rid of them, that the real equality will begin, and\nwith it will come all other excellence.  Well, I think it possible that\nyou might establish, I will not say absolute equality, but an equality\nfar greater than the world has ever seen; that you might exact from\neverybody some kind of productive work, in return for the guarantee of\na comfortable livelihood.  But there is no presumption that in that way\nyou will produce the nobility of character which I hold to be the only\nthing really good.  For such nobility, as all history and experience\nclearly shows, if we will interrogate it honestly, is the product of a\nclass-consciousness.  Personal initiative, personal force, a freedom\nfrom sordid cares, a sense of hereditary obligation based on hereditary\nprivilege, the consciousness of being set apart for high purposes, of\nbeing one's own master and the master of others, all that and much more\ngoes to the building up of the gentleman; and all that is impossible in\na socialistic state.  In the eternal order of this inexorable world it\nis prescribed that greatness cannot grow except in the soil of\niniquity, and that justice can produce nothing but mediocrity.  That\nthe masses should choose justice at the cost of greatness is\nintelligible, nay it is inevitable; and that choice is the inner\nmeaning of democracy.  But gentlemen should have had the insight to\nsee, and the courage to affirm, that the price was too great to pay.\nThey did not; and the penalty is that they are ceasing to exist.  They\nhave sacrificed themselves to the attempt to establish equity.  But in\nthat attempt I can take no interest.  The society in which I believe is\nan aristocratic one.  I hold, with Plato and Aristotle, that the masses\nought to be treated as means, treated kindly, treated justly, so far as\nthe polity permits, but treated as subordinate always to a higher end.\nBut your feet are set on the other track.  You are determined to\nabolish classes; to level down in order to level up; to destroy\nsuperiorities in order to raise the average.  I do not say you will not\nsucceed.  But if you do, you will realize comfort at the expense of\ngreatness, and your society will be one not of men but of ants and bees.\n\n\"For Democracy--note it well--destroys greatness in every kind, of\nintellect, of perception, as well as of character.  And especially it\ndestroys art, that reflection of life without which we cannot be said\nto live.  For the artist is the rarest, the most choice of men.  His\nsenses, his perception, his intelligence have a natural and inborn\nfineness and distinction.  He belongs to a class, a very small, a very\nexclusive one.  And he needs a class to appreciate and support him.  No\ndemocracy has ever produced or understood art.  The case of Athens is\nwrongly adduced; for Athens was an aristocracy under the influence of\nan aristocrat at the time the Parthenon was built.  At all times Art\nhas been fostered by patrons, never by the people.  How should they\nfoster it?  Instinctively they hate it, as they hate all superiorities.\nIt was not Florence but the Medici and the Pope that employed\nMichelangelo; not Milan but Ludovic the Moor that valued Leonardo.  It\nwas the English nobles that patronized Reynolds and Gainsborough; the\ndarlings of our middle class are Herkomer and Collier.  There have been\npoets, it is true, who have been born of the people and loved of them;\nand I do not despise poetry of that kind.  But it is not the great\nthing.  The great thing is Sophocles and Virgil, a fine culture wedded\nto a rich nature.  And such a marriage is not accomplished in the\nfields or the market-place.  The literature loved by democracy is a\nliterature like themselves; not literature at all, but journalism,\ngross, shrieking, sensational, base.  So with the drama, so with\narchitecture, so with every art.  Substitute the mass for the patron,\nand you eliminate taste.  The artist perishes; the charlatan survives\nand flourishes.  Only in science have you still an aristocracy.  For\nthe crowd sees that there is profit in science, and lets it go its way.\nBecause of the accident that it can be applied, it may be\ndisinterestedly pursued.  And democracy hitherto, though impatiently,\nendures an ideal aim in the hope of degrading its achievement to its\nown uses.\n\n\"Such being my view of democratic society I look naturally for elements\nthat promise not to foster, but to counteract it.  I look for the germs\nof a new aristocracy.  They are hard to discover, and perhaps my\ndesires override my judgment.  But I fancy that it will be the very\nland that has suffered most acutely from the disease that will be the\nfirst to discover the remedy.  I endorse Ellis's view of American\ncivilization; but I allow myself to hope that the reaction is already\nbeginning.  I have met in Italy young Americans with a finer sense of\nbeauty, distinction, and form, than I have been able to find among\nEnglishmen, still less among Italians.  And once there is cast into\nthat fresh and unencumbered soil the seed of the ideal that made Greece\ngreat, who can prophecy into what forms of beauty and thought it may\nnot flower?  The Plutocracy of the West may yet be transformed into an\nAristocracy; and Europe re-discover from America the secret of its past\ngreatness.  Such, at least, appears to me to be the best hope of the\nworld; and to the realization of that hope I would have all men of\nculture all the world over unite their efforts.  For the kingdom of\nthis earth, like that of heaven, is taken by violence.  We must work\nnot with, but against tendencies, if we would realize anything great;\nand the men who are fit to rule must have the courage to assume power,\nif ever there is to be once more a civilization.  Therefore it is that\nI, the last of an old aristocracy, look across the Atlantic for the\nfirst of the new.  And beyond socialism, beyond anarchy, across that\nweltering sea, I strain my eyes to see, pearl-grey against the dawn,\nthe new and stately citadel of Power.  For Power is the centre of\ncrystallization for all good; given that, you have morals, art,\nreligion; without it, you have nothing but appetites and passions.\nPower then is the condition of life, even of the life of the mass, in\nany sense in which it is worth having.  And in the interest of\nDemocracy itself every good Democrat ought to pray for the advent of\nAristocracy.\"\n\nALL of our company had now spoken except two.  One was the author,\nVivian, and him I had decided to leave till the last.  The other was\nJohn Woodman, a member of the Society of Friends, and one who was\ncommonly regarded as a crank, because he lived on a farm in the\ncountry, worked with his hands, and refused to pay taxes on the ground\nthat they went to maintain the army and navy.  If Harington was\nhandsome, Woodman was beautiful, but with beauty of expression rather\nthan of features, I had always thought of him as a perfect example of\nthat rare type, the genuine Christian.  And since Harington had just\nrevealed himself as a typical Pagan, I felt glad of the chance which\nbrought the two men into such close juxtaposition.  My only doubt was,\nwhether Woodman would consent to speak.  For on previous occasions I\nhad known him to refuse; and he was the only one of us who had always\nbeen able to sustain his refusal, without unpleasantness, but without\nyielding.  To-night, however, he rose in response to my appeal, and\nspoke as follows:\n\n\"All the evening I have been wondering when the lot would fall on me,\nand whether, when it did, I should feel, as we Friends say, 'free' to\nanswer the call.  Now that it has come, I am, I think, free; but not,\nif you will pardon me, for a long or eloquent speech.  What I have to\nsay I shall say as simply and as briefly as I can; and you, I know,\nwill listen with your accustomed tolerance, though I shall differ even\nmore, if possible, from all the other speakers, than they have differed\nfrom one another.  For you have all spoken from the point of view of\nthe world.  You have put forward proposals for changing society and\nmaking it better.  But you have relied, for the most part, on external\nmeans to accomplish such changes.  You have spoken of extending or\nlimiting the powers of government, of socialism, of anarchy, of\neducation, of selective breeding.  But you have not spoken of the\nSpirit and the Life, or not in the sense in which I would wish to speak\nof them.  MacCarthy, indeed, I remember, used the words 'the life of\nthe spirit.'  But I could not well understand what he meant, except\nthat he hoped to attain it by violence; and in that way what I would\nseek and value cannot be furthered.  Coryat, again, and Harington spoke\nof the good life.  But Coryat seemed to think that any and all life is\ngood.  The line of division which I see everywhere he did not see at\nall, the line between the children of God and the children of this\nworld.  I could not say with him that there is a natural goodness in\nlife as such; only that any honest occupation will be good if it be\npractised by a good man.  It is not wealth that is needed, nor talents,\nnor intellect.  These things are gifts that may be given or withheld.\nBut the one thing needful is the spirit of God, which is given freely\nto the poor and the ignorant who seek it.  Believing this, I cannot but\ndisagree, also, with Harington.  For the life of which he spoke is the\nlife of this world.  He praises power, and wisdom, and beauty, and the\nexcellence of the body and the mind.  In these things, he says, the\ngood life consists.  And since they are so rare and difficult to\nattain, and need for their fostering, natural aptitudes, and leisure\nand wealth and great position, he concludes that the good life is\npossible only for the few; and that to them the many should be\nministers.  And if the goods he speaks of be really such, he is right;\nfor in the things of the world, what one takes, another must resign.\nIf there are rulers there must be subjects; if there are rich, there\nmust be poor; if there are idle men there must be drudges.  But the\nreal Good is not thus exclusive.  It is open to all; and the more a man\nhas of it the more he gives to others.  That Good is the love of God,\nand through the love of God the love of man.  These are old phrases,\nbut their sense is not old; rather it is always new, for it is eternal.\nNow, as of old, in the midst of science, of business, of invention, of\nthe multifarious confusion and din and hurry of the world, God may be\ndirectly perceived and known.  But to know Him is to love Him, and to\nlove Him is to love His creatures, and most all of our fellow-men, to\nwhom we are nearest and most akin, and with and by whom we needs must\nlive.  And if that love were really spread abroad among us, the\nquestions that have been discussed to-night would resolve themselves.\nFor there would be a rule of life generally observed and followed; and\nunder it the conditions that make the problems would disappear.  Of\nsuch a rule, all men, dimly and at moments, are aware.  By it they were\nwarned that slavery was wrong.  And had they but read it more truly,\nand followed it more faithfully, they would never have made war to\nabolish what they would never have wished to maintain.  And the same\nrule it is that is warning us now that it is wrong to fight, wrong to\nheap up riches, wrong to live by the labour of others.  As we come to\nheed the warning we shall cease to do these things.  But to change\ninstitutions without changing hearts is idle.  For it is but to change\nthe subjects into the rulers, the poor into the rich, the drudges into\nthe idle men.  And, as a result, we should only have idle men more\nfrivolous, rich men more hard, rulers more incompetent.  It is not by\nviolence or compulsion, open or disguised, that the kingdom of heaven\ncomes.  It is by simple service on the part of those that know the law,\nby their following the right in their own lives, and preaching rather\nby their conduct than by their words.\n\n\"This would be a hard saying if we had to rely on ourselves.  But we\nhave God to rely on, who gives His help not according to the measure of\nour powers.  A man cannot by taking thought add a cubit to his stature;\nhe cannot increase the scope of his mind or the range of his senses; he\ncannot, by willing, make himself a philosopher, or a leader of men.\nBut drawing on the source that is open to the poorest and the weakest\nhe can become a good man; and then, whatever his powers, he will be\nusing them for God and man.  If men do that, each man for himself, by\nthe help of God, all else will follow.  So true is it that if ye seek\nfirst the kingdom of heaven all these things shall be added unto you.\nYes, that is true.  It is eternal truth.  It does not change with the\ndoctrines of Churches nor depend upon them.  I would say even it does\nnot depend on Christianity.  For the words would be true, though there\nhad never been a Christ to speak them.  And the proof that they are\ntrue is simply the direct witness of consciousness.  We perceive such\ntruths as we perceive the sun.  They carry with them their own\ncertainty; and on that rests the certainty of God.  Therein is the\nessence of all religion.  I say it because I know.  And the rest of\nyou, so it seems to me, are guessing.  Nor is it, as it might seem at\nfirst, a truth irrelevant to your discussion.  For it teaches that all\nchange must proceed from within outward.  There is not, there never has\nbeen, a just polity, for there has never been one based on the love of\nGod and man.  All that you condemn--poverty, and wealth, idleness and\nexcessive labour, squalor, disease, barren marriages, aggression and\nwar, will continue in spite of all changes in form, until men will to\nget rid of them.  And that they will not do till they have learnt to\nlove God and man.  Revolution will be vain, evolution will be vain, all\nuneasy turnings from side to side will be vain, until that change of\nheart be accomplished.  And accomplished it will be in its own time.\nEverywhere I see it at work, in many ways, in the guise of many\ndifferent opinions.  I see it at work here to-night among those with\nwhom I most disagree.  I see it in the hope of Allison and Wilson, in\nthe defiance of MacCarthy, in the doubt of Martin, and most of all in\nthe despair of Audubon.  For he is right to despair of the only life he\nknows, the life of the world whose fruits are dust and ashes.  He\ndrifts on a midnight ocean, unlighted by stars, and tossed by the winds\nof disappointment, sorrow, sickness, irreparable loss.  Ah, but above\nhim, if he but knew, as now in our eyes and ears, rises into a crystal\nsky the first lark of dawn.  And the cuckoo sings, and the blackbird,\ndo you not hear them?  And the fountain rises ever in showers of silver\nsparks, up to the heaven it will not reach till fire has made it\nvapour.  And so the whole creation aspires, out of the night of\ndespair, into the cool freshness of dawn and on to the sun of noon.\nLet us be patient and follow each his path, waiting on the word of God\ntill He be pleased to reveal it.  For His way is not hard, it is joy\nand peace unutterable.  And those who wait in faith He will bless with\nthe knowledge of Himself.\"\n\nAs he finished it was light, though the sun had not yet risen.  The\nfirst birds were singing in the wood, and the fountain glistened and\nsang, and the plain lay before us like a bride waiting for the\nbridegroom.  We were silent under the spell; and I scarcely know how\nlong had passed before I had heart to call upon Vivian to conclude.\n\nI have heard Vivian called a philosopher, but the term is misleading.\nThose who know his writings--and they are too few--know that he\nconcerned himself, directly or indirectly, with philosophic problems.\nBut he never wrote philosophy; his methods were not those of logic; and\nhis sympathies were with science and the arts.  In the early age of\nGreece he might have been Empedocles or Heraclitus; he could never have\nbeen Spinoza or Kant.  He sought to interpret life, but not merely in\nterms of the intellect.  He needed to see and feel in order to think.\nAnd he expressed himself in a style too intellectual for lovers of\npoetry, too metaphorical for lovers of philosophy.  His Public,\ntherefore, though devoted, was limited; but we, in our society, always\nlistened to him with an interest that was rather enhanced than\ndiminished by an element of perplexity.  I have found it hard to\nreproduce his manner, in which it was clear that he took a conscious\nand artistic pleasure.  Still less can I give the impression of his\nlean and fine-cut face, and the distinction of his whole personality.\nHe stood up straight and tall against the whitening sky, and delivered\nhimself as follows:\n\n\"Man is in the making; but henceforth he must make himself.  To that\npoint Nature has led him, out of the primeval slime.  She has given him\nlimbs, she has given him brain, she has given him the rudiment of a\nsoul.  Now it is for him to make or mar that splendid torso.  Let him\nlook no more to her for aid; for it is her will to create one who has\nthe power to create himself.  If he fail, she fails; back goes the\nmetal to the pot; and the great process begins anew.  If he succeeds,\nhe succeeds alone.  His fate is in his own hands.\n\n\"Of that fate, did he but know it, brain is the lord, to fashion a\npalace fit for the soul to inhabit.  Yet still, after centuries of\nstumbling, reason is no more than the furtive accomplice of habit and\nforce.  Force creates, habit perpetuates, reason the sycophant\nsanctions.  And so he drifts, not up but down, and Nature watches in\nanguish, self-forbidden to intervene, unless it be to annihilate.  If\nhe is to drive, and drive straight, reason must seize the reins; and\nthe art of her driving is the art of Politics.  Of that art, the aim is\nperfection, the method selection.  Science is its minister, ethics its\nlord.  It spares no prejudice, respects no habit, honours no tradition.\nInstitutions are stubble in the fire it kindles.  The present and the\npast it throws without remorse into the jaws of the future.  It is the\nangel with the flaming sword swift to dispossess the crone that sits on\nher money-bags at Westminster.\n\n\"Or, shall I say, it is Hercules with the Augean stable to cleanse, of\nwhich every city is a stall, heaped with the dung of a century; with\nthe Hydra to slay, whose hundred writhing heads of false belief, from\nold truth rotted into lies, spring inexhaustibly fecund in creeds,\ninterests, institutions.  Of which the chief is Property, most cruel\nand blind of all, who devours us, ere we know it, in the guise of\nSecurity and Peace, killing the bodies of some, the souls of most, and\ngrowing ever fresh from the root, in forms that but seem to be new,\nuntil the root itself be cut away by the sword of the spirit.  What\nthat sword shall be called, socialism, anarchy, what you will, is small\nmatter, so but the hand that wields it be strong, the brain clear, the\nsoul illumined, passionate and profound.  But where shall the champion\nbe found fit to wield that weapon?\n\n\"He will not be found; he must be made.  By Man Man must be sown.  Once\nhe might trust to Nature, while he was laid at her breast.  But she has\nweaned him; and the promptings she no longer guides, he may not blindly\ntrust for their issue.  While she weeded, it was hers to plant; but she\nweeds no more.  He of his own will uproots or spares; and of his own\nwill he must sow, if he would not have his garden a wilderness.  Even\nnow precious plants perish before his eyes, even now weeds grow rank,\nwhile he watches in idle awe, and prates of his own impotence.  He has\ngiven the reins to Desire, and she drives him back to the abyss.  But\nharness her to the car, with reason for charioteer, and she will grow\nwings to waft him to his goal.  That in him that he calls Love is but\nthe dragon of the slime.  Let him bury it in the grave of Self, and it\nwill rise a Psyche, with wings too wide to shelter only the home.  The\nMan that is to be comes at the call of the Man that is.  Let him call\nthen, soberly, not from the fumes of lust.  For as is the call, so will\nbe the answer.\n\n\"But for what should he call?  For Pagan?  For Christian?  For neither,\nand for both.  Paganism speaks for the men in Man, Christianity for the\nMan in men.  The fruit that was eaten in Paradise, sown in the soul of\nman, bore in Hellas its first and fairest harvest.  There rose upon the\nworld of mind the triple sun of the Ideal.  Aphrodite, born of the\nfoam, flowered on the azure main, Tritons in her train and Nereids,\nunder the flush of dawn.  Apollo, radiant in hoary dew, leapt from the\neastern wave, flamed through the heaven, and cooled his hissing wheels\nin the vaporous west.  Athene, sprung from the brain of God, armed with\nthe spear of truth, moved grey-eyed over the earth probing the minds of\nmen.  Love, Beauty, Wisdom, behold the Pagan Trinity!  Through whose\ngrace only men are men, and fit to become Man.  Therefore, the gods are\neternal; not they die, but we, when we think them dead.  And no man who\ndoes not know them, and knowing, worship and love, is able to be a\nmember of the body of Man.  Thus it is that the sign of a step forward\nis a look backward; and Greece stands eternally at the threshold of the\nnew life.  Forget her, and you sink back, if not to the brute, to the\ninsect.  Consider the ant, and beware of her!  She is there for a\nwarning.  In universal Anthood there are no ants.  From that fate may\nmen save Man!\n\n\"But the Pagan gods were pitiless; they preyed upon the weak.  Their\nwisdom was rooted in folly, their beauty in squalor, their love in\noppression.  So fostered, those flowers decayed.  And out of the\nrotting soil rose the strange new blossoms we call Faith, and Hope, and\nCharity.  For Folly cried, 'I know not, but I believe'; Squalor, 'I am\nvile, but I hope'; and the oppressed, 'I am despised, but I love.'\nThat was the Christian Trinity, the echo of man's frustration, as the\nother was the echo of his accomplishment.  Yet both he needs.  For\nbecause he grows, he is dogged by imperfection.  His weakness is mocked\nby those shining forms on the mountain-top.  But Faith, and Hope, and\nCharity walk beside him in the mire, to kindle, to comfort and to help.\nAnd of them justice is born, the plea of the Many against the Few, of\nthe nation against the class, of mankind against the nation, of the\nfuture against the present.  In Christianity men were born into Man.\nYet in Him let not men die!  For what profits justice unless it be the\nstep to the throne of Olympus?  What profit Faith and Hope without a\ngoal?  Charity without an object?  Vain is the love of emmets, or of\nbees and coral-insects.  For the worth of love is as the worth of the\nlover.  It is only in the soil of Paganism that Christianity can come\nto maturity.  And Faith, Hope, Charity, are but seeds of themselves\ntill they fall into the womb of Wisdom, Beauty, and Love.  Olympus lies\nbefore us, the snow-capped mountain.  Let us climb it, together, if you\nwill, not some on the corpses of the rest; but climb at least, not\nfester and swarm on rich meadows of equality.  We are not for the\nvalley, nor for the forests or the pastures.  If we be brothers, yet we\nare brothers in a quest, needing our foremost to lead.  Aphrodite,\nApollo, Athene, are before us, not behind.  Majestic forms, they gleam\namong the snows.  March, then, men in Man!\n\n\"But is it men who attain?  Or Man?  Or not even he, but God?  We do\nnot know.  We know only the impulse and the call.  The gleam on the\nsnow, the upward path, the urgent stress within, that is our certainty,\nthe rest is doubt.  But doubt is a horizon, and on it hangs the star of\nhope.  By that we live; and the science blinds, the renunciation maims,\nthat would shut us off from those silver rays.  Our eyes must open, as\nwe march, to every signal from the height.  And since the soul has\nindeed 'immortal longings in her' we may believe them prophetic of\ntheir fruition.  For her claims are august as those of man, and appeal\nto the same witness.  The witness of either is a dream; but such dreams\ncome from the gate of horn.  They are principles of life, and about\nthem crystallizes the universe.  For will is more than knowledge, since\nwill creates what knowledge records.  Science hangs in a void of\nnescience, a planet turning in the dark.  But across that void Faith\nbuilds the road that leads to Olympus and the eternal gods.\"\n\nBy the time he had finished speaking the sun had risen, and the glamour\nof dawn was passing into the light of common day.  The birds sang loud,\nthe fountain sparkled, and the trees rustled softly in the early\nbreeze.  Our party broke up quietly.  Some went away to bed; others\nstrolled down the gardens; and Audubon went off by appointment to bathe\nwith my young nephew, as gay and happy, it would seem, as man could be.\nI was left to pace the terrace alone, watching the day grow brighter,\nand wondering at the divers fates of men.  An early bell rang in the\nlittle church at the park-gate; a motor-car hooted along the highway.\nAnd I thought of Cantilupe and Harington, of Allison and Wilson, and\nbeyond them of the vision of the dawn and the daybreak, of Woodman, the\nsoul, and Vivian, the spirit.  I paused for a last look down the line\nof bright statues that bordered the long walk below me.  I fancied them\nstretching away to the foot of Olympus; and without elation or\nexcitement, but with the calm of an assured hope, I prepared to begin\nthe new day.\n\n\n\n\n  _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_\n\n\n  AFTER TWO THOUSAND YEARS\n  PLATO AND HIS DIALOGUES\n  THE MEANING OF GOOD\n  JUSTICE AND LIBERTY\n  A POLITICAL DIALOGUE\n  RELIGION AND IMMORTALITY\n  RELIGION: A CRITICISM AND A FORECAST\n  THE GREEK VIEW OF LIFE\n  LETTERS FROM JOHN CHINAMAN\n  APPEARANCES: BEING NOTES ON TRAVEL\n  AN ESSAY ON THE CIVILIZATIONS OF INDIA, CHINA AND JAPAN\n  CONTRIBUTION OF ANCIENT GREECE TO MODERN LIFE\n  THE INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY, 1904-1914\n  EVOLUTION IN RE-ACTION IN MODERN FRANCE 1789-1871\n  THE EUROPEAN ANARCHY\n  WAR: ITS NATURE, CAUSE AND CUBE\n  CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL WAR\n  THE CHOICE BEFORE US\n  DOCUMENTS AND STATEMENTS RELATING TO PEACE\n  PROPOSALS AND WAR AIMS, DECEMBER 1916-1918\n\n  ETC.\n\n\n\n\nOTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR\n\nPlato and His Dialogues\n\nLa. Cr. 8vo.  6s.\n\n\"A lifetime of friendship with the Greek poet-philosopher inspires this\nhandbook to the dialogues, a handbook free from dryness or the vices of\nthe text-book.\"--_New Statesman_\n\n\nAfter Two Thousand Years\n\nA Dialogue Between Plato and a Modern Young Man\n\nCr. 8vo.  Second Impression  6s.\n\n\"Packed with ideas of immediate and topical significance.\"--_Daily\nTelegraph_\n\n\nThe International Anarchy, 1904-1914\n\nDemy 8vo.  17s. 6d.\n\n\"It is very much the best analysis of the international events leading\nto the Great War which has so far appeared.\"--_The Nation_\n\n\nThe European Anarchy\n\nCr. 8vo.  Third Impression  3s. 6d.\n\n\"This is one of the shrewdest books on the causes of war that we have\nread.\"--_The Economist_\n\n\nDocuments and Statements Relating to Peace Proposals and War Aims,\nDecember 1916-1918\n\nDemy 8vo.  8s. 6d.\n\n\"A quite indispensable companion to the history of war.\"--_The\nChallenge_\n\n\nWar: Its Nature, Cause and Cure\n\nCr. 8vo.  Third Impression Cloth 3s. 6d., paper 2s. 6d.\n\n\"Mr. Lowes Dickinson's book, with its nervous provocative style, its\nclear and vivid presentation of facts, is a contribution for which we\nowe him gratitude.\"--_The Spectator_\n\n\nCauses of International War\n\nSwarthmore International Handbook\n\nCr. 8vo.  Second Edition  Paper 2s. 6d.\n\n\"An admirable study of the fundamental causes of war.\"--_Daily Herald_\n\n\nThe Choice Before Us\n\nDemy 8vo.   Third Impression   7s. 6d.\n\n\"A noble book which everyone should read.\"--_Daily News_\n\n\nThe Meaning of Good: A Dialogue\n\nCr. 8vo.  Sixth Edition\n\nA brilliant discussion which, apart from its great dialectical\ninterest, cannot fail to clarify the thoughts of every reader upon his\nconception of the nature of Good.\n\n\nJustice and Liberty\n\nA Political Dialogue\n\nCr. 8vo.  New Impression  6s.\n\nThe following are among the chapter headings of this remarkable work:\nForms of Society, The Institution of Marriage, The Institution of\nProperty, Government, The Importance of Political Ideals as Guides to\nPractice, The Relation of Ideals to Facts.\n\n\nReligion and Immortality\n\nFcap. 8vo.  1s. 6d.\n\nFour essays of which the titles are \"Faith and Knowledge,\" \"Optimism\nand Immortality,\" \"Is Immortality Desirable,\" \"Euthanasia.\"\n\n\nReligion\n\nA Criticism and a Forecast\n\nFcap. 8vo.  Fifth Impression  1s. 6d.\n\nMr. Lowes Dickinson's main object is to raise the question of the\nrelation of Religion to Knowledge.  Believing that all Knowledge must\nbe attained by the method of science, he shows that a broad agnosticism\nis not of necessity inconsistent with the religious attitude, which may\nprove of definite help in the conduct of life.\n\n\nThe Magic Flute\n\nA Fantasia in Prose and Verse based on Mozart's Opera\n\nCr. 800.  Third Impression   Quarter Canvas, 4s. 6d.\n\n\"His fantasia, half prose as it is, is beautiful ... all through there\nis the spirit of the Magic Flute and at times almost the music.\"--_The\nTimes_\n\n\nLetters from John Chinaman\n\nFcap. 8vo.  Ninth Impression  1s. 6d.\n\nIn the form of letters the author explains China to the European.  No\nless important, however, is the presentation of our own civilization as\nviewed by an outsider whose standards are not those which, from birth,\nwe have been accustomed to take for granted.\n\n\nAppearances\n\nBeing Notes of Travel\n\nCr. 8vo.  6s.\n\nA series of articles recording impressions of travel in America and\nAsia.  In a concluding essay the author suggests that the civilization\nof India implies an outlook fundamentally different from that of the\nWest, and that, essentially, the other countries of the Far East are\nnearer to the West than to India.\n\n\nAn Essay on the Civilizations of India, China and Japan\n\nFcap. 8vo.  Third Edition  2s.\n\nThe report of the author's travels as a Fellow of the Albert Kahn\nTravelling Fellowship.  He shows the general spirit and character of\nthe civilizations of India, China and Japan and suggests the probable\neffects of their contact with the civilization of the West.\n\n\nRevolution and Reaction in Modern France, 1789-1871\n\nCr. 8vo.   New Edition   7s. 6d.\n\n\"Mr. Lowes Dickinson's brilliant sketch has stood the test of time....\nA masterly summary.\"--_The Observer_\n\n\nThe Contribution of Ancient Greece to Modern Life\n\nCr. 8vo.  Paper 1s., Cloth 2s.\n\nThe author's last work, published just after his death.  \"A piece of\nsingularly limpid, undecorated, musical prose.\"--_Sunday Times_.\n\n\n_All prices are net_\n\nLONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD","title":"A modern symposium","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":33901}