{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_38117/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_38117","id":"gutenberg_38117","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38117","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Hygiene","Life","Love"],"text":"Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images available at The Internet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe\nBook _of_ Life\n\nUPTON SINCLAIR\n\n\n\n\nTHE BOOK OF LIFE\n\n\n\n\n_The_\nBook of Life\n\n_By_ UPTON SINCLAIR\n\nVOLUME ONE:\nMIND AND BODY\n\nVOLUME TWO:\nLOVE AND SOCIETY\n\nUPTON SINCLAIR\nPASADENA, CALIFORNIA\n\nWHOLESALE DISTRIBUTORS\n_THE PAINE BOOK COMPANY_\nCHICAGO\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1921, 1922\nBY\nUPTON SINCLAIR\n_All Rights Reserved._\n\n\n                _To_\n           Kate Crane Gartz\nin acknowledgment of her unceasing efforts for a\nbetter world, and her fidelity to those\n      who struggle to achieve it.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY\n\n\nThe writer of this book has been in this world some forty-two years.\nThat may not seem long to some, but it is long enough to have made many\npainful mistakes, and to have learned much from them. Looking about him,\nhe sees others making these same mistakes, suffering for lack of that\nsame knowledge which he has so painfully acquired. This being the case,\nit seems a friendly act to offer his knowledge, minus the blunders and\nthe pain.\n\nThere come to the writer literally thousands of letters every year,\nasking him questions, some of them of the strangest. A man is dying of\ncancer, and do I think it can be cured by a fast? A man is unable to\nmake his wife happy, and can I tell him what is the matter with women? A\nman has invested his savings in mining stock, and can I tell him what to\ndo about it? A man works in a sweatshop, and has only a little time for\nself-improvement, and will I tell him what books he ought to read? Many\nsuch questions every day make one aware of a vast mass of people,\nearnest, hungry for happiness, and groping as if in a fog. The things\nthey most need to know they are not taught in the schools, nor in the\nnewspapers they read, nor in the church they attend. Of these agencies,\nthe first is not entirely competent, the second is not entirely honest,\nand the third is not entirely up to date. Nor is there anywhere a book\nin which the effort has been made to give to everyday human beings the\neveryday information they need for the successful living of their lives.\n\nFor the present book the following claims may be made. First, it is a\nmodern book; its writer watches hour by hour the new achievements of the\nhuman mind, he reaches out for information about them, he seeks to\nadjust his own thoughts to them and to test them in his own living.\nSecond, it is, or tries hard to be, a wise book; its writer is not among\nthose too-ardent young radicals who leap to the conclusion that because\nmany old things are stupid and tiresome, therefore everything that is\nold is to be spurned with contempt, and everything that proclaims itself\nnew is to be taken at its own valuation. Third, it is an honest book;\nits writer will not pretend to know what he only guesses, and where it\nis necessary to guess, he will say so frankly. Finally, it is a kind\nbook; it is not written for its author's glory, nor for his enrichment,\nbut to tell you things that may be useful to you in the brief span of\nyour life. It will attempt to tell you how to live, how to find health\nand happiness and success, how to work and how to play, how to eat and\nhow to sleep, how to love and to marry and to care for your children,\nhow to deal with your fellow men in business and politics and social\nlife, how to act and how to think, what religion to believe, what art to\nenjoy, what books to read. A large order, as the boys phrase it!\n\nThere are several ways for such a book to begin. It might begin with the\nchild, because we all begin that way; it might begin with love, because\nthat precedes the child; it might begin with the care of the body,\nexplaining that sound physical health is the basis of all right living,\nand even of right thinking; it might begin as most philosophies do, by\ndefining life, discussing its origin and fundamental nature.\n\nThe trouble with this last plan is that there are a lot of people who\nhave their ideas on life made up in tabloid form; they have creeds and\ncatechisms which they know by heart, and if you suggest to them anything\ndifferent, they give you a startled look and get out of your way. And\nthen there is another, and in our modern world a still larger class, who\nsay, \"Oh, shucks! I don't go in for religion and that kind of thing.\"\nYou offer them something that looks like a sermon, and they turn to the\nbaseball page.\n\nWho will read this Book of Life? There will be, among others, the great\nAmerican tired business man. He wrestles with problems and cares all\nday, and when he sits down to read in the evening, he says: \"Make it\nshort and snappy.\" There is the wife of the tired business man, the\nAmerican perfect lady. She does most of the reading for the family; but\nshe has never got down to anything fundamental in her life, and mostly\nshe likes to read about exciting love affairs, which she distinguishes\nfrom the unexciting kind she knows by the word \"romance.\" Then there is\nthe still more tired American workingman, who has been \"speeded up\" all\nday under the bonus system or the piece-work system, and is apt to fall\nasleep in his chair before he finishes supper. Then there is the\nworkingman's wife, who has slaved all day in the kitchen, and has a\nchance for a few minutes' intimacy with her husband before he falls\nasleep. She would like to have somebody tell her what to do for croup,\nbut she is not sure that she has time to discuss the question whether\nlife is worth living.\n\nYet, I wonder; is there a single one among all these tired people, or\neven among the cynical people, who has not had some moment of awe when\nthe thought came stabbing into his mind like a knife: \"What a strange\nthing this life is! What am I anyhow? Where do I come from, and what is\ngoing to become of me? What do I mean, what am I here for?\" I have sat\nchatting with three hoboes by a railroad track, cooking themselves a\nmulligan in an old can, and heard one of them say: \"By God, it's a queer\nthing, ain't it, mate?\" I have sat on the deck of a ship, looking out\nover the midnight ocean and talking with a sailor, and heard him use\nalmost the identical words. It is not only in the class-room and the\nschools that the minds of men are grappling with the fundamental\nproblems; in fact, it was not from the schools that the new religions\nand the great moral impulses of humanity took their origin. It was from\nlonely shepherds sitting on the hillsides, and from fishermen casting\ntheir nets, and from carpenters and tailors and shoemakers at their\nbenches.\n\nStop and think a bit, and you will realize it does make a difference\nwhat you believe about life, how it comes to be, where it is going, and\nwhat is your place in it. Is there a heaven with a God, who watches you\nday and night, and knows every thought you think, and will some day take\nyou to eternal bliss if you obey his laws? If you really believe that,\nyou will try to find out about his laws, and you will be comparatively\nlittle concerned about the success or failure of your business. Perhaps,\non the other hand, you have knocked about in the world and lost your\n\"faith\"; you have been cheated and exploited, and have set out to \"get\nyours,\" as the phrase is; to \"feather your own nest.\" But some gust of\npassion seizes you, and you waste your substance, you wreck your life;\nthen you wonder, \"Who set that trap and baited it? Am I a creature of\nblind instincts, jealousies and greeds and hates beyond my own control\nentirely? Am I a poor, feeble insect, blown about in a storm and\nsmashed? Or do I make the storm, and can I in any part control it?\"\n\nNo matter how busy you may be, no matter how tired you may be, it will\npay you to get such things straight: to know a little of what the wise\nmen of the past have thought about them, and more especially what\nscience with its new tools of knowledge may have discovered.\n\nThe writer of this book spent nine years of his life in colleges and\nuniversities; also he was brought up in a church. So he knows the\northodox teachings, he can say that he has given to the recognized wise\nmen of the world every opportunity to tell him what they know. Then,\nbeing dissatisfied, he went to the unrecognized teachers, the\nenthusiasts and the \"cranks\" of a hundred schools. Finally, he thought\nfor himself; he was even willing to try experiments upon himself. As a\nresult, he has not found what he claims is ultimate or final truth; but\nhe has what he might describe as a rough working draft, a practical\noutline, good for everyday purposes. He is going to have confidence\nenough in you, the reader, to give you the hardest part first; that is,\nto begin with the great fundamental questions. What is life, and how\ndoes it come to be? What does it mean, and what have we to do with it?\nAre we its masters or its slaves? What does it owe us, and what do we\nowe to it? Why is it so hard, and do we have to stand its hardness? And\ncan we really know about all these matters, or will we be only guessing?\nCan we trust ourselves to think about them, or shall we be safer if we\nbelieve what we are told? Shall we be punished if we think wrong, and\nhow shall we be punished? Shall we be rewarded if we think right, and\nwill the pay be worth the trouble?\n\nSuch questions as these I am going to try to answer in the simplest\nlanguage possible. I would avoid long words altogether, if I could; but\nsome of these long words mean certain definite things, and there are no\nother words to serve the purpose. You do not refuse to engage in the\nautomobile business because the carburetor and the differential are\nwords of four syllables. Neither should you refuse to get yourself\nstraight with the universe because it is too much trouble to go to the\ndictionary and learn that the word \"phenomenon\" means something else\nthan a little boy who can play the piano or do long division in his\nhead.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nPART ONE: THE BOOK OF THE MIND\n\n                                                                    PAGE\n\nCHAPTER I. THE NATURE OF LIFE                                          3\n\nAttempts to show what we know about life; to set the\nbounds of real truth as distinguished from phrases and\nself-deception.\n\nCHAPTER II. THE NATURE OF FAITH                                        8\n\nAttempts to show what we can prove by our reason, and\nwhat we know intuitively; what is implied in the process\nof thinking, and without which no thought could be.\n\nCHAPTER III. THE USE OF REASON                                        12\n\nAttempts to show that in the field to which reason applies\nwe are compelled to use it, and are justified in trusting it.\n\nCHAPTER IV. THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY                                    17\n\nCompares the ways of Nature with human morality, and\ntries to show how the latter came to be.\n\nCHAPTER V. NATURE AND MAN                                             21\n\nAttempts to show how man has taken control of Nature,\nand is carrying on her processes and improving upon them.\n\nCHAPTER VI. MAN THE REBEL                                             27\n\nShows the transition stage between instinct and reason,\nin which man finds himself, and how he can advance to\na securer condition.\n\nCHAPTER VII. MAKING OUR MORALS                                        31\n\nAttempts to show that human morality must change to fit\nhuman facts, and there can be no judge of it save human\nreason.\n\nCHAPTER VIII. THE VIRTUE OF MODERATION                                37\n\nAttempts to show that wise conduct is an adjustment of\nmeans to ends, and depends upon the understanding of a\nparticular set of circumstances.\n\nCHAPTER IX. THE CHOOSING OF LIFE                                      42\n\nDiscusses the standards by which we may judge what is\nbest in life, and decide what we wish to make of it.\n\nCHAPTER X. MYSELF AND MY NEIGHBOR                                     50\n\nCompares the new morality with the old, and discusses the\nrelative importance of our various duties.\n\nCHAPTER XI. THE MIND AND THE BODY                                     53\n\nDiscusses the interaction between physical and mental\nthings, and the possibility of freedom in a world of fixed\ncauses.\n\nCHAPTER XII. THE MIND OF THE BODY                                     61\n\nDiscusses the subconscious mind, what it is, what it does\nto the body, and how it can be controlled and made use\nof by the intelligence.\n\nCHAPTER XIII. EXPLORING THE SUBCONSCIOUS                              67\n\nDiscusses automatic writing, the analysis of dreams, and\nother methods by which a new universe of life has been\nbrought to human knowledge.\n\nCHAPTER XIV. THE PROBLEM OF IMMORTALITY                               74\n\nDiscusses the survival of personality from the moral point\nof view: that is, have we any claim upon life, entitling\nus to live forever?\n\nCHAPTER XV. THE EVIDENCE FOR SURVIVAL                                 81\n\nDiscusses the data of psychic research, and the proofs of\nspiritism thus put before us.\n\nCHAPTER XVI. THE POWERS OF THE MIND                                   91\n\nSets forth the fact that knowledge is freedom and ignorance\nis slavery, and what science means to the people.\n\nCHAPTER XVII. THE CONDUCT OF THE MIND                                 98\n\nConcludes the Book of the Mind with a study of how to\npreserve and develop its powers for the protection of our\nlives and the lives of all men.\n\n\nPART TWO: THE BOOK OF THE BODY\n\nCHAPTER XVIII. THE UNITY OF THE BODY                                 105\n\nDiscusses the body as a whole, and shows that health is\nnot a matter of many different organs and functions, but\nis one problem of one organism.\n\nCHAPTER XIX. EXPERIMENTS IN DIET                                     115\n\nNarrates the author's adventures in search of health, and\nhis conclusions as to what to eat.\n\nCHAPTER XX. ERRORS IN DIET                                           123\n\nDiscusses the different kinds of foods, and the part they\nplay in the making of health and disease.\n\nCHAPTER XXI. DIET STANDARDS                                          134\n\nDiscusses various foods and their food values, the quantities\nwe need, and their money cost.\n\nCHAPTER XXII. FOODS AND POISONS                                      145\n\nConcludes the subject of diet, and discusses the effect upon\nthe system of stimulants and narcotics.\n\nCHAPTER XXIII. MORE ABOUT HEALTH                                     156\n\nDiscusses the subjects of breathing and ventilation, clothing,\nbathing and sleep.\n\nCHAPTER XXIV. WORK AND PLAY                                          163\n\nDeals with the question of exercise, both for the idle and\nthe overworked.\n\nCHAPTER XXV. THE FASTING CURE                                        169\n\nDeals with Nature's own remedy for disease, and how to\nmake use of it.\n\nCHAPTER XXVI. BREAKING THE FAST                                      177\n\nDiscusses various methods of building up the body after\na fast, especially the milk diet.\n\nCHAPTER XXVII. DISEASES AND CURES                                    182\n\nDiscusses some of the commoner human ailments, and\nwhat is known about their cause and cure.\n\n\n\n\nPART ONE\n\nTHE BOOK OF THE MIND\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE NATURE OF LIFE\n\n     (Attempts to show what we know about life; to set the bounds of\n     real truth as distinguished from phrases and self-deception.)\n\n\nIf I could, I would begin this book by telling you what Life is. But\nunfortunately I do not know what Life is. The only consolation I can\nfind is in the fact that nobody else knows either.\n\nWe ask the churches, and they tell us that male and female created He\nthem, and put them in the Garden of Eden, and they would have been happy\nhad not Satan tempted them. But then you ask, who made Satan, and the\nexplanation grows vague. You ask, if God made Satan, and knew what Satan\nwas going to do, is it not the same as if God did it himself? So this\nexplanation of the origin of evil gets you no further than the Hindoo\npicture of the world resting on the back of a tortoise, and the tortoise\non the head of a snake--and nothing said as to what the snake rests on.\n\nLet us go to the scientist. I know a certain physiologist, perhaps the\ngreatest in the world, and his eager face rises before me, and I hear\nhis quick, impetuous voice declaring that he knows what Life is; he has\ntold it in several big volumes, and all I have to do is to read them.\nLife is a tropism, caused by the presence of certain combinations of\nchemicals; my friend knows this, because he has produced the thing in\nhis test-tubes. He is an exponent of a way of thought called Monism,\nwhich finds the ultimate source of being in forms of energy manifesting\nthemselves as matter; he shows how all living things arise from that and\nsink back into it.\n\nBut question this scientist more closely. What is this \"matter\" that you\nare so sure of? How do you know it? Obviously, through sensations. You\nnever know matter itself, you only know its effects upon you, and you\nassume that the matter must be there to cause the sensation. In other\nwords, \"matter,\" which seems so real, turns out to be merely \"a\npermanent possibility of sensation.\" And suppose there were to be\nsensations, caused, for example, by a sportive demon who liked to make\nfun of eminent physiologists--then there might be the appearance of\nmatter and nothing else; in other words, there might be mind, and\nvarious states of mind. So we discover that the materialist, in the\nphilosophic sense, is making just as large an act of faith, is\npronouncing just as bold a dogma as any priest of any religion.\n\nThis is an old-time topic of disputation. Before Mother Eddy there was\nBishop Berkeley, and before Berkeley, there was Plato, and they and the\nmaterialists disputed until their hearers cried in despair, \"What is\nMind? No matter! What is Matter? Never mind!\" But a century or two ago\nin a town of Prussia there lived a little, dried-up professor of\nphilosophy, who sat himself down in his room and fixed his eyes on a\nchurch steeple outside the window, and for years on end devoted himself\nto examining the tools of thought with which the human mind is provided,\nand deciding just what work and how much of it they are fitted to do. So\ncame the proof that our minds are incapable of reaching to or dealing\nwith any ultimate reality whatever, but can comprehend only\nphenomena--that is to say, appearances--and their relations one with\nanother. The Koenigsberg professor proved this once for all time,\nsetting forth four propositions about ultimate reality, and proving them\nby exact and irrefutable logic, and then proving by equally exact and\nirrefutable logic their precise opposites and contraries. Anybody who\nhas read and comprehended the four \"antinomies\" of Immanuel Kant[A]\nknows that metaphysics is as dead a subject as astrology, and that all\nthe complicated theories which the philosophers from Heraclitus to\nArthur Balfour have spun like spiders out of their inner consciousness,\nhave no more relation to reality than the intricacies of the game of\nchess.\n\n     [A] See Paulsen: \"Life of Kant.\"\n\nThe writer is sorry to make this statement, because he spent a lot of\ntime reading these philosophers and acquainting himself with their\nsubtle theories. He learned a whole language of long words, and even the\nspecial meanings which each philosopher or school of philosophers give\nto them. When he had got through, he had learned, so far as metaphysics\nis concerned, absolutely nothing, and had merely the job of clearing out\nof his mind great masses of verbal cobwebs. It was not even good\nintellectual training; the metaphysical method of thought is a _trap_.\nThe person who thinks in absolutes and ultimates is led to believe that\nhe has come to conclusions about reality, when as a matter of fact he\nhas merely proved what he wants to believe; if he had wanted to believe\nthe opposite, he could have proven that exactly as well--as his\nopponents will at once demonstrate.\n\nIf you multiply two feet by two feet, the result represents a plain\nsurface, or figure of two dimensions. If you multiply two feet by two\nfeet by two feet, you have a solid, or figure of three dimensions--such\nas the world in which we live and move. But now, suppose you multiply\ntwo feet by two feet by two feet by two feet, what does that represent?\nFor ages the minds of mathematicians and philosophers have been tempted\nby this fascinating problem of the \"fourth dimension.\" They have worked\nout by analogy what such a world would be like. If you went into this\n\"fourth dimension,\" you could turn yourself inside out, and come back to\nour present world in that condition, and no one of your three-dimension\nfriends would be able to imagine how you had managed it, or to put you\nback again the way you belonged. And in this, it seems to me, we have\nthe perfect analogy of metaphysical thinking. It is the \"fourth\ndimension\" of the mind, and plays as much havoc with sound thinking as a\nphysical \"fourth dimension\" would play with--say, the prison system. A\nman who takes up an absolute--God, immortality, the origin of being, a\nfirst cause, free will, absolute right or wrong, infinite time or space,\nfinal truth, original substance, the \"thing in itself\"--that man\ndisappears into a fourth dimension, and turns himself inside out or\nupside down or hindside foremost, and comes back and exhibits himself in\ntriumph; then, when he is ready, he effects another disappearance, and\nanother change, and is back on earth an ordinary human being.\n\nThe world is full of schools of thought, theologians and metaphysicians\nand professors of academic philosophy, transcendentalists and\ntheosophists and Christian Scientists, who perform such mental\nmonkey-shines continuously before our eyes. They prove what they please,\nand the fact that no two of them prove the same thing makes clear to us\nin the end that none of them has proved anything. The Christian\nScientist asserts that there is no such thing as matter, but that pain\nis merely a delusion of mortal mind; he continues serene in this faith\nuntil he runs into an automobile and sustains a compound fracture of\nthe femur--whereupon he does exactly what any of the rest of us do, goes\nto a competent surgeon and has the bone set. On the other hand, some\ndevoted young Socialists of my acquaintance have read Haeckel and\nDietzgen, and adopted the dogma that matter is the first cause, and that\nall things have grown out of it and return to it; they have seen that\nthe brain decays after death, they declare that the soul is a function\nof the brain--and because of such theories they deliberately reject the\nmost powerful modes of appeal whereby men can be swayed to faith in\nhuman solidarity.\n\nThe best books I know for the sweeping out of metaphysical cobwebs are\n\"The Philosophy of Common Sense\" and \"The Creed of a Layman,\" by\nFrederic Harrison, leader of the English Positivists, a school of\nthought established by Auguste Comte. But even as I recommend these\nbooks, I recall the dissatisfaction with which I left them; for it\nappears that the Positivists have their dogmas like all the rest. Mr.\nHarrison is not content to say that mankind has not the mental tools for\ndealing with ultimate realities; he must needs prove that mankind never\nwill and never can have these tools, I look back upon the long process\nof evolution and ask myself, What would an oyster think about\nPositivism? What would be the opinion of, let us say, a young turnip on\nthe subject of Mr. Frederic Harrison's thesis? It may well be that the\ndifference between a turnip and Mr. Harrison is not so great as will be\nthe difference between Mr. Harrison and that super-race which some day\ntakes possession of the earth and of all the universe. It does not seem\nto me good science or good sense to dogmatize about what this race will\nknow, or what will be its tools of thought. What does seem to me good\nscience and good sense is to take the tools which we now possess and use\nthem to their utmost capacity.\n\nWhat is it that we know about life? We know a seemingly endless stream\nof sensations which manifest themselves in certain ways, and seem to\ninhere in what we call things and beings. We observe incessant change in\nall these phenomena, and we examine these changes and discover their\nways. The ways seem to be invariable; so completely so that for\npractical purposes we assume them to be invariable, and base all our\ncalculations and actions upon this assumption. Manifestly, we could not\nlive otherwise, and the spread of scientific knowledge is the further\ntracing out of such \"laws\"--that is to say, the ways of behaving of\nexistence--and the extending of our belief in their invariability to\nwider and wider fields.\n\nOnce upon a time we were told that \"the wind bloweth where it listeth.\"\nBut now we are quite certain that there are causes for the blowing of\nthe wind, and when our researches have been carried far enough, we shall\nbe able to account for and to predict every smallest breath of air. Once\nwe were told that dreams came from a supernatural world; but now we are\nbeginning to analyze dreams, and to explain what they come from and what\nthey mean. Perhaps we still find human nature a bewildering and\nunaccountable thing; but some day we shall know enough of man's body and\nhis mind, his past and his present, to be able to explain human nature\nand to produce it at will, precisely as today we produce certain\nreactions in our test-tubes, and do it so invariably that the most\ncautious financier will invest tens of millions of dollars in a process,\nand never once reflect that he is putting too much trust in the\npermanence of nature.\n\nIn many departments of thought great specialists are now working,\nexperimenting and observing by the methods of science. If in the course\nof this book we speak of \"certainty,\" we mean, of course, not the\n\"absolute\" certainty of any metaphysical dogma, but the practical\ncertainty of everyday common sense; the certainty we feel that eating\nfood will satisfy our hunger, and that tomorrow, as today, two and two\nwill continue to make four.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE NATURE OF FAITH\n\n     (Attempts to show what we can prove by our reason, and what we know\n     intuitively; what is implied in the process of thinking, and\n     without which no thought could be.)\n\n\nThe primary fact that we know about life is growth. Herbert Spencer has\ndefined this growth, or evolution, in a string of long words which may\nbe summed up to mean: the process whereby a number of things which are\nsimple and like one another become different parts of one thing which is\ncomplex. If we observe this process in ourselves, and the symptoms of it\nin others, we discover that when it is proceeding successfully, it is\naccompanied by a sensation of satisfaction which we call happiness or\npleasure; also that when it is thwarted or repressed, it is accompanied\nby a different sensation which we call pain. Subtle metaphysicians, both\ninside the churches and out, have set themselves to the task of proving\nthat there must be some other object of life than the continuance of\nthese sensations of pleasure which accompany successful growth. They\nhave proven to their own satisfaction that morality will collapse and\nhuman progress come to an end unless we can find some other motive,\nsomething more permanent and more stimulating, something \"higher,\" as\nthey phrase it. All I can say is that I gave reverent attention to the\narguments of these moralists and theologians, and that for many years I\nbelieved their doctrines; but I believe them no longer.\n\nI interpret the purpose of life to be the continuous unfoldment of its\npowers, its growth into higher forms--that is to say, forms more complex\nand subtly contrived, capable of more intense and enduring kinds of that\nsatisfaction which is nature's warrant of life. If you wish to take up\nthis statement and argue about it, please wait until you have read the\nchapter \"Nature and Man,\" and noted my distinction between instinctive\nlife and rational life. For men, the word \"growth\" does not mean _any_\ngrowth, _all_ growth, blind and indiscriminate growth. It does not mean\ngrowth for the tubercle bacillus, nor growth for the anopheles mosquito,\nnor growth for the house-fly, the spider and the louse. Neither do we\nmean that the purpose of man's own life is _any_ pleasure, _all_\npleasure, blind and indiscriminate pleasure; the pleasure of alcohol,\nthe pleasure of cannibalism, the pleasure of the modern form of\ncannibalism which we call \"making money.\" We have survived in the\nstruggle for existence by the cooperative and social use of our powers\nof judgment; and our judgment is that which selects among forms of\ngrowth, which gives preference to wheat and corn over weeds, and to\nself-control and honesty over treachery and greed.\n\nSo when we say that the purpose of life is happiness, we do not mean to\nturn mankind loose at a hog-trough; we mean that our duty as thinkers is\nto watch life, to test it, to pick and choose among the many forms it\noffers, and to say: This kind of growth is more permanent and full of\npromise, it is more fertile, more deeply satisfactory; therefore, we\nchoose this, and sanction the kind of pleasure which it brings. Other\nkinds we decide are temporary and delusive; therefore we put in jail\nanyone who sells alcoholic drink, and we refuse to invite to our home\npeople who are lewd, and some day we shall not permit our children to\nattend moving picture shows in which the modern form of cannibalism is\nglorified.\n\nThe reader, no doubt, has been taught a distinction between \"science\"\nand \"faith.\" He is saying now, \"You believe that everything is to be\ndetermined by human reason? You reject all faith?\" I answer, No; I am\nnot rejecting faith; I am merely refusing to apply it to objects with\nwhich it has nothing to do. You do not take it as a matter of faith that\na package of sugar weighs a pound; you put it on the scales and find\nout--in other words, you make it a matter of experiment. But all the\ncreeds of all the religious sects are full of pronouncements which are\nno more matters of faith than the question of the weighing of sugar. Is\npork a wholesome article of food or is it not? All Christians will\nreadily acknowledge that this is a matter to be determined by the\nmicroscope and other devices of experimental science; but then some Jew\nrises in the meeting and puts the question: Is dancing injurious to the\ncharacter? And immediately all members of the Methodist Episcopal Church\nvote to close the discussion.\n\nWhat is faith? Faith is the instinct which underlies all being, assuring\nus that life is worth while and honest, a thing to be trusted; in other\nwords, it is the certainty that successful growth always is and always\nwill be accompanied by pleasure. The most skeptical scientist in the\nworld, even my friend the physiologist who proves that life is nothing\nbut a tropism, and can be produced by mixing chemicals in\ntest-tubes--this eager friend is one of the most faithful men I know. He\nis burning up with the faith that knowledge is worth possessing, and\nalso that it is possible of attainment. With what boundless scorn would\nhe receive any suggestion to the contrary--for example, the idea that\nlife might be a series of sensations which some sportive demon is\nproducing for the torment of man! More than that, this friend is burning\nup with the certainty that knowledge can be spread, that his fellow men\nwill receive it and apply it, and that it will make them happy when they\ndo. Why else does he write his learned books in defense of the\nmaterialist philosophy?\n\nAnd that same faith which animates the great monist animates likewise\nevery child who toddles off to school, and every chicken which emerges\nfrom an egg, and every blade of grass which thrusts its head above the\nground. Not every chicken survives, of course, and all the blades of\ngrass wither in the fall; nevertheless, the seeds of grass are spread,\nand chickens make food for philosophers, and the great process of life\ncontinues to manifest its faith. In the end the life process produces\nman, who, as we shall presently see, takes it up, and judges it, and\nmakes it over to suit himself.\n\nYou will note from this that I am what is called an optimist; whereas\nsome of the great philosophers of the world have called themselves\npessimists. But I notice with a smile that these are often the men who\nwork hardest of all to spread their ideas, and thus testify to the\nworthwhileness of truth and the perfectibility of mankind. There has\ncome to be a saying among settlement workers and physicians, who are\nfamiliar with poverty and its effects upon life, that there are no bad\nbabies and good babies, there are only sick babies and well babies. In\nthe same way, I would say there are no pessimists and optimists, there\nare only mentally sick people and mentally well people. Everywhere\nthroughout life, both animal and vegetable, health means happiness, and\ngives abundant evidence of that fact. All healthy life is satisfactory\nto itself; when it develops reason, it tries to find out why, and this\nis yet another testimony to the fact that having power and using it is\npleasant. When I was in college the professor would propound the old\nquestion: \"Would you rather be a happy pig or an unhappy philosopher?\"\nMy answer always was: \"I would rather be a happy philosopher.\" The\nprofessor replied: \"Perhaps that is not possible.\" But I said: \"I will\nprove that it is!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE USE OF REASON\n\n     (Attempts to show that in the field to which reason applies we are\n     compelled to use it, and are justified in trusting it.)\n\n\nThe great majority of people are brought up to believe that some\nparticular set of dogmas are objects of faith, and that there are\npenalties more or less severe for the application of reason to these\ndogmas. What particular set it happens to be is a matter of geography;\nin a crowded modern city like New York, it is a matter of the particular\nblock on which the child is born. A child born on Hester Street will be\ntaught that his welfare depends upon his never eating meat and butter\nfrom the same dish. A child born on Tenth Avenue will be taught that it\nis a matter of his not eating meat on Fridays. A child born on Madison\nAvenue will be taught that it is a question of the precise metaphysical\nprocess by which bread is changed into human body and wine into human\nblood. Each of these children will be assured that his human reason is\nfallible, that it is extremely dangerous to apply it to this \"sacred\"\nsubject, and that the proper thing to do is to accept the authority of\nsome ancient tradition, or some institution, or some official, or some\nbook for which a special sanction is claimed.\n\nHas there ever been in the world any revelation, outside of or above\nhuman reason? Could there ever be such a thing? In order to test this\npossibility, select for yourself the most convincing way by which a\nspecial revelation could be handed down to mankind. Take any of the\nancient orthodox ways, the finding of graven tablets on a mountain-top,\nor a voice speaking from a burning bush, or an angel appearing before a\ngreat concourse of people and handing out a written scroll. Suppose that\nwere to happen, let us say, at the next Yale-Harvard football game;\nsuppose the news were to be flashed to the ends of the earth that God\nhad thus presented to mankind an entirely new religion. What would be\nthe process by which the people of London or Calcutta would decide upon\nthat revelation? First, they would have to consider the question\nwhether it was an American newspaper fake--by no means an easy question.\nSecond, they would have to consider the chances of its being an optical\ndelusion. Then, assuming they accepted the sworn testimony of ten\nthousand mature and competent witnesses, they would have to consider the\npossibility of someone having invented a new kind of invisible\naeroplane. Assuming they were convinced that it was really a\nsupernatural being, they would next have to decide the chances of its\nbeing a visitor from Mars, or from the fourth dimension of space, or\nfrom the devil. In considering all this, they would necessarily have to\nexamine the alleged revelation. What was the literary quality of it?\nWhat was the moral quality of it? What would be the effect upon mankind\nif the alleged revelation were to be universally adopted and applied?\n\nManifestly, all these are questions for the human reason, the human\njudgment; there is no other method of determining them, there would be\nnothing for any individual person, or for men as a whole to do, except\nto apply their best powers, and, as the phrase is, \"make up their minds\"\nabout the matter. Reason would be the judge, and the new revelation\nwould be the prisoner at the bar. Humanity might say, this is a real\ninspiration, we will submit ourselves to it and follow it, and allow no\none from now on to question it. But inevitably there would be some who\nwould say, \"Tommyrot!\" There would be others who would say, \"This new\nrevelation isn't working, it is repressing progress, it is stifling the\nmind.\" These people would stand up for their conviction, they would\nbecome martyrs, and all the world would have to discuss them. And who\nwould decide between them and the great mass of men? Reason, the judge,\nwould decide.\n\nIt is perfectly true that human reason is fallible. Infallibility is an\nabsolute, a concept of the mind, and not a reality. Life has not given\nus infallibility, any more than it has given us omniscience, or\nomnipotence, or any other of those attributes which we call divine. Life\nhas given us powers, more or less weak, more or less strong, but all\ncapable of improvement and development. Reason is the tool whereby\nmankind has won supremacy over the rest of the animal kingdom, and is\ngradually taking control of the forces of nature. It is the best tool we\nhave, and because it is the best, we are driven irresistibly to use it.\nAnd how strange that some of us can find no better use for it than to\ndestroy its own self! Visit one of the Jesuit fathers and hear him seek\nto persuade you that reason is powerless against faith and must abdicate\nto faith. You answer, \"Yes, father, you have persuaded me. I admit the\nfallibility of my mortal powers; and I begin by applying my doubts of\nthem to the arguments by which you have just convinced me. I was\nconvinced, but of course I cannot be sure of a conviction, attained by\nfallible reason. Therefore I am just where I was before--except that I\nam no longer in position to be certain of anything.\"\n\nYou answer in good faith, and take up your hat and depart, closing the\ndoor of the good father's study behind you. But stop a moment, why do\nyou close the door? You close the door because your reason tells you\nthat otherwise the cold air outside will blow in and make the good\nfather uncomfortable. You put your hat on, because your reason has not\nyet been applied to the problem of the cause of baldness. You step out\nonto the street, and when you hear a sudden noise, you step back onto\nthe curbstone, because your reason tells you that an automobile is\ncoming, and that on the sidewalk you are safe from it. So you go on,\nusing your reason in a million acts of your life whereby your life is\npreserved and developed. And if anybody suggested that the fallibility\nof your reason should cause you to delay in front of an automobile, you\nwould apply your reason to the problem of that person and decide that he\nwas insane. And I say that just as there is insanity in everyday\njudgments and relationships, so there is insanity in philosophy,\nmetaphysics and religion; the seed and source of all this kind of\ninsanity being the notion that it is the duty of anybody to believe\nanything which cannot completely justify itself as reasonable.\n\nNowadays, as ideas are spreading, the champions of dogma are hard put to\nit, and you will find their minds a muddle of two points of view. The\nJewish rabbi will strive desperately to think of some hygienic objection\nto the presence of meat and butter on the same plate; the Catholic\npriest will tell you that fish is a very wholesome article of food, and\nthat anyhow we all eat too much; the Methodist and the Baptist and the\nPresbyterian will tell you that if men did not rest one day in seven\ntheir health would break down. Thus they justify faith by reason, and\nreconcile the conflict between science and theology. Accepting this\nmethod, I experiment and learn that it improves my digestion and adds to\nmy working power if I play tennis on Sunday. I follow this indisputably\nrational form of conduct--and find myself in conflict with the \"faith\"\nof the ancient State of Delaware, which obliges me to serve a term in\nits state's prison for having innocently and unwittingly desecrated its\nday of holiness!\n\nIf you read Professor Bury's little book, \"A History of Freedom of\nThought,\" you will discover that there has been a long conflict over the\nright of men to use their minds--and the victory is not yet. The term\n\"free thinker,\" which ought to be the highest badge a man could wear, is\nstill almost everywhere throughout America a term of vague terror. In\nthe State of California today there is a Criminal Syndicalism Act, which\nprovides a maximum of fourteen years in jail for any person who shall\nwrite or publish or speak any words expressive of the idea that the\nUnited States government should be overthrown in the same way that it\nwas established--that is, by force; only a few months ago the writer of\nthis book was on the witness stand for two days, and had the painful,\nalmost incredible experience of being battered and knocked about by an\ninquisitive district attorney, who cross-examined him as to every detail\nof his beliefs, and read garbled extracts from his published writings,\nin the effort to make it appear that he held some belief which might\npossibly prejudice the jury against him. The defendant in this case, a\nreturned soldier who had spent three years as a volunteer in the\ntrenches, and had been twice wounded and once gassed, was accused, not\nmerely of approving the Soviet form of government, but also of having\nprinted uncomplimentary references to priests and religious\ninstitutions.\n\nNowadays it is the propertied class which has taken possession of the\npowers of government, and which presumes to censor the thinking of\nmankind in its own interest. But whether it be priestcraft or whether it\nbe capitalism which seeks to bind the human mind, it comes to the same\nthing, and the effort must be met by the assertion that, in spite of\nerrors and blunders, and the serious harm these may do, there is no way\nfor men to advance save by using the best powers of thinking they\npossess, and proclaiming their conclusions to others. Speaking\ntheologically for the moment, God has given us our reasoning powers, and\nalso the impulse to use them, and it is inconceivable that He should\nseek to restrict their use, or should give to anyone the power to forbid\ntheir use. It is His truth which we seek, and His which we proclaim. In\nso doing we perform our highest act of faith, and we refuse to be\ntroubled by the idea that for this service He will reward us by an\neternity of sulphur and brimstone.\n\nThroughout the remainder of this book it will be assumed that the reader\naccepts this point of view, or, at any rate, that he is willing for\npurposes of experiment to give it a trial and see where it leads him. We\nshall proceed to consider the problems of human life in the light of\nreason, to determine how they come to be, and how they can be solved.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE ORIGIN OF MORALITY\n\n     (Compares the ways of nature with human morality, and tries to show\n     how the latter came to be.)\n\n\nSeventy years ago Charles Darwin published his book, \"The Origin of\nSpecies,\" in which he defied the theological dogma of his time by the\nshocking idea that life had evolved by many stages of progress from the\ndiatom to man. This of course did not conform to the story of the Garden\nof Eden, and so \"Darwinism\" was fought as an invention of the devil, and\nin the interior of America there are numerous sectarian colleges where\nthe dread term \"evolution\" is spoken in awed whispers. Only the other\nday I read in my newspaper the triumphant proclamation of some clergyman\nthat \"Darwinism\" had been overthrown. This reverend gentleman had got\nmixed up because some biologists were disputing some detail of the\nmethod by which the evolution of species had been brought about. Do\nspecies change by the gradual elimination of the unfit, or do they\nchange by sudden leaps, the \"mutation\" theory of de Vries? Are acquired\npowers transmitted to posterity, or is the germ plasm unaffected by its\nenvironment? Concerning such questions the scientists debate. But the\nfact that life has evolved in an ordered series from the lower forms to\nthe higher, and that each individual reproduces in embryo and in infancy\nthe history of this long process--these facts are now the basis of all\nmodern thinking, and as generally accepted as the rotation of the earth.\n\nYou may study this process of evolution from the outside, in the\nmultitude of forms which it has assumed and in their reactions one to\nanother; or you may study it from the inside in your own soul, the\nemotions which accompany it, the impulse or craving which impels it, the\n_elan vital_, as it is called by the French philosopher Bergson. The\nChristians call it love, and Nietzsche, who hated Christianity, called\nit \"the will to power,\" and persuaded himself that it was the opposite\nof love.\n\nYou will find in the essays of Professor Huxley, one entitled\n\"Evolution and Ethics,\" in which he sets forth the complete unmorality\nof nature, and declares that there is no way by which what mankind knows\nas morality can have originated in the process of nature or can be\nreconciled to natural law. This statement, coming from a leading\nagnostic, was welcome to the theologians. But when I first read the\nessay, as a student of sixteen, it seemed to me narrow; I thought I saw\na standpoint from which the contradiction disappeared. The difference\nbetween the morality of Christ and the morality of nature is merely the\ndifference between a lower and a higher stage of mental development. The\nanimal loves and seeks by instinct to preserve the life which it\nknows--that is to say, its own life and the life of its young. The wolf\nknows nothing about the feelings of a deer; but man in his savage state\ndevelops reasoning powers enough to realize that there are others like\nhimself, the members of his own tribe, and he makes for himself taboos\nwhich forbid him to kill and eat the members of that tribe. At the\npresent time humanity has developed its reason and imaginative sympathy\nto include in the \"tribe\" one or two hundred million people; while to\nthose outside the tribe it still preserves the attitude of the wolf.\n\nHow came it that a mind so acute as Huxley's went so far astray on the\nquestion of the evolution of morality? The answer is that this was the\nfactory age in England, and the great scientist, a rebel in theological\nmatters, was in economics a child of his time. We find him using the\nformulas of bourgeois biology to ridicule Henry George and his plea for\nthe freeing of the land. \"Competition is the life of trade,\" ran the\nnineteenth century slogan; and competition was the god of nineteenth\ncentury biology. Tennyson summed it up in the phrase: \"Nature red in\ntooth and claw with ravin;\" and this was found convenient by Manchester\nmanufacturers who wished to shut little children up for fourteen hours a\nday in cotton mills, and to harness women to drag cars in the coal\nmines, and to be told by the learned men of their colleges and the holy\nmen of their churches that this was \"the survival of the fittest,\" it\nwas nature's way of securing the advancement of the race.\n\nBut now we are preparing for an era of cooperation, and it occurs to our\nmen of science to go back to nature and find out what really are her\nways. If you will read Kropotkin's \"Mutual Aid as a Factor in\nEvolution,\" you will find a complete refutation of the old bourgeois\nbiology, and a view of nature which reveals in it the germs of human\nmorality. Kropotkin points out that everywhere throughout nature it is\nthe social and not the solitary animals which are most numerous and most\nsuccessful. There are many millions of ants and bees for every hawk or\neagle, and certainly in the state of nature there were thousands of deer\nfor every lion or tiger that preyed upon them. And all these social\ncreatures have their ways of being, which it requires no stress of the\nimagination to compare with the tribal customs and the moral codes of\nmankind. The different animals prey upon one another, but they do not\nprey upon their own species, except in a few rare cases. The only beast\nthat makes a regular practice of exploiting his own kind is man.\n\nBy hundreds of interesting illustrations Kropotkin shows that mutual aid\nand mutual self-protection are the means whereby the higher forms of\nbeing have been evolved. Insects and birds and fish, nearly all the\nherbivorous mammals, and even a great many of the carnivores, help one\nanother and protect one another. The chattering monkeys in the treetops\ndrove out the saber-tooth tiger from the grove because there were so\nmany of them, and when they saw him they all set up a shriek and clamor\nwhich deafened and confused him. And when by and by these monkeys\ndeveloped an opposed thumb, and broke off a branch of a tree for a club,\nand fastened a sharp stone on the end of it for an axe, and fell upon\nthe saber-toothed tiger and exterminated him, they did it because they\nhad learned solidarity--even as the workers of the world are today\nlearning solidarity in the face of the beast of capitalism.\n\nMan has survived by the cunning of his brain, we are told, and that is\ntrue. But first among the products of that cunning brain has been the\nknowledge that by himself he is the most helpless and pitiful of\ncreatures, while standing together and forming societies and developing\nmoralities, he is master of the world. He has not yet learned that\nlesson entirely; he has learned it only for his own nation. Therefore he\ntakes the highest skill of his hand and the subtlest wit of his brain,\nand uses them to manufacture poison gases. At the present hour he is\npainfully realizing that his poison formulas all become known to the\ntribes whom he calls his enemies, and so it is his own destruction he is\nengaged in contriving. In other words, man has come to a time when his\nmechanical skill, his mastery over the forces of nature, has developed\nmore rapidly than his moral sense and his imaginative sympathy. His\nability to destroy life has become dangerously greater than his desire\nto preserve it. So he confronts the fair face of nature as an insane\ncreature, wrecking not merely everything that he himself has built up,\nbut everything that nature has built in the ages before him. He is\nstriving now with infinite agony to make this fact real to himself, and\nto mend his evil ways; and the first step in that process is to root out\nfrom his mind the devil's doctrine which in his blindness and greed he\nhas himself implanted, that there is any way for him to find real\nhappiness, or to make any worth while progress on this earth, by the\nmethod of inflicting misery and torment upon his fellow men.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nNATURE AND MAN\n\n     (Attempts to show how man has taken control of nature, and is\n     carrying on her processes and improving upon them.)\n\n\nIf the argument of the preceding chapter is sound, human morality is not\na fixed and eternal set of laws, but is, like everything else in the\nworld, a product of natural evolution. We can trace the history of it,\njust as we trace the story of the rocks. It is not a mysterious or\nsupernatural thing, it is simply the reaction of man to his environment,\nand more especially to his fellow men. The source of it is that same\ninner impulse, that love of life, that joy in growing, that faith which\nappears to be the soul of all being.\n\nMan is a part of nature and a product of nature; in many fundamental\nrespects his ways are still nature's ways and his laws still nature's\nlaws. But there are other and even more significant ways in which man\nhas separated himself from nature and made himself something quite\ndifferent. In order to reveal this clearly, we draw a distinction\nbetween nature and man. This is a proper thing to do, provided we bear\nin mind that our classification is not permanent or final. We\ndistinguish frogs from tadpoles, in spite of the fact that at one stage\nthe creature is half tadpole and half frog. We distinguish the animal\nfrom the vegetable kingdom, despite the fact that in their lower forms\nthey cannot be distinguished.\n\nWhat, precisely, is the difference between nature and man? The\ndifference lies in the fact that nature is apparently blind in her\nprocesses; she produces a million eggs in order to give life to one\nsalmon, she produces countless millions of salmon to be devoured by\nother fish apparently no better than salmon. Poets may take up the\ndoctrine of evolution and dress it out in theological garments, talking\nabout the \"one far off divine event towards which the whole creation\nmoves,\" but for all we can see, nature, apart from man, is just as well\nsatisfied to move in circles, and to come back exactly where she\nstarted. Nature made a whole world of complicated creatures in the\nsteamy, luke-warm swamps of the Mesozoic era, and then, as if deciding\nthat the pattern of a large body and a small brain was not a success,\nshe froze them all to death with a glacial epoch, and we have nothing\nbut the bones to tell us about them.\n\nNo one understands anything about evolution until he has realized that\nthe phrase \"the survival of the fittest\" does not mean the survival of\nthe best from any human point of view. It merely means the survival of\nthose capable of surviving in some particular environment. We consider\nour present civilization as \"fit\"; but if astronomical changes should\ncause another ice age, we should discover that our \"fitness\" depended\nupon our ability to live on lichens, or on something we could grow by\nartificial light in the bowels of the earth.\n\nSo much for our ancient mother, nature. But now--whether we say with the\ntheologians that it was divine providence, or with the materialist\nphilosophers that it was an accidental mixing of atoms--at any rate it\nhas come about that nature has recently produced creatures who are\nconscious of her process, who are able to observe and criticize it, to\ntake up her work and carry it on in their own way, for better or for\nworse. Whether by accident or design, there has been on parts of our\nplanet such a combination of climate and soil as has brought into being\na new product of nature, a heightened form of life which we call\n\"intelligence.\" Creation opens its eyes, and beholds the work of the\ncreator, and decides that it is good--yet not so good as it might be!\nCreation takes up the work of the creator, and continues it, in many\nrespects annulling it, in other respects revising it entirely. Whether a\nsonnet is a better or a higher product than a spider is a question it\nwould be futile to discuss; but this, at least, should be clear--nature\nhas produced an infinity of spiders, but nature never produced a sonnet,\nnor anything resembling it.\n\nMan, the creature of God, takes over the functions of God. This fact may\nshock us, or it may inspire us; to the metaphysically minded it offers a\ngreat variety of fascinating problems. Can it be that God is in process\nof becoming, that there is no God until he has become, in us and through\nus? H. G. Wells sets forth this curious idea; and then, of course, the\nbishops and the clergy rise up in indignation and denounce Mr. Wells as\nan upstart and trespasser upon their field. They have been worshipping\ntheir God for some three or four thousand years, and know that He has\nbeen from eternity; He created the world at His will, and how shall\nimpious man presume to rise up and criticize His product, and imagine\nthat he can improve upon it? Man, with his cheap and silly little toys,\nhis sonnets and scientific systems, his symphony concerts and such pale\nimitations of celestial harmonies!\n\nMr. Wells, in his character of God in the making, has created a bishop\nof his own, and no doubt would maintain the thesis that he is a far\nbetter bishop than any created by the God of the Anglican churches. We\nwill leave Mr. Wells' bishop to argue these problems with God's bishops,\nand will merely remind the reader of our warning about these\nmetaphysical matters. You can prove anything and everything, whichever\nand however, all or both; and discussions of the subject are merely your\nenunciation of the fact that you have your private truth as you want it.\nIt may be that there is an Infinite Consciousness, which carries the\nwhole process of creation in itself, and that all the seeming wastes and\nblunders of nature can be explained from some point of view at present\nbeyond the reach of our minds. On the other hand it may be that\nconsciousness is now dawning in the universe for the first time. It may\nbe that it is an accident, a fleeting product like the morning mist on\nthe mountain top. On the other hand, it may be that it is destined to\ngrow and expand and take control of the entire universe, as a farmer\ntakes control of a field for his own purposes. It may be that just as\nour individual fragments of intelligence communicate and merge into a\nfamily, a club, a nation, a world culture, so we shall some day grope\nour way toward the consciousness of other planets, or of other states of\nbeing subsisting on this planet unknown to us, or perhaps even toward\nthe cosmic soul, the universal consciousness which we call God.\n\nBut meantime, all we can say with positiveness is this: man, the\ncreated, is becoming the creator. He is taking up the world purpose, he\nis imposing upon it new purposes of his own, he is attempting to impose\nupon it a moral code, to test it and discipline it by a new standard\nwhich he calls economy. To the present writer this seems the most\nsignificant fact about life, the most fascinating point of view from\nwhich life can be regarded. The reader who wishes to follow it into\ngreater detail is referred to a little book by Professor E. Ray\nLankester, \"The Kingdom of Man\"; especially the opening essay, with its\nfascinating title, \"Nature's Insurgent Son.\"\n\nIn what ways have the reasoned and deliberate purposes of man revised\nand even supplanted the processes of nature? The ways are so many that\nit would be easier to mention those in which he has not done so. A\nmodern civilized man is hardly content with anything that nature does,\nnor willing to accept any of nature's products. He will not eat nature's\nfruits, he prefers the kinds that he himself has brought into being. He\nis not content with the skin that nature has given him; he has made\nhimself an infinite variety of complicated coverings. He objects to\nnature's habit of pouring cold water upon him, and so he has built\nhimself houses in which he makes his own climate; he has recently taken\nto creating for himself houses which roll along the ground, or which fly\nthrough the air, or which swim under the surface of the sea; so he\ncarries his private climate with him to all these places. It was\nnature's custom to remove her blunders and her experiments quickly from\nher sight. But man has decided that he loves life so well that he will\npreserve even the imbeciles, the lame and the halt and the blind. In a\nstate of nature, if a man's eyes were not properly focused, he blundered\ninto the lair of a tiger and was eaten. But civilized man despises such\na method of maintaining the standard of human eyes; he creates for\nhimself a transparent product, ground to such a curve that it corrects\nthe focus of his eyes, and makes them as good as any other eyes. In ten\nthousand such ways we might name, man has rebelled against the harshness\nof his ancient mother, and has freed himself from her control.\n\nBut still he is the child of his mother, and so it is his way to act\nfirst, and then to realize what he has done. So it comes about that very\nfew, even of the most highly educated men, are aware how completely the\nancient ways of nature have been suppressed by her \"insurgent son.\" It\nis a good deal as in the various trades and professions which have\ndeveloped with such amazing rapidity in modern civilization; the paper\nman knows how to make paper, the shoe man knows how to make shoes, the\noptician knows about grinding glasses, but none of these knows very much\nabout the others' specialties, and has no realization of how far the\nother has gone. So it comes about that in our colleges we are still\nteaching ancient and immutable \"laws of nature,\" which in the actual\npractice of men at work are as extinct and forgotten as the dodo. In all\ncolleges, except a few which have been tainted by Socialist thought,\nthe students are solemnly learning the so-called \"Malthusian law,\" that\npopulation presses continually upon the limits of subsistence, there are\nalways a few more people in every part of the world than that part of\nthe world is able to maintain. At any time we increase the world's\nproductive powers, population will increase correspondingly, so there\ncan never be an end to human misery, and abortion, war and famine are\nsimply nature's eternal methods of adjusting man to his environment.\n\nThus solemnly we are taught in the colleges. And yet, nine out of ten of\nthe students come from homes where the parents have discovered the\nmodern practice of birth control; all the students are themselves\nfinding out about it in one way or another, and will proceed when they\nmarry to restrict themselves to two or three children. In vain will the\nghost of their favorite statesman and hero, Theodore Roosevelt, be\ntraveling up and down the land, denouncing them for the dreadful crime\nof \"race suicide\"--that is to say, their presuming to use their reason\nto put an end to the ghastly situation revealed by the Malthusian law,\nover-population eternally recurring and checked by abortion, war and\nfamine! In vain will the ghost of their favorite saint and moralist,\nAnthony Comstock, be traveling up and down the land, putting people in\njail for daring to teach to poor women what every rich woman knows, and\nfor attempting to change the entirely man-made state of affairs whereby\nan intelligent and self-governing Anglo-Saxon land is being in two or\nthree generations turned over to a slum population of Italians, Poles,\nHungarians, Portuguese, French-Canadians, Mexicans and Japanese!\n\nLikewise in every orthodox college the student is taught what his\nprofessors are pleased to call \"the law of diminishing returns of\nagriculture.\" That is to say, additional labor expended upon a plot of\nland does not result in an equal increase of produce, and the increase\ngrows less, until finally you come to a time when no matter how much\nlabor you expend, you can get no more produce from that plot of land.\nAll professors teach this, because fifty years ago it was true, and\nsince that time it has not occurred to any professor of political\nscience to visit a farm. And all the while, out in the suburbs of the\ncity where the college is located, market gardeners are practicing on an\nenormous scale a new system of intensive agriculture which makes the\n\"law of diminishing returns\" a foolish joke.\n\nAs Kropotkin shows in his book, \"Fields, Factories and Workshops,\" the\nmodern intensive gardener, by use of glass and the chemical test-tube,\nhas developed an entirely new science of plant raising. He is\nindependent of climate, he makes his own climate; he is independent of\nthe defects of the soil, he would just as soon start from nothing and\nmake his soil upon an asphalt pavement. By doubling his capital\ninvestment he raises, not twice as much produce, but ten times as much.\nIf his methods were applied to the British Isles, he could raise\nsufficient produce on this small surface to feed the population of the\nentire globe.\n\nSo we see that by simple and entirely harmless devices man is in\nposition to restrict or to increase population as he sees fit. Also he\nis in position to raise food and produce the necessities of life for a\nhundred or thousand times as many people as are now on the earth. But\nsuperstition ordains involuntary parenthood, and capitalism ordains that\nland shall be held out of use for speculation, or shall be exploited for\nrent! And this is done in the name of \"nature\"--that old nature of the\n\"tooth and claw,\" whose ancient plan it is \"that they shall take who\nhave the power, and they shall keep who can\"; that ancient nature which\nhas been so entirely suppressed and supplanted by civilized man, and\nwhich survives only as a ghost, a skeleton to be resurrected from the\ntomb, for the purpose of frightening the enslaved. When a predatory\nfinancier wishes a fur overcoat to protect himself from the cold, or\nwhen he hires a masseur to keep up the circulation of his blood, you do\nnot find him troubling himself about the laws of \"nature\"; never will he\nmention this old scarecrow, except when he is trying to persuade the\nworkers of the world to go on paying him tribute for the use of the\nnatural resources of the earth!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nMAN THE REBEL\n\n     (Shows the transition stage between instinct and reason, in which\n     man finds himself, and how he can advance to a securer condition.)\n\n\nIn the state of nature you find every creature living a precarious\nexistence, incessantly beset by enemies; and the creature survives only\nso long as it keeps itself at the top of its form. The result is the\nmaintenance of the type in its full perfection, and, under the\ncompetitive pressure, a gradual increase of its powers. Excepting when\nsudden eruptions of natural forces occur, every creature is perfectly\nprovided with a set of instincts for all emergencies; it is in\nharmonious relationship to its environment, it knows how to do what it\nhas to do, and even its fears and its pains serve for its protection.\nBut now comes man and overthrows this state of nature, abolishes the\ncompetitive struggle, and changes at his own insolent will both his\nenvironment and his reaction thereto.\n\nMan's changes are, in the beginning, all along one line; they are for\nhis own greater comfort, the avoidance of the inconveniences of nature\nand the stresses of the competitive struggle. In a state of nature there\nare no fat animals, but in civilization there are not merely fat\nanimals, but fat men to eat the fat animals. In a state of nature no\nanimal loafs very long; it has to go out and hunt its food again. But\nman, by his superior cunning, compels the animals to work for him, and\nalso his fellow men. So he produces unlimited wealth for himself; not\nmerely can he eat and drink and sleep all he wants, but he builds a\nwhole elaborate set of laws and moral customs and religious codes about\nthis power, he invents manners and customs and literatures and arts,\nexpressive of his superiority to nature and to his fellow men, and of\nhis ability to enslave and exploit them. So he destroys for his\nimperious self the beneficent guardianship which nature had maintained\nover him; he develops a thousand complicated diseases, a thousand\nmonstrous abnormalities of body and mind and spirit. And each one of\nthese diseases and abnormalities is a new life of its own; it develops\na body of knowledge, a science, and perhaps an art; it becomes the means\nof life, the environment and the determining destiny of thousands,\nperhaps millions, of human beings. So continues the growth of the\ncolossal structure which we call civilization--in part still healthy and\nprogressive, but in part as foul and deadly as a gigantic cancer.\n\nWhat is to be done about this cancer? First of all, it must be\ndiagnosed, the extent of it precisely mapped out and the causes of it\ndetermined. Man, the rebel, has rejected his mother nature, and has lost\nand for the most part forgotten the instincts with which she provided\nhim. He has destroyed the environment which, however harsh to the\nindividual, was beneficent to the race, and has set up in the place of\nit a gigantic pleasure-house, with talking machines and moving pictures\nand soda fountains and manicure parlors and \"gents' furnishing\nestablishments.\"\n\nShall we say that man is to go back to a state of nature, that he shall\nno longer make asylums for the insane and homes for the defective,\neye-glasses for the astigmatic and malted milk for the dyspeptic? There\nare some who preach that. Among the multitude of strange books and\npamphlets which come in my mail, I found the other day a volume from\nEngland, \"Social Chaos and the Way Out,\" by Alfred Baker Read, a learned\nand imposing tome of 364 pages, wherein with all the paraphernalia of\nlearning it is gravely maintained that the solution for the ills of\ncivilization is a return to the ancient Greek practice of infanticide.\nEvery child at birth is to be examined by a committee of physicians, and\nif it is found to possess any defect, or if the census has established\nthat there are enough babies in the world for the present, this baby\nshall be mercifully and painlessly asphyxiated. You might think that\nthis is a joke, after the fashion of Swift's proposal for eating the\nchildren of famine-stricken Ireland. I have spent some time examining\nthis book before I risk committing myself to the statement that it is\nthe work of a sober scientist, with no idea whatever of fun.\n\nIf we are going to think clearly on this subject, the first point we\nhave to understand is that nature has nothing to do with it. We cannot\nappeal to nature, because we are many thousands of years beyond her\nsway. We left her when the first ape came down from the treetop and\nfastened a sharp stone in the end of his club; we bade irrevocable\ngood-bye to her when the first man kept himself from freezing and\naltered his diet by means of fire. Therefore, it is no argument to say\nthat this, that, or the other remedy is \"unnatural.\" Our choice will lie\namong a thousand different courses, but the one thing we may be sure of\nis that none of them will be \"natural.\" Bairnsfather, in one of his war\ncartoons, portrays a British officer on leave, who got homesick for the\ntrenches and went out into the garden and dug himself a hole in the mud\nand sat shivering in the rain all night. And this amuses us vastly; but\nwe should be even more amused if any kind of reformer, physician,\nmoralist, clergyman or legislator should suggest to us any remedy for\nour ills that was really \"according to nature.\"\n\nCivilized man, creature of art and of knowledge, has no love for nature\nexcept as an object for the play of his fancy and his wit. He means to\nlive his own life, he means to hold himself above nature with all his\npowers. Yet, obviously, he cannot go on accumulating diseases, he cannot\ngive his life-blood to the making of a cancer while his own proper\ntissues starve. He must somehow divert the flow of his energies, his\nsocial blood-stream, so to speak, from the cancer to the healthy growth.\nTo abandon the metaphor, man will determine by the use of his reason\nwhat he wishes life to be; he will choose the highest forms of it to\nwhich he can attain. He will then, by the deliberate act of his own\nwill, devote his energies to those tasks; he will make for himself new\nlaws, new moral codes, new customs and ways of thought, calculated to\nbring to reality the ideal which he has formed. So only can man justify\nhimself as a creator, so can he realize the benefit and escape the\npenalties of his revolt from his ancient mother.\n\nAnd then, perhaps, we shall make the discovery that we have come back to\nnature, only in a new form. Nature, harsh and cruel, wasteful and blind\nas we call her, yet had her deep wisdom; she cared for the species, she\nprotected and preserved the type. Man, in his new pride of power, has\ninvented a philosophy which he dignifies by the name of \"individualism.\"\nHe lives and works for himself; he chooses to wear silk shirts, and to\nbreak the speed limit, and to pin ribbons and crosses on his chest. Now\nwhat he must do with his new morality, if he wishes to save himself from\ndegeneration, is to manifest the wisdom and far vision of the old\nmother whom he spurned, and to say to himself, deliberately, as an act\nof high daring: I will protect the species, I will preserve the type! I\nwill deny myself the raptures of alcoholic intoxication, because it\ndamages the health of my offspring; I will deny myself the amusement of\nsexual promiscuity for the same reason. I will devise imitations of the\nchase and of battle in order that I may keep my physical body up to the\nbest standard of nature. Because I understand that all civilized life is\nbased upon intelligence, I will acquire knowledge and spread it among my\nfellow men. Because I perceive that civilization is impossible without\nsympathy, and because sympathy makes it impossible for me to be happy\nwhile my fellow men are ignorant and degraded, therefore I dedicate my\nenergies to the extermination of poverty, war, parasitism and all forms\nof exploitation of man by his fellows.\n\nProfessor William James is the author of an excellent essay entitled \"A\nMoral Equivalent for War.\" He sets forth the idea that men have loved\nwar through the ages because it has called forth their highest efforts,\nhas made them more fully aware of the powers of their being. He asks,\nMay it not be possible for man, of his own free impulse, born of his\nlove of life and the wonderful potentialities which it unfolds, to\ninvent for himself a discipline, a code based, not upon the destruction\nof other men and their enslavement, but upon cooperative emulation in\nthe unfoldment of the powers of the mind? That this can be done by men,\nI have never doubted. That it will be done, and done quickly, has been\nmade certain by the late world conflict, which has demonstrated to all\nthinking people that the progress of the mechanical arts has been such\nthat man is now able to inflict upon his own civilization more damage\nthan it is able to endure.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nMAKING OUR MORALS\n\n     (Attempts to show that human morality must change to fit human\n     facts, and there can be no judge of it save human reason.)\n\n\nAssuming the argument of the preceding chapters to be accepted, it\nappears that human life is in part at least a product of human will,\nguided by human intelligence. Man finds himself in the position of the\ncrew of a ship in the middle of the ocean; he does not know exactly how\nthe ship was made, or how it came to be in its present position, but he\nhas discovered how the engines are run, and how the ship is steered, and\nthe meaning of the compass. So now he takes charge of the ship, and\nkeeps it afloat amid many perils; and meantime, on the bridge of the\nvessel, there goes on a furious argument over the question what port the\nship shall be steered to and what chart shall be used.\n\nIt is not well as a rule to trust to similes, but this simile is useful\nbecause it helps us to realize how fluid and changeable are the\nconditions of man's life, and how incessant and urgent the problems with\nwhich he finds himself confronted. The moral and legal codes of mankind\nmay be compared to the steering orders which are given to the helmsman\nof the vessel. Northeast by north, he is told; and if during the night a\nheavy wind arises, and pushes the bow of the vessel off to starboard,\nthen the helmsman has to push the wheel in the opposite direction. If he\ndoes not do so, he may find that his vessel has swung around and is\ngoing to some other part of the world. Next morning the passengers may\nwake up and find the ship on the rocks--because the helmsman persisted\nin following certain steering directions which were laid down in an\nancient Hebrew book two or three thousand years ago!\n\nIf life is a continually changing product, then the laws which govern\nconduct must also be continually changing, and morality is a problem of\ncontinuous adjustment to new circumstances and new needs. If man is free\nto work upon this changing environment, he must be free to make new\ntools and devise new processes. If it is the task of reason to choose\namong many possible courses and many possible varieties of life, then\nclearly it is man's duty to examine and revise every detail of his laws\nand customs and moral codes.\n\nThis is, of course, in flat contradiction to the teachings of all\nreligions. So far as I know there is no religion which does not teach\nthat the conduct of man in certain matters has been eternally fixed by\nsome higher power, and that it is man's duty to conform to these rules.\nIt is considered to be wicked even to suggest any other idea; in fact,\nto do so is the most wicked thing in the world, far more dangerous than\nany actual infraction of the code, whatever it may be.\n\nLet us see how this works out in practice. Let us take, for a test, the\nTen Commandments. These commandments were graven upon stone tablets some\nfour thousand years ago, and are supposed to have been valid ever since.\n\"Thou shalt not kill,\" is one; others phrase it, \"Thou shall do no\nmurder\"; and in this double version we see at once the beginnings of\ncontroversy. If you are a Quaker, you accept the former version, while\nif you are a member of the military general staff of your country you\naccept the latter. You maintain the right to kill your fellow men,\nprovided that those who do the killing have been previously clad in a\nspecial uniform, indicating their distinctive function as killers of\ntheir fellow men. You maintain, in other words, the right of making war;\nand presently, when you get into making war, you find yourself\nmaintaining the right to kill, not merely by the old established method\nof the sword and the bullet, but by means of poison gases which destroy\nthe lives of women and children, perhaps a whole city full at a time.\n\nAnd also, of course, you maintain the right to kill, provided the\nkilling has been formally ordered and sanctioned by a man who sits upon\na raised bench and wears a black robe, and perhaps a powdered wig. You\nconsider that by the simple device of putting this man into a black robe\nand a powdered wig, you endow him with authority to judge and revise the\ndivine law. In other words, you subject this divine law to human reason;\nand if some religious fanatic refuses to be so subjected, you call him\nby the dread name \"pacifist,\" and if he attempts to preach his idea, you\nsend him to prison for ten or twenty years, which means in actual\npractice that you kill him by the slow effects of malnutrition and\ntubercular infection. If he is ordered to put on the special costume of\nkilling, and refuses to do so, you call him a \"C. O.,\" and you bully and\nbeat him, and perhaps administer to him the \"water cure\" in your\ndungeons.\n\nOr take the commandment that we shall not commit adultery. Surely this\nis a law about which we can agree! But presently we discover that\nunhappily married couples desire to part, and that if we do not allow\nthem to part, we actually cause the commission of a great deal more\nadultery than otherwise. Therefore, our wise men meet together, and\nrevise this divine law, and decide that it is not adultery if a man\ntakes another wife, provided he has received from a judge an engraved\npiece of paper permitting him to do so. But some of the followers of\nreligion refuse to admit this right of mere mortal man. The Catholic\nChurch attempts to enforce its own laws, and declares that people who\ndivorce and remarry are really living in adultery and committing mortal\nsin. The Episcopal Church does not go quite so far as that; it allows\nthe innocent party in the divorce to remarry. Other churches are content\nto accept the state law as it stands. Is it not manifest that all these\ngroups are applying human reason, and nothing but human reason, to the\ninterpreting and revising of their divine commandments?\n\nOr take the law, \"Thou shalt not steal.\" Surely we can all agree upon\nthat! Let us do so; but our agreement gets us nowhere, because we have\nto set up a human court to decide what is \"stealing.\" Is it stealing to\nseize upon land, and kill the occupants of it, and take the land for\nyour own, and hand it down to your children forever? Yes, of course,\nthat is stealing, you say; but at once you have to revise your\nstatement. It is not stealing if it was done a sufficient number of\nyears ago; in that case the results of it are sanctified by law, and\nheld unchangeable forever. Also, we run up against the fact that it is\nnot stealing, if it is done by the State, by men who have been dressed\nup in the costume of killers before they commit the act.\n\nAgain, is it stealing to hold land out of use for speculation, while\nother men are starving and dying for lack of land to labor upon? Some of\nus call this stealing, but we are impolitely referred to as \"radicals,\"\nand if we venture to suggest that anyone should resist this kind of\nstealing, we are sentenced to slow death from malnutrition and\ntubercular infection. Again, is it stealing for a victim of our system\nof land monopoly to take a loaf of bread in order to save the life of\nhis starving child? The law says that this is stealing, and sends the\nman to jail for this act; yet the common sense of mankind protests, and\nI have heard a great many respectable Americans venture so far in\n\"radicalism\" as to say that they themselves would steal under such\ncircumstances.\n\nOne could pile up illustrations without limit; but this is enough to\nmake clear the point, that it is perfectly futile to attempt to talk\nabout \"divine\" rules for human conduct. Regardless of any ideas you may\nhold, or any wishes, you are forced at every hour of your life to apply\nyour reason to the problems of your life, and you have no escape from\nthe task of judging and deciding. All that you do is to judge right or\nto judge wrong; and if you judge wrong, you inflict misery upon yourself\nand upon all who come into contact with you. How much more sensible,\ntherefore, to recognize the fact of moral and intellectual\nresponsibility; to investigate the data of life with which you have to\ndeal, the environment by which you are surrounded, and to train your\njudgment so that you will be able to fit yourself to it with quickness\nand certainty!\n\n\"But,\" the believer in religion will say, \"this leaves mankind without\nany guide or authority. How can human beings act, how can they deal with\none another, if there are no laws, no permanent moral codes?\"\n\nThe answer is that to accept the idea of the evolution of morality does\nnot mean at all that there will be no permanent laws and working\nprinciples. Many of the facts of life are fixed for all practical\npurposes--the purposes not merely of your life and my life, but the life\nof many generations. We are not likely to see in our time the end of the\nancient Hebrew announcement that \"the sins of the father are visited\nupon the children\"; therefore it is possible for us to study out a\ncourse of action based upon the duty of every father to hand down to his\nchildren the gift of a sound mind in a sound body. The Catholic Church\nhas had for a thousand years or more the \"mortal sin\" of gluttony upon\nits list; and today comes experimental science with its new weapons of\nresearch, and discovers autointoxication and the hardening of the\narteries, and makes it very unlikely that the moral codes of men will\never fail to list gluttony as a mortal sin. Indeed, science has added to\ngluttony, not merely drunkenness, but all use of alcoholic liquor for\nbeverage purposes; we have done this in spite of the manifest fact that\nthe drinking of wine was not merely an Old Testament virtue, but a New\nTestament religious rite.\n\nTo say that human life changes, and that new discoveries and new powers\nmake necessary new laws and moral customs, is to say something so\nobvious that it might seem a waste of paper and ink. Man has invented\nthe automobile and has crowded himself into cities, and so has to adopt\na rigid set of traffic regulations. So far as I know, it has never\noccurred to any religious enthusiast to seek in the book of Revelation\nfor information as to the advisability of the \"left hand turn\" at\nBroadway and Forty-second Street, New York, at five o'clock in the\nafternoon. But modern science has created new economic facts, just as\nunprecedented as the automobile; it has created new possibilities of\nspending and new possibilities of starving for mankind; it has made new\ncravings and new satisfactions, new crimes and new virtues; and yet the\ngreat mass of our people are still seeking to guide themselves in their\nreadjustments to these new facts by ancient codes which have no more\nrelationship to these facts than they have to the affairs of Mars!\n\nI am acquainted with a certain lady, one of the kindest and most devoted\nsouls alive, who seeks to solve the problems of her life, and of her\nlarge family of children and grand-children, according to sentences\nwhich she picks out, more or less at random, from certain more or less\nrandom chapters of ancient Hebrew literature. This lady will find some\nwords which she imagines apply to the matter, and will shut her devout\neyes to the fact that there are other \"texts,\" bearing on the matter,\nwhich say exactly the opposite. She will place the strangest and most\nunimaginable interpretations upon the words, and yet will be absolutely\ncertain that her interpretation is the voice of God speaking directly to\nher. If you try to tell her about Socialism, she will say, \"The poor ye\nhave always with you\"; which means that it is interfering with Divine\nProvidence to try to remedy poverty on any large scale. This lady is\nready instantly to relieve any single case of want; she regards it as\nher duty to do this; in fact, she considers that the purpose of some\npeople's poverty is to provide her with a chance to do the noble action\nof relieving it. You would think that the meaning of the sentence,\n\"Spare the rod and spoil the child,\" would be so plain that no one\ncould mistake it; but this good lady understood it to mean that God\nforbade the physical chastisement of children, and preferred them\n\"spoiled.\" She held this idea for half a lifetime--until it was pointed\nout to her that the sentence was not in the Bible, but in \"Hudibras,\" an\nold English poem!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE VIRTUE OF MODERATION\n\n     (Attempts to show that wise conduct is an adjustment of means to\n     ends, and depends upon the understanding of a particular set of\n     circumstances.)\n\n\nSome years ago I used to know an ardent single tax propagandist who\nfound my way of arguing intensely irritating, because, as he phrased it,\nI had \"no principles.\" We would be discussing, for example, a protective\ntariff, and I would wish to collect statistics, but discovered to my\nbewilderment that to my single tax friend a customs duty was \"stealing\"\non the part of the government. The government had a right to tax land,\nbecause that was the gift of nature, but it had no right to tax the\nproducts of human labor, and when it took a portion of the goods which\nanyone brought into a country, the government was playing the part of a\nrobber. Of course such a man was annoyed by the suggestion that in the\nearly stages of a country's development it might possibly be a good\nthing for the country to make itself independent and self-sufficient by\nencouraging the development of its manufactures; that, on the other\nhand, when these manufactures had grown to such a size that they\ncontrolled the government, it might be an excellent thing for the\ncountry to subject them to the pressure of foreign competition, in order\nto lower their value as a preliminary to socializing them.\n\nThe reader who comes to this book looking for hard and fast rules of\nlife will be disappointed. It would be convenient if someone could lay\ndown for us a moral code, and lift from our shoulders the inconvenient\nresponsibility of deciding about our own lives. There may be persons so\nweak that they have to have the conditions of their lives thus\ndetermined for them; but I am not writing for such persons. I am writing\nfor adult and responsible individuals, and I bear in mind that every\nindividual is a separate problem, with separate needs and separate\nduties. There are, of course, a good many rules that apply to everybody\nin almost all emergencies, but I cannot think of a single rule that I\nwould be willing to say I would apply in my life without a single\nexception. \"Thou shalt not kill\" is a rule that I have followed, so far\nwithout exception; but as soon as I turn my imagination loose, I can\nthink of many circumstances under which I should kill. I remember\ndiscussing the matter with a pacifist friend of mine, an out-and-out\nreligious non-resistant. I pointed out to him that people sometimes went\ninsane, and in that condition they sometimes seized hatchets and killed\nanyone in sight. What would my pacifist friend do if he saw a maniac\nattacking his children with a hatchet? It did not help him to say that\nhe would use all possible means short of killing the maniac; he had\nfinally to admit that if he were quite sure it was a question of the\nlife of the maniac or the life of his child, he would kill. And this is\nnot mere verbal quibbling, because such things do happen in the world,\nand people are confronted with such emergencies, and they have to\ndecide, and no rule is a general rule if it has a single exception.\nThere is a saying that \"the exception proves the rule,\" but this is very\nsilly; it is a mistranslation of the Latin word \"probat,\" which means,\nnot proves, but tests. No exception can prove a rule. What the exception\ndoes is to test the rule by showing that the result does not follow in\nthe exceptional case.\n\nThe only kind of rule which can be laid down for human conduct is a rule\nin such general terms that it escapes exceptions by leaving the matter\nopen for every man's difference of opinion. Any kind of rule which is\nspecific will sooner or later pass out of date. Take, by way of\nillustration, the ancient and well-established virtue of frugality.\nObviously, under a state of nature, or of economic competition, it is\nnecessary for every man to lay by a store \"for a rainy day.\" But suppose\nwe could set up a condition of economic security, under which society\nguaranteed to every man the full product of his labor, and the old and\nthe sick were fully taken care of--then how foolish a man would seem who\ntroubled to acquire a surplus of goods! It would be as if we saw him\nriding on horseback through the main street of our town in a full suit\nof armor!\n\nI devote a good deal of space to this question of a fixed and\nunchangeable morality, because it is one of the heaviest burdens that\nmankind carries upon its back. The record of human history is sickening,\nnot so much because of blood and slaughter, but because of fanaticism;\nbecause wherever the mind of man attempts to assert itself, to escape\nfrom the blind rule of animal greed, it adopts a set of formulas, and\nproceeds to enforce them, regardless of consequences, upon the whole of\nlife. Consider, for example, the rule of the Puritans in England. The\nPuritans glorified conscience, and it is perfectly proper to glorify\nconscience, but not to the entire suppression of the beauty-making\nfaculties in man. Macaulay summed up the Puritan point of view in the\nsentence that they objected to bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to\nthe bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. As a result of\napplying that principle, and lacing mankind in a straight-jacket by\nlegislation, England swung back into a reaction under the Cavaliers, in\nwhich debauchery held more complete sway than ever before or since in\nEnglish life.\n\nThis is a hard lesson, but it must be learned: there is no virtue that\ndoes not become a vice if it is carried to extremes; there is no virtue\nthat does not become a vice if it is applied at the wrong time, or under\nthe wrong circumstances, or at the wrong stage of human development. In\nfact, we may say that most vices are virtues misapplied. The so-called\nnatural vices are simply natural impulses carried to excess, while the\nunnatural vices result from the suppression and distortion of natural\nimpulses. The Greeks had as their supreme virtue what they called\n\"sophrosune.\" It is a beautiful word, worth remembering; it means a\nbeautiful quality called moderation. We shall find, as we come to\ninvestigate, that life is a series of compromises among many different\nneeds, many different desires, many different duties; and reason sits as\na wise and patient judge, and appoints to each its proper portion, and\ndenies to it an excess which would starve the others. Such is true\nmorality, and it is incompatible with the existence of any fixed code,\nwhether of human origin or divine.\n\nThe fixed morality is a survival of a far-off past, of the days of\ninstinct and servitude. Human reason has developed but slowly, and\nperhaps only a few people are as yet entirely capable of taking control\nof their own destiny; perhaps it is really dangerous to think for\noneself! But if we investigate carefully, we may decide that the danger\nis not so much to ourselves as it is to others. The most evil of all the\nhabits that man has inherited from his far-off past is the habit of\nexploiting his fellows, and in order to exploit them more safely the\nruling castes of priests and kings and nobles and property owners have\ntaken possession of the moralities of the world and shaped them for\ntheir own convenience. They have taught the slave virtues of credulity\nand submission; they have surrounded their teachings with all the\nterrors of the supernatural; they have placed upon rebellion the\npenalties, not merely of this world, but of the next, not merely of the\ndungeon and the rack, but of hellfire and brimstone.\n\nI do not wish to go to extremes and say that the moral codes now taught\nin the world are made wholly in this evil way. As a matter of fact they\nare a queer jumble of the two elements, the slave terrors of the past\nand the common sense of the present. There is not one moral code in the\nworld today, there are many. There is one for the rich, and an entirely\ndifferent one for the poor, and the rich have had a great deal more to\ndo with shaping the code of the poor than the poor have had to do with\nshaping the code of the rich. There is one code for governments, and an\nentirely different one for the victims of governments. There is one code\nfor business, and an entirely different one, a far more human and decent\none, for friendship. Above all, there is one code for Sunday and another\ncode for the other six days of the week. Most of our idealisms and our\nsentimental fine phrases we reserve for our Sunday code, while for our\nevery-day code we go back to the rule of the jungle: \"Dog eat dog,\" or\n\"Do unto others as they would do unto you, but do it first.\" When you\nattempt to suggest a new moral code to our present day moral\nauthorities, it is the fine phrases of the Sunday code they bring out\nfor exhibition purposes; and perhaps you are impressed by their\narguments--until Monday morning, when you attempt to apply this code at\nthe office, and they stare at you in bewilderment, or burst out laughing\nin your face.\n\nWhat I am trying to do here is to outline a code that will not be a\nmatter of phrases but a matter of practice. It will apply to all men,\nrich as well as poor, and to all seven days of the week. I am not so\nmuch suggesting a code, as pointing out to you how you can work out your\nown code for yourself. I am suggesting that you should adopt it, not\nbecause I tell you to, but because you yourself have taken it and tested\nit, precisely as you would test any other of the practical affairs of\nyour life--potatoes as an article of diet, or some particular sack of\npotatoes that a peddler was trying to sell to you. It is not yet\npossible for you to be as sure about everything in your life as you can\nbe about a sack of potatoes; human knowledge has not got that far; but\nat least you can know what is to be known, and if anything is a matter\nof uncertainty, you can know that. Such knowledge is often the most\nimportant of all--just as the driver of an automobile wants to know if a\nbridge is not to be depended on.\n\nSo I say to you that if you want to find happiness in this life, look\nwith distrust upon all absolutes and ultimates, all hard and fast rules,\nall formulas and dogmas and \"general principles.\" Bear in mind that\nthere are many factors in every case, there are many complications in\nevery human being, there are many sides to every question. Try to keep\nan open mind and an even temper. Try to take an interest in learning\nsomething new every day, and in trying some new experiment. This is the\nscientific attitude toward life; this is the way of growth and of true\nsuccess. It is inconvenient, because it involves working your brains,\nand most people have not been taught to do this, and find it the hardest\nkind of work there is. But how much better it is to think for yourself,\nand to protect yourself, than to trust your thinking to some group of\npeople whose only interest may be to exploit you for their advantage!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nTHE CHOOSING OF LIFE\n\n     (Discusses the standards by which we may judge what is best in\n     life, and decide what we wish to make of it.)\n\n\nWe have made the point about evolution, that it may go forward or it may\ngo backward. There is no guarantee in nature that because a thing\nchanges, it must necessarily become better than it was. On the contrary,\ndegeneration is as definitely established a fact as growth, and it is of\nthe utmost importance, in studying the problem of human happiness and\nhow to make it, to get clear the fact that nature has produced, and\ncontinues to produce, all kinds of monstrosities and parasites and\nfailures and abortions. And all these blunders of our great mother\nstruggle just as hard, desire life just as ardently as normal creatures,\nand suffer just as cruelly when they fail. Blind optimism about life is\njust as fatuous and just as dangerous as blind pessimism, and if we\npropose to take charge of life, and to make it over, we shall find that\nwe have to get quickly to the task of deciding what our purpose is.\n\n\"Choose well, your choice is brief and yet endless,\" says Carlyle. You\nare driven in your choice by two facts--first, that you have to choose,\nregardless of whether you want to or not; and second, that upon your\nchoice depend infinite possibilities of happiness or of misery. The\ninterdependence of life is such that you are choosing not merely for the\npresent, but for the future; you are choosing for your posterity\nforever, and to some extent you are choosing for all mankind. Matthew\nArnold has said that \"Conduct is three-fourths of life\"; but I, for my\npart, have never been able to see where he got his figures. It seems to\nme that conduct is practically everything in life that really counts.\nConduct is not merely marriage and birth and premature death; it is not\nmerely eating and drinking and sleeping: it is thinking and aspiring; it\nis religion and science, music and literature and art. It is not yet the\nlightning and the cyclone, but with the spread of knowledge it is coming\nto be these things, and I suspect that some day it may be even the comet\nand the rising of the sun.\n\nWe are now going to apply our reason to this enormous problem of human\nconduct; we are going to ask ourselves the question: What kind of life\ndo we want? What kind of life are we going to make? What are the\nstandards by which we may know excellence in life, and distinguish it\nfrom failure and waste and blunder in life? Obviously, when we have done\nthis, we shall have solved the moral problem; all we shall have to say\nis, act so that your actions help to bring the desirable things into\nbeing, and do not act so as to hinder or weaken them.\n\nWe shall not be able to go to nature to settle this question for us.\nThis is our problem, not nature's. But we shall find, as usual, that we\ncan pick up precious hints from her; we shall be wise to study her ways,\nand learn from her successes and her failures. We are proud of her\nlatest product, ourselves. Let us see how she made us; what were the\nstages on the way to man?\n\nFirst in the scale of evolution, it appears, came inert matter. We call\nit inert, because it looks that way, though we know, of course, that it\nconsists of infinite numbers of molecules vibrating with speed which we\ncan measure even though we cannot imagine it. This \"matter\" is\nenormously fascinating, and a wise man will hesitate to speak\npatronizingly about it. Nevertheless, considering matter apart from the\nmind which studies it, we decide that it represents a low stage of\nbeing. We speak contemptuously of stones and clods and lumps of clay. We\naward more respect to things like mountains and tempest-tossed oceans,\nbecause they are big; in the early days of our race we used to worship\nthese things, but now we think of them merely as the raw material of\nlife, and we should not be in the least interested in becoming a\nmountain or an ocean.\n\nAlmost everyone would agree, therefore, that what we call \"life\" is a\nhigher and more important achievement of nature. And if we wish to grade\nthis life, we do so according to its sentience--that is to say, the\namount and intensity of the consciousness which grows in it. We are\ninterested in the one-celled organisms which swarm everywhere throughout\nnature, and we study the mysterious processes by which they nourish and\nbeget themselves; we suspect that they have a germ of consciousness in\nthem; but we are surer of the meaning and importance of the\nconsciousness we detect in some complex organism like a fish or bird.\nWe learn to know the signs of consciousness, of dawning intelligence,\nand we esteem the various kinds of creatures according to the amount of\nit they possess. We reject mere physical bigness and mere strength.\nJoyce Kilmer may write:\n\n    \"Poems are made by men like me,\n     But only God can make a tree\"--\n\nAnd that seems to us a charming bit of fancy; but the common sense of\nthe thing is voiced to us much better in the lines of old Ben Jonson:\n\n    \"It is not growing like a tree\n     In bulk doth make man better be.\"\n\nIf we take two animals of equal bulk, the hippopotamus and the elephant,\nwe shall be far more interested in the elephant, because of the\nintelligence and what we call \"character\" which he displays. There are\ngood elephants and bad elephants, kind ones and treacherous ones. We\nlove the dog because we can make a companion of him; that is, because we\ncan teach him to react to human stimuli. Of all animals we are\nfascinated most by the monkey, because he is nearest to man, and\ndisplays the keenest intelligence.\n\nSomeone may say that this is all mere human egotism, and that we have no\nway of really being sure that the life of elephants and hippopotami is\nnot more interesting and significant than the life of men. Never having\nbeen either of these animals, I cannot say with assurance; but I know\nthat I have the power to exterminate these creatures, or to pen them in\ncages, and they are helpless to protect themselves, or even to\nunderstand what is happening to them. So I am irresistibly driven to\nconclude that intelligence is more safe and more worth while than\nunintelligence; in short, that intelligence is nature's highest product\nup to date, and that to foster and develop it is the best guess I can\nmake as to the path of wisdom--that is, of intelligence!\n\nWhen we come to deal with human values, we find that we can trace much\nthe same kind of evolution. Back in the days of the cave man, it was\nphysical strength which dominated the horde; but nowadays, except in the\nimagination of the small boy, the \"strong man\" does not cut much of a\nfigure. We go once, perhaps, to see him lift his heavy weights and\nbreak his iron bars, but then we are tired of him. Mere strength had to\nyield in the struggle for life to quickness of eye and hand, to energy\nwhich for lack of a better name we may call \"nervous.\" The pugilist who\nhas nothing but muscle goes down before his lighter antagonist who can\nkeep out of his reach, and the crowd loves the football hero who can\nduck and dodge and make the long runs. One might cite a thousand\nillustrations, such as the British bowmen breaking down the heavily\narmored knights, or the quick-moving, light vessels of Britain\novercoming the huge galleons of Spain. And as society develops and\nbecomes more complex, the fighting man becomes less and less a man of\nmuscle, and more and more a man of \"nerve.\" Alexander, Caesar and\nNapoleon would have stood a poor chance in personal combat against many\nof their followers. They led, because they were men of energy and\ncunning, able to maintain the subtle thing we call prestige.\n\nNow the world has moved into an industrial era, and who are the great\nmen of our time, the men whose lightest words are heeded, whose doings\nare spread upon the front pages of our newspapers? Obviously, they are\nthe men of money. We may pretend to ourselves that we do not really\nstand in awe of a Morgan or a Rockefeller, but that we admire, let us\nsay, an Edison or a Roosevelt. But Edison himself is a man of money, and\nwill tell you that he had to be a man of money in order to be free to\nconduct his experiments. As for our politicians and statesmen, they\neither serve the men of money, or the men of money suppress them, as\nthey did Roosevelt. The Morgans and the Rockefellers do not do much\ntalking; they do not have to. They content themselves with being obeyed,\nand the shaping of our society is in their hands.\n\nAnd yet, some of us really believe that there are higher faculties in\nman than the ability to manipulate the stock market. We consider that\nthe great inventor, the great poet, the great moralist, contributes more\nto human happiness than the man who, by cunning and persistence,\nsucceeds in monopolizing some material necessity of human life. \"Poets,\"\nsays Shelley, \"are the unacknowledged legislators of mankind.\" If this\nstrange statement is anywhere near to truth, it is surely of importance\nthat we should decide what are the higher powers in men, and how they\nmay be recognized, and how fostered and developed.\n\nWhat is, in its essence, the process of evolution from the lower to the\nhigher forms of mental life? It is a process of expanding consciousness;\nthe developing of ability to apprehend a wider and wider circle of\nexistence, to share it, to struggle for it as we do for the life we call\nour \"own.\" The test of the higher mental forms is therefore a test of\nuniversality, of sympathetic inclusiveness; or, to use commoner words,\nit is a test of enlightened unselfishness.\n\nEvery human individual has the will to life, the instinct of\nself-preservation, which persuades him that he is of importance; but the\ntest of his development is his ability to realize that, important though\nhe may be, he is but a small part of the universe, and his highest\ninterests are not in himself alone, his highest duties are not owed to\nhimself alone. And as the life becomes more of the intellect, this fact\nbecomes more and more obvious, more and more dominating. Men who\nmonopolize the material things of the world and their control are\nnecessarily self-seeking; but in the realm of the higher faculties this\nelement, in the very nature of the case, is forced into the background.\nIt is evident that truth is not truth for the Standard Oil Company, nor\nfor J. P. Morgan and Company, nor yet for the government of the United\nStates; it is truth for the whole of mankind, and one who sincerely\nlabors for the truth does so for the universal benefit.\n\nThere may be, of course, an element of selfishness in the activities of\npoets and inventors. They may be seeking for fame; they may be hoping to\nmake money out of their discoveries; but the greatest men we know have\nbeen dominated by an overwhelming impulse of creation, and when we read\ntheir lives, and discover in them signs of petty vanity or jealousy or\ngreed, we are pained and shocked. What touches us most deeply is some\nmark of self-consecration and humility; as, for example, when Newton\ntells us that after all his life's labors he felt himself as a little\nchild gathering sea-shells on the shore of the great ocean of truth; or\nwhen Alfred Russel Wallace, discovering that Darwin had been working\nlonger than himself over the theory of the origin of species, generously\nwithdrew and permitted the theory to go to the world in Darwin's name.\n\nThere are three faculties in man, usually described as intellect,\nfeeling and will. According as one or the other faculty predominates,\nwe have a great scientist, a great poet, or a great moralist. We might\nchoose a representative of each type--let us say Newton, Shakespeare and\nJesus--and spend much time in controversy as to which of the three types\nis the greatest, which makes the greatest contribution to human\nhappiness. But it will suffice here to point out that the three\nfaculties do not exclude one another; every man must have all three, and\na perfectly rounded man should seek to develop all three. Jesus was\nconsiderable of a poet, and we should pay far less heed to Shakespeare\nif he had not been a moralist. Also there have been instances of great\npoets and painters who were scientists--for example, Leonardo and\nGoethe.\n\nThe fundamental difference between the scientist and the poet is that\none is exploring nature and discovering things which actually exist,\nwhereas the other is creating new life out of his own spirit. But the\npoet will find that his creations take but little hold upon life, if\nthey are not guided and shaped by a deep understanding of life's\nfundamental nature and needs--in other words, if the poet is not\nsomething of a scientist. And in the same way, the very greatest\ndiscoveries of science seem to us like leaps of creative imagination; as\nif the mind had completed nature, through some intuitive and sympathetic\nunderstanding of what nature wished to be.\n\nThe point about these higher forms of human activity is that they renew\nand multiply life. We may say that if Jesus had never lived, others\nwould have embodied and set forth with equal poignancy the revolutionary\nidea of the equality of all men as children of one common father. And\nperhaps this is true; but we have no way of being sure that it is true,\nand as we look back upon the last nineteen hundred years of human\nhistory, we are unable to imagine just what the life of mankind during\nthose centuries would have been if Jesus had died when he was a baby. We\ndo not know what modern thought might have been without Kant, or what\nmodern music might have been without Beethoven. We are forced to admit\nthat if it had not been for the patient wisdom and persuasive kindness\nof Lincoln, the Slave Power might have won its independence, and America\ntoday might have been a military camp like Europe, and the lives and\nthoughts of every one of us would have been different.\n\nOr take the activities of the poet. Many years ago the writer was asked\nto name the men who had exercised the greatest influence upon him, and\nafter much thought he named three: Jesus, Hamlet and Shelley. And now\nconsider the significance of this reply. One of these people, Shelley,\nwas what we call a \"real\" person; that is, a man who actually lived and\nwalked upon the earth. Concerning Hamlet, it is believed there was once\na Prince of Denmark by that name, but the character who is known to us\nas Hamlet is the creation of a poet's brain. As to the third figure,\nJesus, the authorities dispute. Some say that he was a man who actually\nlived; others believe that he was God on earth; yet others, very\nlearned, maintain that he is a legendary name around which a number of\ntraditions have gathered.\n\nTo me it does not make a particle of difference which of the three\npossibilities happens to be true about Jesus. If he was God on earth, he\nwas God in human form, under human limitations, and in that sense we are\nall gods on earth. And whether he really lived, or whether some poet\ninvented him, matters not a particle so far as concerns his effect upon\nothers. The emotions which moved him, the loves, the griefs, the high\nresolves, existed in the soul of someone, whether his name were Jesus or\nJohn; and these emotions have been recorded in such form that they\ncommunicate themselves to us, they become a part of our souls, they make\nus something different from what we were before we encountered them.\n\nIn other words, the poet makes in his own soul a new life, and then\nprojects it into the world, and it becomes a force which makes over the\nlives of millions of other people. If you read the vast mass of\ncriticism which has grown up about the figure of Hamlet, you learn that\nHamlet is the type of the \"modern man.\" Shakespeare was able to divine\nwhat the modern man would be; or perhaps we can go farther and say that\nShakespeare helped to make the modern man what he is; the modern man is\nmore of Hamlet, because he has taken Hamlet to his heart and pondered\nover Hamlet's problem. Or take Don Quixote. No doubt the follies of the\n\"age of chivalry\" would have died out of men's hearts in the end; but\nhow much sooner they died because of the laughter of Cervantes! Or take\n\"Les Miserables.\" Our prison system is not ideal by any means, but it is\nfar less cruel than it was half a century ago, and we owe this in part\nto Victor Hugo. Every convict in the world is to some degree a happier\nman because of this vision which was projected upon the world from the\nsoul of one great poet. No one can estimate the part which the writings\nof Tolstoi have played in the present revolution in Russia, but this we\nmay say with certainty: there is not one man, woman or child in Russia\nat the present moment who is quite the same as he would have been if\n\"Resurrection\" had never been written.\n\nIn discussing the highest faculties of man we have so far refrained from\nusing the word \"genius.\" It is a word which has been cheapened by\nmisuse, but we are now in position to use it. The things which we have\njust been considering are the phenomena of genius--and we can say this,\neven though we may not know exactly what genius is. Perhaps it is, as\nFrederic Myers asserts, a \"subliminal uprush,\" the welling up into the\nconsciousness of some part of the content of the subconscious mind. Or\nperhaps it is something of what man calls \"divine.\" Or perhaps it is the\nfirst dawning, the first hint of that super-race which will some day\nreplace mankind. Perhaps we are witnessing the same thing that happened\non the earth when glimmerings of reason first broke upon the mind of\nsome poor, bewildered ape. We cannot be sure; but this much we can say:\nthe man of genius represents the highest activity of the mind of which\nwe as yet have knowledge. He represents the spirit of man, fully\nemancipated, fully conscious, and taking up the task of creation; taking\nhuman life as raw material, and making it over into something more\nsubtle, more intense, more significant, more universal than it ever was\nbefore, or ever would have been without the intervention of this new\nGod-man.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nMYSELF AND MY NEIGHBOR\n\n     (Compares the new morality with the old, and discusses the relative\n     importance of our various duties.)\n\n\nSo now we may say that we know what are the great and important things\nin life. Slowly and patiently, with infinite distress and waste and\nfailure, but yet inevitably, the life of man is being made over and\nmultiplied to infinity, by the power of the thinking mind, impelled by\nthe joy and thrill of the creative action, and guided by the sense of\nresponsibility, the instinct to serve, which we call conscience. To\ndevelop these higher faculties is the task we have before us, and the\nsupreme act to which we dedicate ourselves.\n\nSo now we are in position to define the word moral. Assuming that our\nargument be accepted, that action is moral which tends to foster the\nbest and highest forms of life we know, and to aid them in developing\ntheir highest powers; that is immoral which tends to destroy the best\nlife we know, or to hinder its rapid development.\n\nLet us now proceed to apply these tests to the practices of man; first\nas an individual, and then as a social being. What are my duties to\nmyself, and what are my duties to the world about me?\n\nYou will note that these questions differ somewhat from those of the old\nmorality. Jesus told us, first, that we should love the Lord our God,\nand, second, that we should love our neighbor as ourself. Some would say\nthat modern thought has dismissed God from consideration; but I would\nprefer to say that modern thought has decided that the place where we\nencounter God most immediately is in our own miraculously expanding\nconsciousness. Our duty toward God is our duty to make of ourselves the\nmost perfect product of the Divine Incarnation that we can become. Our\nduty to our neighbor is to help him to do the same.\n\nOf course, as we come to apply these formulas, we find that they overlap\nand mingle inextricably; the two duties are really one duty looked at\nfrom different points of view. We decide that we owe it to ourselves to\ndevelop our best powers of thinking, and we discover that in so doing we\nmake ourselves better fitted to live as citizens, better equipped to\nhelp our fellow men. We go out into our city to serve others by making\nthe city clean and decent, and we find that we have helped to save\nourselves from a pestilence.\n\nThe most commonly accepted, or at any rate the most commonly preached,\nof all formulas is the \"golden rule,\" \"Do unto others as you would have\nthem do unto you.\" This formula is good so far as it goes, but you note\nthat it leaves undetermined the all-important question, what _ought_ we\nto want others to do unto us. If I am an untrained child, what I would\nhave others do unto me is to give me plenty of candy; therefore, under\nthe golden rule, my highest duty becomes to distribute free candy to the\nworld. The \"golden rule\" is obviously consistent with all forms of\nself-indulgence, and with all forms of stagnation; it might result in a\ncivilization more static than China.\n\nOr let us take the formula which the German philosopher Kant worked out\nas the final product of his thinking: \"Act so that you would be willing\nfor your action to become a general rule of conduct.\" Here again is the\nsame problem. There are many possible general rules of conduct. Some\nwould prefer one, some others; and there is no possible way of escape\nfrom the fact that before men can agree what to do, they must decide\nwhat they wish to make of their lives.\n\nTo the formula of Jesus, \"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,\" the\nanswer is obvious enough: \"Suppose my neighbor is not worthy of as much\nlove as myself?\" To be sure, it is a perilous thing for me to have to\ndecide this question; nevertheless, it may be a fact that I am a great\ninventor, and that my neighbor is a sexual pervert. There is, of course,\na sense in which I may love him, even so; I may love the deeper\npossibilities of his nature, which religious ecstasy can appeal to and\narouse. But in spite of all ecstasies and all efforts, it may be that\nhis disease--physical, mental and moral--has progressed to such a point\nthat it is necessary to confine him, or to castrate him, or even to\nasphyxiate him painlessly. To say that I must love such a man as myself\nis, to say the least, to be vague. We can see how the indiscriminate\npreaching of such a formula would open the flood-gates of sentimentality\nand fraud.\n\nModern thinking says: Thou shalt love the highest possibilities of life,\nand thou shalt labor diligently to foster them; moreover, because life\nis always growing, and new possibilities are forever dawning in the\nhuman spirit, thou shalt keep an open mind and an inquiring temper, and\nbe ready at any time to begin life afresh.\n\nSuch is the formula. It is not simple; and when we come to apply it, we\nfind that it constantly grows more complex. When we attempt to decide\nour duty to ourselves, we find that we have in us a number of different\nbeings, each with separate and sometimes conflicting duties and needs.\nWe have in us the physical man and the economic man, and these clamor\nfor their rights, and must have at least a part of their rights, before\nwe can go on to be the intellectual man, the moral man, or the artistic\nman. So our life becomes a series of compromises and adjustments between\na thousand conflicting desires and duties; between the different beings\nwhich we might be, but can be only to a certain extent, and at certain\ntimes. We shall see, as we come to investigate one field after another\nof human activity, that we never have an absolute certainty, never an\nabsolute right, never an absolute duty; never can we shut our eyes, and\ngo blindly ahead upon one course of action, to the exclusion of every\nother consideration! On the contrary, we sit in the seat of\nself-determination as a highly trained and skillful engineer. We keep\nour eyes upon a dozen different gauges; we press a lever here and touch\na regulator there; we decide that now is a time for speed, and now for\ncaution; and knowing all the time that the safety, not merely of\nourselves, but of many passengers, depends upon the decisions of each\nmoment.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nTHE MIND AND THE BODY\n\n     (Discusses the interaction between physical and mental things, and\n     the possibility of freedom in a world of fixed causes.)\n\n\nIt is our plan, so far as possible, to discuss the problems of the mind\nin one section of this book, and the problems of the body in another;\nbut just as we found that we could not separate our duties to ourself\nfrom our duties to our neighbors, so we find that the mind and the body\nare inextricably interwoven, and that whenever we probe deeply into one,\nwe discover the other. The interaction of the mind and the body is a\nfascinating problem into which we must look for a moment, not because we\nexpect to solve it, but because it illuminates the whole subject.\n\nThe human body is a machine. It takes in carbon and oxygen, and burns\nthem, and gives out carbon dioxide and other waste products, and\ndevelops energy in proportion to the amount of carbon it consumes. This\nmachine has its elaborate apparatus of action and reaction, its sensory\norgans where outside stimuli are received, its nerves like telegraph\nwires to carry these impressions, its brain cells to store them and to\ntransform them into reactions. We know to some extent how these brain\ncells work. We know what portions of the brain are devoted to this or\nthat activity. We know that if we stick a pin into a certain spot we\nshall paralyze the left forefinger. We know that by injecting a certain\ndrug, or by breathing a certain gas, we can cause this or that sensation\nor reaction, such as laughing or weeping or mania. We know what poisons\nare generated in the system by anger, and what chemical changes take\nplace in a muscle that is tired. All this is part of a vast new science\nwhich is called bio-chemistry, or the chemistry of life.\n\nOur bodies, therefore, are part of the material universe, and subject to\nthe laws or ways of being of this universe. The first of these laws that\nwe know is the law of causation. Every change in the universe has its\ncause, and that in turn had another cause; this chain is never broken,\nno matter how far we go, and the same causes universally produce the\nsame effects. If you see a ball move on a billiard table, you know that\nthe ball did not move itself; you know that something struck the ball or\ntilted the table. You discover that the motion of the ball moves the air\naround it, and the waves of that motion are spread through the room.\nThey strike the walls, and the motion is carried on through the walls,\nand if we had instruments sensitive enough, we could feel the motion of\nthat billiard ball at the other side of the world, and a few million\nyears from now at the most remote of the stars. This is what is called\nthe law of the conservation of energy, and when we discover something\nlike radium which seems to violate that law by giving out unlimited\nquantities of energy, we investigate and discover a new form of energy\nlocked up in the atom. In the disintegration of the atom we have a\nsource of power which, when we have learned to use it, will multiply\nperhaps millions of times the powers we are now able to use on this\nearth. But energy, no matter how many times it is transformed, and in\nwhat strange ways it reappears, always remains, and is never destroyed,\nand never created out of nothing.\n\nMy friend the great physiologist once took me into his laboratory and\nshowed me a little aquarium in which some minute creatures were wiggling\nabout--young sea-urchins, if I remember. The physiologist took a bottle\ncontaining some chemical, and dropped a single drop into the water, and\ninstantly all these little black creatures, which had been darting\naimlessly in every direction through the water, turned and swam all in\none direction, toward the light. They swam until they touched the walls\nof the aquarium, and there they stuck, trying their best to swim\nfarther. \"And now,\" said my friend, \"that is what we call a 'tropism,'\nand all life is a tropism. What you see in that aquarium means that some\nday we shall know just what combination of chemicals causes a human\nbeing to move this way or that, to do this thing or that. When\nbio-chemistry has progressed sufficiently, we shall be able to make\nhuman qualities, perhaps in the sperm, perhaps in the embryo, perhaps\nday by day by means of diet or injection.\"\n\nSaid I: \"Some day, when bio-chemistry has progressed far enough, you\nwill know what combination of chemicals causes a man to vote the\nDemocratic or Republican ticket.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" answered my friend. (He has a sense of humor about all things\nexcept this sacred bio-chemistry.)\n\nSaid I: \"When you have got to that stage, keep the secret carefully, and\nwe will fix up a scheme, and a few days before election we will release\nsome gas in our big cities, and sweep the country for the Socialist\nticket.\"\n\nBut jesting aside: if the human body is a material thing, existing in\nthe material world and subject to causation, there must be material\nreasons for the actions of human bodies, just the same as for the moving\nof billiard balls. We hear the sound of a billiard ball striking the\ncushion, and we are prepared to accept the idea that the thing we call\nhearing in us is caused by the impinging of sound waves upon our\neardrums. And if we investigate human beings in the mass, we find every\nreason to believe that they act according to laws, and that there are\nmaterial causes for their acts. If you get up and shout fire in a\ntheater, you know how the audience will behave. If you study statistics,\nyou can say that in any large city a certain fixed number of human\nbeings are going to commit suicide every month; you can even say that\nmore are going to commit suicide in the month of June than in any other\nmonth. You can say that more people are going to die at two o'clock in\nthe morning than at any other hour. You know that certain changes in the\nweather will cause all human beings to behave in the same way. You know\nthat an increase of prices or an increase of unemployment will cause a\ncertain additional number of men to commit crimes, and a certain\nadditional number of women to become prostitutes. You know that if a man\novereats, his thoughts will change their color; he will have what he\ncalls \"the blues.\" I might cite a thousand other illustrations to prove\nthat human minds are subject to material laws, and therefore to\ninvestigation by the bio-chemists.\n\nBut now, stop a moment. Here you sit reading a book. Something in the\nbook pleases you, and you say, \"Good!\" Perhaps you slap your knee or\nclench your fist. Now here is a motion of your hand, which stirs the air\nabout you, and which, according to the laws of energy, will spread its\neffects to the other side of the world, and even to the farthest of the\nstars. Or perhaps the book makes you angry, and you throw it down in\ndisgust; an entirely different motion, which will affect the other side\nof the world and the farthest of the stars in an entirely different\nway. The machine of the universe will be forever altered because of that\nslapping of your knee or that throwing down of your book.\n\nAnd what was the cause of these things? So far as we can see, the\nmaterial cause was exactly the same in each case--the reading of certain\nletters. Two human beings, sitting side by side and reading exactly the\nsame letters, might be affected in exactly opposite ways. It seems\nhardly rational to maintain that the material difference of two pairs of\neyes, moving over exactly the same set of letters, could have resulted\nin two such different motions of the hands. As a matter of fact, the\nvery same letters may affect the same person in different ways. The\ncomposer, Edward MacDowell, once told me how on his birthday his pupils\nsent him a gift, with a card containing some lines from the opera\n\"Rheingold,\" beginning, \"O singe fort\"--that is, \"Oh, sing on.\" But the\ncomposer happened, when glancing at the card, to think French instead of\nGerman, and got the message, \"Oh, powerful monkey!\" This, of course, was\ndisconcerting to a famous piano performer, and his pupils, if they had\nbeen watching his face, would have seen an unexpected reaction. It seems\nmanifest, does it not, that the cause of this difference of reaction was\nnot any difference of the letters, but purely a difference of _thought_?\nSo it appears that thoughts may change the material universe; they may\nbreak the chain of causation, and interfere with material events.\n\nCompare the two things, a state of consciousness and say, a steam\nshovel. They are entirely different, and so far as we can see, entirely\nincompatible and unrelated. Can anyone imagine how a thought can turn\ninto a steam shovel, or a steam shovel into a thought? We can understand\nhow a steam shovel lifts a mass of earth out of the ground, and we can\nunderstand how a human hand moves a lever which causes the shovel to\nact; but we are unable to conceive how a state of mind--whether it be a\ndesire for pay, or an ideal of service, or a vision of the Panama\nCanal--can so affect a steam shovel as to cause it to move. We can sit\nand think motion at a billiard ball for a thousand years, and it does\nnot move; but when we think motion at our hand, it moves instantly, and\npasses on the motion to the billiard ball or the steam shovel. When fire\ntouches our hand it sends some kind of vibration to the brain, and in\nsome inconceivable way that vibration is turned into a state of\nconsciousness called pain, and that is turned, \"as quick as thought,\"\ninto another kind of motion, the jerking back of our hand.\n\nSo it seems certain that consciousness really does \"butt in\" on the\nchain of natural causation. And yet, just see in what position this\nleaves the scientist who is investigating life! Imagine if you can, the\nplight of a doctor who wanted to prescribe a diet for a sick person, if\nhe knew that every piece of chicken and every piece of fish were free to\ndecide of its own impulse whether or not it would be digested in the\nhuman stomach. But the plight of this doctor would be nothing to the\nplight of the chemist or the biologist or the engineer who was asked to\ndo his thinking and his planning in a world containing a billion and a\nquarter human beings, each one a lawless agent, each one a source of new\nand unforeseeable energies, each one acting as a \"first cause,\" and\nstarting new chains of activity, tearing the universe to pieces\naccording to his own whims. What kind of a universe would that be? It\nwould simply be a chaos; there could be no thinking, there could be no\nlife in it; there could be no two things the same in it, and no laws of\nany sort.\n\nSo then we fall back into the hands of the \"determinists,\" who assert\none unbreakable chain of natural causation, and regard the human body as\nan automaton. We go back to the bio-chemist, who purposes some day to\nascertain for us just exactly what molecules of matter in just what\npositions and combinations in the brain cells of William Shakespeare\ncaused him to perpetrate a mixed metaphor. We go back to the belief that\nhuman beings act as they must act, because the clock of life, wound up\nand started, must move in such and such a fashion.\n\nBut now, let us see what are the implications of that theory! Here am I\nwriting a book, appealing to men to act in certain ways. Of course, I\nknow that not all will follow my advice. Some will be foolish--or what\nseems to me foolish. Others will be weak, and will resolve to act in\ncertain ways, and then go and act in other ways. But some will be just;\nsome will be free; some will use their brains--because, you see, I am\nconvinced that they _can_ use their brains! I am convinced that ideas\nwill affect and stir them, in complete defiance of the bio-chemist, who\ntells me that they act that way because of certain chemicals in their\nbrain cells, and that I write my book because of other chemicals, and\nthat my idea that I am writing the book because I want to write it is a\ndelusion, and that the whole thing is happening just so because the\nuniverse was wound up that way.\n\nNow, this an unsolved problem, and I have no solution to offer. What I\nhave set forth is in substance one of the four \"antinomies\" of Kant, and\nyou can see for yourself how it is possible to prove either side, and\nimpossible to be sure of either. Perhaps there is really a duality in\nlife. Perhaps there are two aspects of the universe, the material and\nthe spiritual, and perhaps they do not really interact as they seem to,\nbut both are guided and determined by some higher reality of life of\nwhich we know nothing. In that case there would really be a chemical\nequivalent for every thought, and there would be a trace of\nconsciousness for every material atom in the universe. Maybe the\ntheologians are right, and in the universal consciousness of God the\nwhole future exists predetermined. Maybe to God there is no such thing\nas time; the past, the present, and the future are all alike to Him.\n\nThere is nothing more painful to the human mind than to have to confess\nits own impotence. Yet I can see no escape from the dilemma we are here\nfacing. There is not a man alive who does not assume the freedom of the\nwill, who does not show in all his acts that he agrees with old Dr.\nSamuel Johnson: \"We know we are free and there's an end on't.\" Without a\nbelief in freedom we cannot get beyond the animal, we cannot become the\nmasters of our own souls. And yet, the man who swallows that idea whole,\nand goes out into the world and preaches personal morality to the\nneglect of the fundamental economic facts, the facts of the body in its\nrelationship to all other bodies--we know what happens to that man; he\nbecomes a shouting fool. Unless he is literally a fool, or a knave, he\nquickly discovers his own futility, and proceeds to use his common\nsense, in spite of all his theories. \"Come to Jesus!\" cried William\nBooth, and he went out in the streets of London to save souls with a\nbass drum; but presently, in day by day contact with the degradation of\nthe London slums, he realized that he could not save souls so long as\nthose souls were dwelling in starved and lousy bodies. So William Booth\nwith his Salvation Army took to starting night shelters and cast-off\nclothing bureaus!\n\nAnd of exactly the same sort is the bewilderment which falls to the lot\nof the scientist who is honest and willing to face the facts. The\nbio-chemist with his test tubes and his microscopes and his complex\napparatus of research sits himself down and accumulates a mass of\ninformation about the human body. He investigates the diseases of the\nbody and learns in detail just how these diseases spread and sometimes\nhow they are caused; he can present you with a diagnosis, showing the\nexact stage to which the degeneration of a certain organ has proceeded,\nand perhaps he can suggest to you a change of diet or some drug which\nwill, for a time at least, check the process of the breakdown. But in\nother cases he will be perfectly helpless; he will be, as it were,\nburied under the mass of detail which he has accumulated; he will find\nthe vital energy depressed, and he will not know any way to renew it.\nBut along will come some mental specialist, who in a half hour's talk\nwith the patient, by a simple change in the patient's _ideas_, will\ncompletely make over the patient's life, and set going a new vital\nprocess which will restore the body to its former health. A religious\nenthusiast may do this, a psychotherapist may do it, a moral genius may\ndo it; and the physician with all his learning will find himself like a\nman on the outside of a house, peering in through the windows and trying\nin vain to find out something about the life of the family and its\nguests.\n\nThis is humiliating to the chemist and the medical man, but they have to\nface it, because it is a fact. In the seat of authority over the human\nbody there sits a higher being which, without any religious\nimplications, we may call the soul; or, if it is impossible to get away\nfrom the religious implication of that word, we will call it the\nconsciousness, or the personality. This master of the house of life is\nin many ways dependent upon the house. If the furnace goes out he\nfreezes, and if the house takes fire and burns up--well, he disappears\nand leaves no address. But in other ways the master of the house is\nreally master, and is a worker of miracles. He does things which we do\nnot at all understand, and cannot yet even foresee, but which often\ncompletely make the house over.\n\nWilliam James, a scientist of real authority, has a wonderful essay,\n\"The Powers of Men,\" in which he sets forth the fact that human beings\nas a general rule make use of only a small portion of the energies which\ndwell in their beings, and that one of our problems is to find the ways\nby which we can draw upon stores of hidden energy which we have within\nus. Also, in a fascinating book, \"Varieties of the Religious\nExperience,\" James has endeavored to study and analyze the phenomena\nwhich hitherto the physician and the biologist have been disposed to\nridicule and neglect. But unless I am mistaken, every scientist in the\nend will be forced to come back to the central fact, that life is a\nunity, and that the heart of it is the spirit; that what we call the\nwill is not an accident, not a delusion, not some by-product of nature,\nbut is the very secret of life; and that behind it is a vast ocean of\npower, which now and then sweeps away all dykes, and floods into the\nhuman consciousness.\n\nThe writer of this book is now a patient and plodding teacher of a\ncertain economic doctrine, a preacher of what he might call\nanti-parasitism. He has come to the conclusion that the habit of men to\nenslave their fellows and exploit them and draw their substance from\nthem without return--that this habit is destructive to all civilization,\nand is incompatible with any of the higher forms of life, intellectual,\nmoral or artistic. He has come to the conclusion that there is no use\nattempting to build a structure of social life until there is a sound\nfoundation; in other words, until the capitalist system has been\nreplaced by cooperation. But in his youth he was, or thought he was, a\npoet, and touched upon that strange and wonderful thing which we call\ngenius. He saw his own consciousness, as it were a leaf driven before a\nmighty tempest of spiritual energy. And he believes that this experience\nwas no delusion, but was a revelation of the hidden mysteries of being.\nHe still has memories of this startling experience, still hints of it in\nhis consciousness; something still leaps in his memory, like a\nrace-horse, or like the war-horse of Revelations, which \"scenteth the\nbattle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the shouting.\" Because\nof these things he can never accept any philosophy which shackles the\nhuman spirit, he will never in his thought attempt to set bounds to the\npossibilities of human life. The very heart of life beats in us, the\nwonder of it and the glory of it swells like a tide behind us. New\nuniverses are born in us, or, if you prefer, they are made by us; and\nthe process is one of endless joy, of rapture beyond anything that the\naverage man can at present imagine, or that any instruments invented by\nscience can weigh or measure.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nTHE MIND OF THE BODY\n\n     (Discusses the subconscious mind, what it is, what it does to the\n     body, and how it can be controlled and made use of by the\n     intelligence.)\n\n\nThe importance of the mind in matters of health becomes clearer when we\nunderstand that what we commonly call our minds--the mental states which\nconfront us day by day in our consciousness--are really but a small\nportion of our total mind. In addition to this conscious mind there is\nan enormous mass of our personality which is like a storehouse attached\nto our dwelling, a place to which we do not often go, but to which we\ncan go in case of need. This storehouse is our memory, the things we\nknow and can recall at will. And then there is another, still vaster\nstorehouse--no one has ever measured or guessed the size of it--which\napparently contains everything that we have ever known, perhaps also\neverything that our ancestors have known. A common simile for the human\nmind is that of an iceberg; a certain portion of it appears above the\nsurface of the sea, but there is seven times as much of it floating out\nof sight under the water.\n\nThis subconscious mind seems to be the portion most closely united with\nthe body. It has its seat in the back parts of the brain, in the spinal\ncord and the greater nervous ganglia, such as the solar plexus. It is\nthe portion of our mind which controls the activities of our body, all\nthose miraculous things which went on before we first opened our eyes to\nthe light, and which go on while we sleep, and never cease until we die.\nWhen we cut our finger and admit foreign germs to our blood, some\nmysterious power causes millions of our blood corpuscles to be rushed to\nthis spot, to destroy and devour the invading enemy. We do not know how\nthis is done, but it is an intelligent act, measured and precisely\nregulated, as much so as a railroad time-table. When the supply of\nnourishment in the body becomes low, something issues a notice by way of\nour stomach, which we call hunger; when we take food into the stomach,\nsomething pours out the gastric juice to digest it; when this digested\nfood is prepared and taken up in the blood stream, something decides\nwhat portion of it shall be turned into muscle, what into brain cells,\nwhat into hair, what into finger nails. Sometimes, of course, mistakes\nare made and we have diseases. But for the most part all this infinitely\nintricate process goes on day and night without a hitch, and it is all\nthe work of what we might call \"the mind of the body.\"\n\nAnd just as our material bodies are the product of an age-long process\nof development repeated in embryo by every individual, so is this mental\nlife a product of long development, and carries memories of this far-off\nprocess. In our instincts there dwells all the past, not merely of the\nhuman race, but of all life, and if we should ever succeed in completely\nprobing the subconscious mind and bringing it into our consciousness, it\nwould be the same as if we were free to ramble about in all the past.\nHuxley set forth the fact that all the history of evolution is told in a\npiece of chalk; and we probably do not exaggerate in saying that all the\nhistory of the universe is in the subconscious mind of every human\nbeing. When the partridge which has just come out of the egg sees the\nshadow of the hawk flit by and crouches motionless as a leaf, the\npartridge is not acting upon any knowledge which it has acquired in the\nfew minutes since it was hatched. It is acting upon a knowledge\nimpressed upon its subconscious mind by the experience of millions of\npartridges, perhaps for tens of thousands of years. When the physician\nlifts the newly born infant by its ankle and spanks it to make it cry,\nthe physician is using his conscious reason, because he has learned from\nprevious experience, or has been taught in the schools that it is\nnecessary for the child's breathing apparatus to be instantly cleared.\nBut when the child responds to the spanking with a yell, it is not moved\nby reasoned indignation at an undeserved injury; it is following an\nautomatic reaction, as a result of the experience of infants in the\nstone age, experience which in some obscure way has been registered and\nstored in the infant cerebellum.\n\nScience is now groping its way through this underworld of thought.\nObviously we should have here a most powerful means of influencing the\nbody, if by any chance we could control it. We are continually seeking\nin medical and surgical ways to stimulate or to retard activities of the\nbody, which are controlled entirely by this subconscious mind. If we are\nsuffering intense pain in a joint, we put on a mustard plaster, what we\ncall a counter-irritant, to trouble the skin and draw the congested\nblood away from the place of the pain. On the other hand, we may\nstimulate the functions of the intestines by the application of hot\nfomentations, to bring the blood more actively to that region. But if by\nany means we could make clear our wishes to the subconscious mind, we\nshould be dealing with headquarters, and should get quicker and more\npermanent results.\n\nCan we by any possibility do this? To begin with, let me tell you of a\nsimple experiment that I have witnessed. I once knew a man who had\nlearned to control the circulation of his blood by his conscious will. I\nhave seen him lay his two hands on the table, both of the same color,\nand without moving the hands, cause one hand to turn red and the other\nto turn pale. And, obviously, so far as this man is concerned, the\nproblem of counter-irritants has been solved. He is a mental mustard\nplaster.\n\nAnd what was done by this man's own will can be done to others in many\nways. The most obvious is a device which we call hypnotism. This is a\nkind of sleep which affects only the conscious control of the body, but\nleaves all the senses awake. In this hypnotic sleep or \"trance\" we\ndiscover that the subconscious mind is a good deal like the Henry Dubb\nof the Socialist cartoons; it is faithful and persistent, very strong in\nits own limited field, but comically credulous, willing to believe\nanything that is told it, and to take orders from any one who climbs\ninto the seat of authority. You have perhaps attended one of the\nexhibitions which traveling hypnotists are accustomed to give in country\nvillages. You have seen some bumpkin brought upon the stage and\nhypnotized, and told that he is in the water and must swim for his life,\nor that he is in the midst of a hornets' nest, or that his trousers are\ntorn in the seat--any comical thing that will cause an audience to howl\nwith laughter.\n\nThese facts were first discovered nearly a hundred and fifty years ago\nby a French doctor named Mesmer. He was a good deal of a charlatan, and\nwould not reveal his secrets, and probably the scientific men of that\ntime were glad to despise him, because what he did was so new and\nstrange. There is a certain type of scientific mind which sits aloft on\na throne with a framed diploma above its head, and says that what it\nknows is science and what it does not know is nonsense. And so\n\"mesmerism\" was left for the quacks and traveling showmen. But half a\ncentury later a French physician named Liebault took up this method of\nhypnotism, without all the fakery that had been attached to it. He\nexperimented and discovered that he could cure not merely phobias and\nmanias, fixed ideas, hysterias and melancholias; he could cure definite\nphysical diseases of the physical body, such as headache, rheumatism,\nand hemorrhage. Later on two other physicians, Janet and Charcot,\ndeveloped definite schools of \"psychotherapy.\" They rejected hypnotism\nas in most cases too dangerous, but used a milder form which is known as\n\"hypnoidization.\" You would be surprised to know how many ailments which\nbaffle the skill of medical men and surgeons yield completely to a\nsingle brief treatment by such a mental specialist.\n\nAll that is necessary is some method to tap the subconscious mind. In\nmany cases the subconsciousness knows what is the matter, and will tell\nat once--a secret that is completely hidden from the consciousness. For\nexample, a man's hands shake; they have been shaking for years, and he\nhas no idea why, but his subconscious mind explains that they first\nbegan to shake with grief over the death of his wife; also, the\nsubconscious mind meekly and instantly accepts the suggestion that the\ntime for grief is past, and that the hands will never shake again.\n\nOr here is a woman who has become convinced that worms are crawling all\nover her. Everything that touches her becomes a worm, even the wrinkles\nin her dress are worms, and she is wild with nervousness, and of course\nis on the way to the lunatic asylum. She is hypnotized and sees the\noperator catching these worms one by one and killing them. She is told\nthat he has killed the last, but she insists, \"No, there is one more.\"\nThe operator clutches that one, and she is perfectly satisfied, and\ncompletely cured. Her husband writes, expressing his relief that he no\nlonger has to \"sleep every night in a fish pond.\" This instance with\nmany others is told by Professor Quackenbos in his book, \"Hypnotic\nTherapeutics.\"\n\nAmong the most powerful means to influence the subconscious personality\nis religious excitement. Religion has come down to us from ancient\ntimes, and its fears and ecstasies are a part of our instinctive\nendowment. Those who can sway religious emotions can cure disease, not\nmerely fixed ideas, but many diseases which appear to be entirely\nphysical, but which psycho-analysis reveals to be hysterical in nature.\nOf course these religious persons who heal by laying on of hands or by\npurely mental means deny indignantly that they are using hypnotism or\nanything like it. I am aware that I shall bring upon myself a flood of\nletters from Christian Scientists if I identify their methods of curing\nwith \"animal magnetism\" and \"manipulation,\" and other devices of the\ndevil which they repudiate. All I can say is that their miracles are\nbrought about by affecting the subconscious mind; there is no other way\nto bring them about, and for my part I cannot see that it makes a great\ndifference whether the subconscious mind is affected by a hand laid on\nthe forehead, or by a hand waved in the air, or by an incantation\npronounced, or by a prayer thought in silence. If you can persuade the\nsubconscious mind that God is operating upon it, that God is omnipotent\nand is directing this particular healing, that is the most powerful\nsuggestion imaginable, and is the basis of many cures. But if in order\nto achieve this, it is necessary for me to persuade myself that I can\nfind some meaning in the metaphysical moonshine of Mother Eddy--why,\nthen, I am very sorry, but I really prefer to remain sick.\n\nBut such is not the case. You do not have to believe anything that is\nnot true; you simply have to understand the machinery of the\nsubconscious, and how to operate it. We are only beginning to acquire\nthat knowledge, and we need an open mind, free both from the dogmatism\nof the medical men and the fanaticism of the \"faith curists.\" A few\nyears ago in London I met a number of people who were experimenting in\nan entirely open-minded way with mental healing, and I was interested in\ntheir ideas. I happened to be traveling on the Continent, and on the\ntrain my wife was seized by a very dreadful headache. She was lying with\nher head in my lap, suffering acutely, and I thought I would try an\nexperiment, so I put my hand upon her forehead, without telling her what\nI was doing, and concentrated my attention with the greatest possible\nintensity upon her headache. I had an idea of the cause of it; I\nunderstood that headaches are caused by the irritation of the sensory\nnerves of the brain by fatigue poisons, or other waste matter which the\nblood has not been able to eliminate. I formed in my mind a vivid\npicture of what the blood would have to do to relieve that headache, and\nI concentrated my mental energies upon the command to her subconscious\nmind that it should perform these particular functions. In a few\nminutes my wife sat up with a look of great surprise on her face and\nsaid, \"Why, my headache is gone! It went all at once!\"\n\nThat, of course, might have been a coincidence; but I tried the\nexperiment many times, and it happened over and over. On another\noccasion I was able to cure the pain of an ulcerated tooth; I was able\nto cure it half a dozen times, but never permanently, it always\nreturned, and finally the tooth had to come out. My wife experimented\nwith me in the same way, and found that she was able to cure an attack\nof dyspepsia; but, curiously enough, she at once gave herself a case of\ndyspepsia--something she had never known in her life before. So now I\nwill not allow her to experiment with me, and she will not allow me to\nexperiment with her! But we are quite sure that people with psychic\ngifts can definitely affect the subconscious mind of others by purely\nmental means. We are prepared to believe in the miracles of the New\nTestament, and in the wonders of Lourdes, as well as in the healings of\nthe Christian Scientists and the New Thoughters, which cannot be\ndisputed by any one who is willing to take the trouble to investigate.\nWe can face these facts without losing our reason, without ceasing to\nbelieve that everything in life has a cause, and that we can find out\nthis cause if we investigate thoroughly.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nEXPLORING THE SUBCONSCIOUS\n\n     (Discusses automatic writing, the analysis of dreams, and other\n     methods by which a whole new universe of life has been brought to\n     human knowledge.)\n\n\nOne of the most common methods of exploring the subconscious mind is the\nmethod of automatic writing. I have never tried this myself, but tens of\nthousands of people are sitting every night with a \"ouija\" in front of\nthem, holding a pencil on a piece of paper and letting their\nsubconscious minds write what they please. Most of them are hoping to\nget messages from the dead--a problem which we shall discuss in the next\nchapter. Suffice it for the moment to say that automatic writing and\ntable rapping and other devices of mediumship have opened up to us a\nvast mass of subconscious mentality. A part of the scientific world\nstill takes a contemptuous attitude and calls this all humbug, but many\nof our greatest scientists have been persuaded to investigate, and have\nbecome convinced that in this mass of subconsciousness there is mingled,\nnot merely the mind of the medium, but the minds of all those present,\nand possibly other minds as well. For my part, I do not see how any one\ncan study disinterestedly the proceedings of the Society for Psychical\nResearch and not become convinced that telepathy at least is one of the\npowers of the subconscious mind.\n\nTelepathy is what is popularly known as \"thought transmission.\" Every\none must know people who are what is called \"psychic,\" and will know\nwhat is happening to some friend in another part of the world, or will\ngo upstairs because they \"sense\" that some one wants them, or will go to\nthe door because they \"have a hunch\" that some one is coming. And maybe\nthese things are only chance, but you will be unscientific if you do not\ntake the trouble to read and learn what modern investigators have\nbrought out on such subjects.\n\nThis much is certain, and is denied by no competent investigator:\nwhatever has been in your mind is there still, and it is possible to\nfind a way of tapping the buried memory. An old woman, delirious with\nfever, begins to babble in a strange language, and it is discovered that\nshe is talking ancient Hebrew. The woman is entirely illiterate, and her\nconscious memory knows no language but her own, her conscious mind has\nno ideas beyond those of her domestic life and the gossip of the\nvillage. But investigation is made, and it is discovered that when this\nwoman was a girl, she worked in the home of a Hebrew scholar, and heard\nhim reading aloud. She did not understand a word of what she heard, and\nwas not consciously listening to it; nevertheless, every syllable of it\nhad been stored away forever by her subconscious mind. Innumerable cases\nof this sort have been established; and, as a matter of fact, we might\nhave been prepared for such discoveries by the memory-feats of the\nconscious mind. It is well known that Mozart, when a child, could listen\nto a new opera, and go home and play it over note for note. At present\nthere is a child in America, giving exhibitions in public, carrying on\nthirty games of chess at the same time. There have been others who do\nsums of mental arithmetic, such as multiplying thirty-two figures by\nthirty-two figures, or reciting the Bible backwards.\n\nAll this seems incredible; and yet there is something still more\nincredible. Suppose that these same powers, which are stored in our\nsubconscious minds, were stored also in the minds of animals! A few\nyears ago Maurice Maeterlinck published a book, \"The Unknown Guest,\" in\nthe course of which he tells about his experiments with the so-called\nElberfeld horses: two animals which had been trained for years by their\nowner to give signals by moving their forefeet, and which apparently\ncould count and divide and multiply large sums, and extract square and\ncube root, and spell out names, and recognize sounds, scents and colors,\nand read time from the face of a watch. Of course, it is easy to say\nthat this is absurd, that the horses must have got some signals from\ntheir trainer; but, as it happened, they would do their work in the\nabsence of their trainer; they would do it in the dark, or with a sack\nover their heads, and the best scientific minds of Germany were unable\nto suggest any test conditions which could not be met. There have been\nmany gigantic frauds in the world, and this may have been one of them;\non the other hand, there have been many new discoveries, and for my part\nI will finish exploring the miracles of the subconscious mind of man,\nbefore I presume to say that anything is impossible in the subconscious\nmind of a horse or a dog. Also I will wait for some learned person to\nexplain to me how the subconscious minds of horses and dogs know enough\nto build and repair their bones and teeth, so cleverly that modern\narchitectural and engineering science could teach them nothing. I ask,\nalso, if it is possible to find a region in the subconsciousness which\nis common to two people, why is it absurd to suggest that there might be\na region common to a man and a horse? Why is this any more absurd than\nthat they should eat the same food and breathe the same air and feel the\nsame affection and be frightened at the same dangers?\n\nThe only persons who will be dogmatic about such subjects are the\npersons who are ignorant. Those who take the trouble to investigate,\ndiscover more wonderful things every day, and they realize that we have\nhere a whole universe of knowledge, to which we have as yet barely\nopened the doors. Consider, for example, the facts which we are\nacquiring on the subject of personality and what it means. You would\nsay, perhaps, that if there is anything you know positively, it is that\nyou are one person, and have never been anybody else, and that your body\nbelongs to you, and that nobody else ever has used or ever can use it.\nBut what would you say if I told you that tomorrow \"you\" might cease to\nbe, and somebody else might be in possession of your body, walking it\naround and wearing its clothes and spending its money? What if I were to\ntell you that there might be in \"you,\" or in your body, half a dozen\ndifferent personalities which you have never known or dreamed of, and\nthat tomorrow there might break out a war between them and \"you,\" as to\nwhich of the half dozen people should hear with your ears and speak with\nyour tongue and walk about with your clothes on? Unless you are familiar\nwith the literature of multiple personality, you would surely say that\nthis was unbelievable--quite as much so as a mathematical horse!\n\nLet us begin with the case of the Reverend Ansel Bourne, who was many\nyears ago a perfectly respectable clergyman in a Rhode Island town. One\nday he disappeared, and his family did not hear of him. A year or two\nlater there was a store-keeper in a town in Pennsylvania, who suddenly\ncame to himself as the Reverend Ansel Bourne, not knowing what he had\nbeen in the meantime, or how he came to be keeping a store. Under\nhypnotism it developed that he had in him two personalities, and his\ntrance personality recollected all that had been happening in the\nmeantime and told about it freely.\n\nOr take the still more fascinating case of the young lady who is known\nin the literature of psychotherapy as Miss Beauchamp. Her story is told\nin a book, \"The Dissociation of a Personality,\" by Dr. Morton Prince of\nBoston. Some thirty years ago Miss Beauchamp, a very conscientious and\ndignified young lady, became nervous and ill, and took to doing strange\nthings, which were a source of shame and humiliation to her. Under\nhypnotism it was discovered to be a case of multiple personality. The\nother personality, who finally gave herself the name of Sally, was\nentirely different in character from Miss Beauchamp, being mischievous,\nvain, and primitive as a child. She conceived an intense dislike for\nMiss Beauchamp, whom she called by abusive names; at times when she\ncould get possession of Miss Beauchamp's body, she delighted in playing\nhumiliating tricks upon her enemy, spending her money, running her into\ndebt, breaking her engagements, disgracing her before her friends. Sally\nwas always well and Miss Beauchamp was always ill, and Sally would take\nthe body, for which they fought for possession, and take it for long and\nexhausting walks, and leave it cold and miserable, lost and penniless,\nin the possession of Miss Beauchamp! And of course this made Miss\nBeauchamp more and more a wreck, and Sally took possession of more and\nmore of her time. Sally knew everything that Miss Beauchamp did and\nthought, but Miss Beauchamp did not know about Sally. She only knew that\nthere were gaps in her life, during which she did things she could not\nexplain. And because she did not want her friends to think her insane,\nshe would try to hide this dreadful condition of affairs; but Sally\nwould spoil her plans by writing letters to her friends, and also by\nwriting insulting letters for Miss Beauchamp to find when she took\npossession again.\n\nThen one day, after several years of treatment, there appeared yet\nanother personality, who knew nothing about Miss Beauchamp or Sally\neither, and only knew what Miss Beauchamp had known up to some years\nbefore. Miss Beauchamp had a college education, and wrote and spoke\nFrench; Sally knew no French, and tried in vain to learn it; the new\npersonality did not have a college education at all. Nevertheless,\nafter long experiment, the story of which is as fascinating as any novel\nyou ever read, Dr. Prince discovered that this was the real Miss\nBeauchamp; the others were \"split off\" personalities. He traced the\ncause to a severe mental shock, and succeeded in the end in combining\nthe first Miss Beauchamp with the last, and in suppressing the obstinate\nand wanton Sally. As you read this story, you watch him mentally\nmurdering a human being; \"Sally\" clamors pitifully for life, but he\ncondemns her to death, and relentlessly executes his sentence. It is a\n\"movie\" thriller with a happy ending, and I should think it would make\ndisconcerting reading to persons who believe that each of us is one\nimmortal soul, or \"has\" one immortal soul, and is responsible for it to\na personal God.\n\nThere is never any end to the problems of these multiple personalities,\nand each case is a test of the judgment and ingenuity of the specialist.\nHe will try to make one personality \"stick,\" and will fail, and will\nhave to accept another, or a combination of two. In one case, he found\nthat he could not get the right personality to \"stick\" except under\nhypnosis, so he decided to leave the man in a mild state of trance, and\nthe new personality lived all the rest of its life in that condition. If\nyou wish to know more about this subject you can find books in any\nwell-equipped library. I mention one, \"The Riddle of Personality,\" by H.\nAddington Bruce, because it contains in the appendix an excellent list\nof the literature of the subconscious in all its many aspects.\n\nThere is another, and most fascinating method of exploring this\nunderworld of the mind, and that is the study of dreams. Some fifteen\nyears ago a psychotherapist in New York told me about the discoveries of\na physician in Vienna, and gave me some pamphlets, written in very\ndifficult and technical German. Since then this Professor Freud has been\ntranslated, and has become a fad, and the absurdities of his followers\nmake one a little apologetic for him. But we do not give up Jesus\nbecause of the torturers and bigots who call themselves Christians, and\nin the same way we have no right to blame Freud for all the absurdities\nof the psychoanalysts.\n\nProbably there never was a time in human history when there were not\npeople who interpreted dreams, and you can still buy \"dream books\" for\ntwenty-five cents, and learn that a white horse means that you are going\nto get a letter from your sweetheart tomorrow; then you can buy another\ndream book, telling you that a white horse means there is going to be a\ndeath in your family within the year. Naturally this prejudices thinking\npeople against dream analysis; yet, dreams are facts, and every fact has\nits cause, and if you dream about a white horse, there must assuredly be\nsome reason for your dreaming this particular thing. Of course we know\nthat if you eat mince-pie and welsh-rabbit at midnight, you will dream\nabout something terrible; but will it be snakes, or will it be a\nrailroad wreck, or will it be white horses trampling over you?\nObviously, it may be a million different unpleasant things; and what is\nit that picks out this or that from the infinite store of your memory,\nand brings it into the region of half-consciousness which we call the\ndream?\n\nProfessor Freud's discovery is in brief that the dream is a\nwish-fulfillment. Our instincts present to our consciousness a great\nmass of impulses and desires, and among these the consciousness selects\nwhat it pleases, and represses and refuses to recognize or to act upon\nthe others. But maybe these decisions are not altogether satisfactory to\nthe subconsciousness. The mind of the body is in rebellion against the\nmind--shall we say of reason, or shall we say of society? The mind of\nsociety, otherwise known as the moral law, says that you shall be a good\nlittle boy, and shall go to school and learn what you are told, and on\nSunday go to church and sit very still through a long sermon; whereas,\nthe body of a boy would rather be a savage, hunting birds' nests and\nscalping enemies and exploring magic caves full of precious jewels. So\nthe subconsciousness of the boy, balked and miserable, awaits its time,\nand finds its satisfaction when the boy is asleep and his moral censor\nhas relaxed its control.\n\nThis dream mind is not a logical and orderly thing like the conscious\nmind; it is not business-like and civilized, it does not deal in\nabstractions. It is far more interested in things than in words; it does\nnot present us with formulas, but with pictures, and with stories of\nweird and wonderful happenings. It is like the mind of the race, which\nwe study in legends and religions. It does not tell us that the sun is a\nmass of incandescent hydrogen gas, so and so many miles in diameter; it\ntells us that the sun is a cosmic hero who slays the black dragon of\nnight. So the mind of our body presents us with innumerable pictures and\nsymbols, exactly such as we find in poetry. There may be, and frequently\nis, dispute as to just what a poet meant by this or that particular\nimage, but if we read all the work of any particular poet, we get a\ncertain impression of that poet's individuality. If he is always talking\nabout the perfume of women's hair and the gleam of the white flesh of\nnymphs in the thickets, we are not left in doubt as to what is wrong\nwith this poet.\n\nAnd just so, when the expert sets to work to examine all the dreams that\nany one person can remember, day after day, sooner or later the expert\nobserves that these dreams hover continually about one particular\nsubject; and by questioning the person, he can find out what is the\nsecret which is troubling the person, perhaps without the person himself\nbeing aware of it. Of course there are many people who like nothing so\nmuch as to talk about themselves; and many are spending their time and\ntheir money on the latest fad of being \"psyched,\" who would, in any\nproperly organized world, be put to work at hoeing weeds or washing\ntheir own clothes. Nevertheless, it is a fact that there are real mental\ndisorders in the world, and innumerable honest and earnest people who\nhave something the matter with them which they do not understand. Here\nis one way by which the conscientious investigator can find out what the\ntrouble is, and make it clear to them, and by establishing harmony\nbetween their conscious and their subconscious minds, can many times put\nthem in the way of health and happiness.\n\nThrough psychoanalysis we are enabled to understand the \"split\"\npersonality and its cause. We discover that almost everyone has more or\nless rudimentary forms of multiple personality hidden within him; made\nout of desires and traits which he does not like, or which the world\nforces him to drive into the deeps of his being. These may be evil\nimpulses, of sex or violence; they may be the most noble altruisms, or\nartistic yearnings, ridiculous things in a world of \"hustle.\" A quite\nnormal man or woman may keep a separate self, apart from the world,\nliving a Jekyll life of business propriety and a Hyde life of religious\nor musical ecstasy. Or again, the repressed impulses may integrate\nthemselves in the unconscious, and you may have genius or lunacy or\nboth--\"great wits to madness near allied.\" The modern knowledge on such\ndark mysteries you may find in Hart's \"The Psychology of Insanity.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nTHE PROBLEM OF IMMORTALITY\n\n     (Discusses the survival of personality from the moral point of\n     view: that is, have we any claim upon life, entitling us to live\n     forever?)\n\n\nAs we explore the deeps of the subconsciousness, our own and other\npeople's, we find ourselves confronting the strange question: Is it all\nour own mind, and that of other living people, or are we by any chance\ndealing with the minds of those who are dead? A great many earnest\npeople, and some very learned people, are fully convinced that the\nlatter is the case, and we have now to consider their arguments.\n\nWhen I was a little boy I used to read and hear ghost stories, and would\nshudder over them; but I was given to understand that all this was just\nimagination, I must not take ghosts seriously, any more than fairies or\ndragons or nymphs or satyrs. For an educated person to take ghosts\nseriously--well, such a person would be almost as comical as that\nsupremely comical person, the flying-machine man. Would you believe it,\nin those days there actually were people who believed they could learn\nto fly in the air, and spent their time manufacturing machines for this\npurpose! There was a scientist in Washington who had this \"bug,\" and\nbuilt himself a machine and started to fly, and fell into the Potomac\nriver. We all laughed at him--we laughed so long and so loud that we\nkilled the poor man; and then, a few years later, somebody took that\nmachine of Professor Langley's and actually did fly with it! But that\nwas after I had grown up a bit more, and was not quite so ready to laugh\nat an idea because it was new.\n\nI remember vividly my first meeting with a man who believed in ghosts.\nHe was a Unitarian clergyman, the Reverend Minot J. Savage of New York.\nI was sixteen years old, and just breaking out of my theological shell,\nand Doctor Savage helped to pry me loose. He was a grave and kindly man,\nof great learning and intelligence, and I remember vividly my\nconsternation when one day he told me--oh, yes, he had seen many ghosts,\nhe was accustomed to talk with ghosts every now and then. There was no\ndoubt whatever that ghosts existed!\n\nHe told me many stories. I remember one so well that I do not have to go\nback to his books to look up the details. It was in the days before the\nAtlantic cable, and he had a friend who took a steamer to England. One\nnight Doctor Savage was awakened and found the ghost of his friend\nstanding by his bedside. The ship had gone down off the Irish coast, so\nthe ghost declared, but the friend did not want Doctor Savage to think\nthat he had suffered from the pangs of drowning; he had been struck on\nthe left side of the head by a beam of the ship and had been killed\ninstantly. Doctor Savage wrote down these circumstances and had them\nwitnessed by a number of people, and two or three weeks later he\nreceived word that the body of his friend had been found on the Irish\ncoast, with the left side of the head crushed in.\n\nSo then, of course, I studied the subject of ghosts. I have studied it\noff and on ever since, and have read most of the important new\ndiscoveries and arguments of the psychic researchers. To begin with, I\nwill mention the contents of two large volumes, Gurney's \"Phantasms of\nthe Living.\" In this book are narrated many hundreds of cases, of which\nDoctor Savage's story is a type. It appears that persons at the moment\nof death, or in times of great mental stress, do somehow have the power\nto communicate with other people, even at the other side of the world. A\nfew such cases might be attributed to coincidence or to fraud, but when\nyou have so many cases, attested in minute detail by so many hundreds of\notherwise honest people, you are not being scientific but simply stupid\nif you dismiss the whole subject with contempt.\n\nGurney discusses the phenomenon and its probable causes. We know, of\ncourse, that hallucinations are among the most common of psychic\nphenomenon. Your subconscious mind can be caused to see and hear and\nfeel anything; likewise it has power to cause you to see and hear and\nfeel anything. In practically all cases of multiple personality some of\nthe split-off personalities can cause the others to see and hear and\nfeel. And the consciousness, you must understand, takes these things to\nbe just as real as real things; there is no way you can tell an\nhallucination from reality--except to ask other people about it. And if\nwe admit the idea of telepathy, we may say that phantasms are\nhallucinations caused by this means; that is, the subconscious mind of\nyour wife or your mother or your friend who is ill or dying, transmits\nto your subconscious mind some vivid impression, which causes your own\nsubconscious mind to present to your consciousness a perfect image of\nthat person, walking and talking with you, and your consciousness has no\nway of telling but that the image is real.\n\nSo much for phantasms of the living. But are there any phantasms of the\ndead? Are there any cases in which the time of the appearance can be\nproven to be subsequent to the time of death? Even this would not prove\nsurvival, of course; it is perfectly possible that the telepathic\nimpulse might be delayed in our own minds, it might not flash into\nconsciousness until our own state of mind made it possible. Can we say\nthat there are cases in which the facts communicated are such as to\nconvince us that the person was already dead, and was telling us\nsomething as a dead person and not as a living one?\n\nBefore we go into this question, let us clear the ground for the subject\nby discussing the survival of personality from a more general\nstandpoint. What is it that we want to prove? What are the probabilities\nof its being true? What would be the consequences of its not being true?\nHave we any grounds, other than those of psychic research, for thinking\nthat it is true, or that it may be true, or that it ought to be true?\nWhat, so to speak, are the morals of the doctrine of immortality?\n\nWell, to begin with, the survival of the soul after death and forever is\none of the principal doctrines of the Christian religion. Many devout\nChristians will read this book, and I will seem to them blasphemous when\nI say that this argument does not concern me. I count myself one of the\nlovers and friends of Jesus, I am presumptuous enough to believe that if\nhe were on earth, I would understand him and get along with him\nexcellently; but I do not know any reason why I should believe this,\nthat, or the other doctrine about life because any religious sect,\nfounded upon the name of Jesus, commands me so to believe. I see no more\nreason for adopting the idea of heaven because it is a Christian idea\nthan I see for adopting the idea of reincarnation because it is a\nprecious and holy idea to hundreds of millions of Buddhists. I have some\nvery good friends who are Theosophists, and are quite convinced of this\nidea of reincarnation; that is, that the soul comes back into life over\nand over again in many different bodies, thus completing itself and\nrenewing itself and expiating its sins. My Theosophist friends have a\nmost elaborate and complicated body of what they consider to be\nknowledge on this subject; yet I have to take the liberty of saying that\nI cannot see that it has any relation to reality. It seems to me as\ncompletely unproven as any other fairy story, or myth, or legend--for\nexample, the seven infernos of Dante, and the elaborate and complicated\ntorments that are suffered there.\n\nBut, it will be argued, Jesus rose from the dead, and thus proved the\nimmortality of the soul. Now, in the first place, there are many learned\ninvestigators who consider there is insufficient evidence for believing\nthat Jesus ever lived; and certainly if this be so, it will be difficult\nto prove that he rose from the dead. Again, it was a common occurrence\nfor crucified men not to die; sometimes it happened that their guards\nallowed them to be spirited away--even nowadays we have known of prison\nguards being bribed to allow a prisoner to escape. Again, the events of\nthe return of Jesus may have been just such psychic phenomena as we are\ntrying in this chapter to explain. Or, once more, they may have been\npurely legends. A very brief study will convince a thinking person that\nthe people of that time were ready to believe anything, and to accept\nfacts upon such authority, and to make them the basis for a scientific\nconclusion, is simply to be childish.\n\nI shall be told, of course, that it is in the Bible, and therefore it\nmust be true. The Bible is inspired, you say; and perhaps this is so.\nBut then, a great deal of other literature is inspired, and that does\nnot relieve me of the task of comparing these various inspirations, and\njudging them, and picking out what is of use to me. The Bible is the\nliterature of the ancient Hebrews for a couple of thousand years. It\nrepresents what the race mind of a great people for one generation after\nanother judged worth recording and preserving. You may get an idea what\nthis means, if you will picture to yourself a large volume of English\nliterature, containing some Teutonic myths, and the Saxon chronicles,\nand the \"Morte d'Arthur,\" and several of Chaucer's stories, and some\nIrish fairy tales, and some of Bacon's essays, and Shakespeare's \"Venus\nand Adonis,\" and the English prayer book, and the architect's\nspecifications for Westminster Abbey, and a good part of \"Burke's\nPeerage\"; also Blackstone's \"Commentaries,\" a number of Wesley's hymns,\nand Pope's \"Essay on Man,\" and some chapters of Carlyle's \"Past and\nPresent,\" and Gladstone's speeches, and Blake's poems, and Captain\nCook's story of his voyage around the world, and Southey's \"Life of\nNelson,\" and Morris's \"News from Nowhere,\" and Blatchford's \"Merrie\nEngland,\" and scores of pages from Hansard, which is the equivalent of\nour Congressional Record. You may find this description irreverent, but\ndo not think it is meant so. Do me the honor to get out your Bible and\nlook it over from this point of view!\n\nBut, you say, if we die altogether when we finish this earthly life,\nwhat becomes of moral responsibility and the punishment of sins? What\nshall we say to the wicked man to make him be good, if we cannot reward\nhim with a heaven and frighten him with a hell? Well, my first answer is\nthat we have been trying this process for a couple of thousand years,\nand the results seem to indicate that we might better seek out some\nother method of inducing men to behave themselves. They do not believe\nso completely in heaven and hell these days, but there were times in\nhistory when they did believe completely, and not merely were the\nbelievers just as cruel, they were just as treacherous and just as\ngluttonous and just as drunken. If you want to satisfy yourself on this\npoint, I refer you to my book \"The Profits of Religion,\" page 129.\n\nNow, as a matter of fact, I think I can discern the outlines of a system\nof rewards and punishments automatically working in the life of men. I\nam not sure that I can prove that the wicked always get punished and the\nvirtuous always rewarded; yet, when I stop and think, I am sure that I\nwould not care to change places with any of the wicked people that I\nknow in this world. Life may not always be \"getting\" them, but it has a\nway of \"getting\" their descendants, and I could not be entirely happy if\nI knew that my son and his sons were going to share the fate which I now\nobserve befalling, for example, the grand dukes of Russia and their\nchildren. Life is one thing, and it does not exist for the individual,\nbut for the race; its causes and effects do not always manifest\nthemselves in one individual, but in a line of descendants. \"Why are\nthey called dynasties?\" asked one of my professors of history; and a\nstudent brought the session to an end by answering: \"Because that is\nwhat they always seem to do!\"\n\nBut this is not perfect justice, you will argue. It is not perfect, from\nthe point of view of you or me; but then, I ask, what else is there in\nthe world that is perfect from that point of view? Why should our\njustice be any more perfect than, for example, our health or our\nthinking or our climate or our government? And, may it not very well be\nthat our justice is up to us, in precisely the same way that some of\nthese other things are up to us? Maybe what we have to do is to set to\nwork to see to it that virtue does always get rewarded and vice does\nalways get punished, right here and now, instead of waiting for an\nomnipotent God to attend to it in some hypothetical heaven.\n\nI find this life of mine very wonderful, and enormously interesting. I\nam willing to take it on the terms that it is given, and to try to make\nthe best of it; and I do not see that I have any right to dictate what\nshall be given me in some future life. If my father gives me a Christmas\npresent, I am happy and grateful; and, of course, if I know that he is\ngoing to give me another present next Christmas, I am still more happy;\nbut I do not see that I have any right to argue that because he gives me\none Christmas present, he must give me an unlimited number of them, and\nI think it would be very ungrateful of me to refuse to thank him for a\nChristmas present until I had made sure that I was to get one next time!\n\nNeither do I find myself such a wonderful person that I can assert that\nthe morality of the universe absolutely depends upon the fact that I am\nimmortal. Of course, I should like to live forever, and to know all the\nwonderful things that are going to happen in the world, and if it is\ntrue that I am so to live, I shall be immensely delighted. But I cannot\nsay that it _must_ be true, and all I can do is to investigate the\nprobabilities. On this point my view is stated in a sentence of\nSpinoza's: \"He who would love God rightly must not desire that God love\nhim in return.\"\n\nTo sum up, the question of immortality is purely a question of fact. It\nis one to be approached in a spirit of open-minded inquiry, entirely\nunaffected by hopes or fears or dogmas or moral claims. It is worth\nwhile to get clear that we may be immortal, even though we do not now\nknow it and cannot now prove it; it is possible that all psychic\nresearch might end in telepathy, and still, when we die, we might wake\nup and find ourselves alive. It might possibly be that some of us are\nimmortal and not all of us. It might be that some parts of us are\nimmortal and not the rest. It might be that our subconsciousness is\nimmortal and not our consciousness. It might be that all of us, or some\npart of us, survive for a time, but not forever. This last is something\nwhich I myself am inclined to think may be the case.\n\nAlso, it seems worthwhile to mention that it is no argument against\nimmortality that we cannot imagine it, that we cannot picture a universe\nconsisting of uncountable billions of living souls, or what these souls\nwould do to pass the time. It may very well be that among these souls\nthere is no such thing as time. It may be that they are thoroughly\noccupied in ways beyond our imagining, or again, that they are not\noccupied, and under no necessity of being occupied. Let the person who\npresents such arguments begin by picturing to you how the brain cells\nmanage to store up the uncounted millions of memories which you have,\nthe thousands of words and combinations of words, and the thoughts which\ngo with them, musical notes and tunes, colors and odors and visual\nimpressions, memories of the past and hopes of the future and dreams\nthat never were. Where are all those hundreds of millions of things, and\nwhat are they like when they are not in our consciousness, and how do\nthey pass the time, and where were they in the hundreds of millions of\nyears before we were born, and where will they be in the hundreds of\nmillions of years of the future? When our wise men can answer these\nquestions completely, it will be time enough for them to tell us about\nthe impossibility of immortality.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nTHE EVIDENCE FOR SURVIVAL\n\n     (Discusses the data of psychic research, and the proofs of\n     spiritism thus put before us.)\n\n\nLet us now take up the question of survival of personality after death\nfrom the strictly scientific point of view; let us consider what facts\nwe have, and the indications they seem to give. First, we know that to\nall appearances the consciousness and the subconsciousness are bound up\nwith the body. They grow with the body, they decline with the body, they\nseem to die with the body. We can irretrievably damage the consciousness\nby drawing a whiff of cyanogen gas into the lungs, or by sticking a pin\ninto the brain, or by clogging one of its tiny blood vessels with waste\nmatter. It is terrible to us to think that the mind of a great poet or\nprophet or statesman may be snuffed out of existence in such a way; but\nthen, it is no argument against a fact to say that it is terrible.\nInsanity is terrible, war is terrible, pestilence is terrible, so also\nare tigers and poisonous snakes; but all these things exist, and all\nthese things have power over the wisest and greatest mind, to put an end\nto its work on this earth at least.\n\nAnd now we come with the new instrument of psychic research, to probe\nthe question: What becomes of this consciousness when it disappears? Can\nwe prove that it is still in existence, and is able by any method to\ncommunicate with us? Those who answer \"Yes\" argue that the mind of the\ndead person, unable to use its own bodily machinery any longer, manages\nin the hypnotic trance to use the bodily machinery of another person,\ncalled a \"medium,\" and by it to make some kind of record to identify\nitself.\n\nThis, of course, is a strange idea, and requires a good deal of proof.\nThe law of probability requires us not to accept an unlikely\nexplanation, if there is any more simple one which can account for the\nfacts. When we examine the product of automatic writing, table-tipping,\nand other psychic phenomena, we have first to ask ourselves, Is there\nanything in all this which cannot be explained by what we already know?\nThen, second, we have to ask, Is there any other supposition which will\nexplain the facts, and which is easier to believe than the spirit\ntheory?\n\nThese \"spirits\" apparently desire to convince us of their reality, and\nthey tell us many things which are expected to convince us; they tell us\nthings which we ourselves do not know, and which spirits might know. But\nhere again we run up against the problem of the subconsciousness, with\nits infinite mass of \"forgotten\" knowledge. It is not so easy for the\n\"spirits\" to tell us things which we can be sure our subconscious mind\ncould not possibly contain. Also, there comes the additional element of\ntelepathy. It appears to be a fact that under trance conditions, or\nunder any especially exciting conditions of the consciousness, one mind\ncan reach out and take something out of another mind, or one mind can\ncause something to be passed over to another mind; and so information\ncan be communicated to the mind of a medium, and can appear in automatic\nwriting, or in clairvoyance, or in crystal gazing.\n\nOne of the most conscientious and earnest of all the investigators of\nthis subject was the late Professor Hyslop, who many years ago sought to\nteach me \"practical morality\" (from the bourgeois point of view) in\nColumbia University. Professor Hyslop worked for fifteen years with a\nmedium by the name of Mrs. Piper, who was apparently sincere and was\nnever exposed in any kind of fraud. In Professor Hyslop's books you will\nfind innumerable instances of amazing facts brought out in Mrs. Piper's\ntrances. You will find Professor Hyslop arguing that the only way\ntelepathy can account for these facts is by the supposition that there\nis a universal subconscious mind, or that the subconscious mind of the\nmedium possesses the power to reach into the subconscious mind of every\nother living person and take out anything from it. But for my part, I\ncannot see that the case is quite so difficult. Professor Hyslop\nrecites, for example, how Mrs. Piper would tell him facts about some\nlong dead relative--facts which he did not know, but was later able to\nverify. But that proves simply nothing at all, because there could be no\npossible way for Professor Hyslop to be sure that he had never known\nthese facts about his relatives. The facts might have been in his\nsubconscious mind without having ever been in his conscious mind at all;\nhe might have heard people talking about these matters while he was\nreading a book, or playing as a boy, paying no attention to what was\nsaid.\n\nAnd then came Sir Oliver Lodge with his investigations. I will say this\nfor his work--he was the first person who was able to make real to my\nmind the startling idea that perhaps after all the dead might be alive\nand able to communicate with us. You will find what he has to say in his\nbook, \"The Survival of Man,\" and it seems fair that a great scientist\nand a great man should have a chance to convince you of what seem to him\nthe most important facts in the world.\n\nSir Oliver's son Raymond was killed in the war, and it is claimed that\nhe began at once to communicate with his family. Among other things, he\ntold them of the existence of a picture, which none of them had ever\nseen or heard of, a group photograph which he described in detail. But,\nof course, other people in this group knew of the existence of the\nphotograph, and so we have again the possibility that some member of Sir\nOliver's family may have taken into his subconscious mind without\nknowing it an impression or description of that picture. If you care to\nexperiment, you will find that you can frequently play a part in the\ndreams of a child by talking to it in its sleep; and that is only one of\na thousand different ways by which some member of a family might\nacquire, without knowing it, information of the existence of a\nphotograph.\n\nThere is another possibility to be considered--that a portion of the\nconsciousness may survive, and not necessarily forever. We are\naccustomed when death takes place to see the body before us, and we know\nthat we can preserve the body for thousands of years if we wish. Why is\nit not possible that when conscious life is brought to a sudden end,\nthere may remain some portion of the consciousness, or of the\nsubconsciousness, cut off from the body, and slowly fading back into the\nuniversal mind energy, whatever we please to call it? There is a hard\npart of the body, the skeleton, which survives for some time; why might\nthere not be a central core of the mind which is similarly tough and\nenduring? Of course, if consciousness is a function of the brain, it\nmust decay as the brain decays; but how would it be if the brain were a\nfunction of the consciousness--which is, so far as I can see, quite as\nlikely a guess.\n\nI find many facts which seem to indicate the plausibility of this idea.\nI notice that in trance phenomena it is the spirits of those recently\ndead which seem to manifest the most vitality. Of course, you can go to\nany seance in the \"white light\" district of your city and receive\ncommunications from the souls of Caesar and Napoleon and Alexander the\nGreat and Pocahontas, and if the medium does not happen to be literary,\nyou can communicate with Hamlet and Don Quixote and Siegfried and\nAchilles; but you will not find much reality about any of these people,\nthey will not tell you very much about the everyday details of their\nlives. This fact that so much of what the \"spirits\" tell us is of our\nown time tends to cast doubt on the idea that the dead survive forever.\nHow simple it would be to convince us, if the spirit of Sophocles would\ncome back to earth and tell us where to dig in order to find copies of\nhis lost tragedies! You would think that the soul of Sophocles, seeing\nour great need of beauty and wisdom, would be interested to give us his\nworks! From genius, operating under the guidance of the conscious mind,\nwe get sublimity, majesty and power; but what the trance mediums give us\nsuggests, both in its moral and intellectual quality, the operation of\nthe subconscious. It is exactly like what we get, for example, from\ndissociated personalities.\n\nThere are, to be sure, the books of Patience Worth, produced by the\nautomatic writing of a lady in St. Louis, who tells us in evident good\nfaith that her conscious personality is entirely innocent of Patience,\nand all her thought and doings. Patience writes long novels and dramas\nin a quaint kind of old English, and the lady in St. Louis knows nothing\nabout this language. But does she positively know that when she was a\nchild, she never happened to be in the room with someone who was reading\nold English aloud? Nothing seems more likely than that her subconscious\nmind heard some quaint, strange language, and took possession of it, and\nbuilt up a personality around it, and even made a new language and a new\nliterature from that starting point.\n\nThat is precisely the kind of thing in which the subconscious revels. It\ncreates new characters, with an imagination infinite and inexhaustible.\nWho has not waked up and been astounded at the variety and reality of a\ndream? Who has not told his dreams and laughed over them? The\nsubconscious will play at games, it will act and rehearse elaborate\nroles; it will put on costumes, and delight in being Caesar and Napoleon\nand Alexander the Great and Pocahontas and Hamlet and Don Quixote and\nSiegfried and Achilles. Yes, it will even play at being \"spirits\"! It\nwill be mischievous and impish; it will be swallowed up with a sense of\nits own importance, taking an insolent delight in convincing the world's\nmost learned scientists of the fact that its play-acting is reality. It\nwill call itself \"Raymond\" to move and thrill a grief-stricken family;\nit will call itself \"Phinuit\" and \"Dr. Hodgson,\" and cause an earnest\nprofessor of \"practical morality\" to give up a respectable position in\nColumbia University and write books to convince the world that the dead\nare sending him messages.\n\nConsider, for example, the multiple personality of Miss Beauchamp.\nRemember that here we are not dealing with any guess work about\n\"spirits\"; here we have half a dozen different \"controls,\" none of them\nthe least bit dead, but all of them a part of the consciousness of one\nentirely alive young lady. A specialist has spent some six years\ninvestigating the case, day after day, week after week, writing down the\nminute details of what happens. And now consider the miscreant known as\n\"Sally.\" Sally is just as real as any child whom you ever held in your\narms. Sally has love and hate, fear and hope, pain and delight--and\nSally is a little demon, created entirely out of the subconsciousness of\na highly refined and conscientious young college graduate of Boston.\nSally spends Miss Beauchamp's money on candy, and eats it; Sally pawns\nMiss Beauchamp's watch and deliberately loses the ticket; Sally uses\nMiss Beauchamp's lips and tongue to tell lies about Miss Beauchamp;\nSally strikes Miss Beauchamp dumb, or makes her hear exactly the\nopposite of what is spoken to her. Yes, and Sally pleads and fights\nfrantically for her life; Sally enters into intrigues with other parts\nof Miss Beauchamp, and for years deliberately fools Doctor Prince, who\nis her Recording Angel and Heavenly Judge!\n\nAnd can anybody doubt that Sally could have fooled a grieving mother,\nand made that mother think she was talking to the ghost of a long lost\nchild? Can anybody doubt that Sally could and would play the part of any\nperson she had ever known, or of any historic character she had ever\nread about? And don't overlook the all-important fact that the conscious\nMiss Beauchamp was absolutely innocent of all this, and was horrified\nwhen she was told about it. So here you have the following situation, no\nmatter of guesswork, but definitely established: your dearest friend may\nact as a medium, and in all good faith may bring to the surface some\npart of his or her subconsciousness, which masquerades before you in a\nhundred different roles, and plays upon you with deliberate malice the\nmost subtle and elaborate and cruel tricks.\n\nAnd how much worse the situation becomes when to this there is added the\npossibility of conscious fraud! When the medium is a person who is\ntaking your money, and thrives by making you believe in the \"spirits\"\nshe produces! You may go to Lily Dale, in New York state, the home of\nthe Spiritualists, where they have a convention every summer, and in row\nafter row of tents you may hear, and even see, every kind of spirit you\never dreamed of, ringing bells and shaking tambourines and dancing jigs.\nAnd you may see poor farmers' wives, with tears streaming down their\ncheeks, listening to the endearments of their dead children, and to\nwisdom from the lips of Oliver Wendell Holmes speaking with a Bowery\naccent. This kind of thing was exposed many years ago by Will Irwin in a\nbook called \"The Medium Game\"; and then--after traveling from one kind\nof medium to another, and studying all their frauds, Irwin tells how he\nwent into a \"parlor\" on Sixth Avenue, and there by a fat old woman who\nhad never seen him before, was suddenly told the most intimate secrets\nof his life!\n\nIt has recently been announced that Thomas A. Edison is at work upon a\ndevice to enable spirits to communicate with the living, if there really\nare spirits seeking to do this. It is Edison's idea that spirits may\ninhabit some kind of infinitely rarefied astral body, and he proposes to\nmanufacture an instrument which is sensitive to an impression many\nmillions of times fainter than anything the human body can feel. This\nshould make it easier for the spirits, and should constitute a fairer\ntest, possibly a decisive one. When that machine is perfected and put to\nwork by scientific men, I wish to suggest a few tests which will\nconvince me that there really are spirits, and that the results are not\nto be explained by telepathy.\n\nFirst, assuming that the spirits live forever, there are some useful\nthings which were known to the people of ancient time, and are not known\nto anyone living now. For example, let one of the Egyptian craftsmen\ncome forward and tell us the secret of their glass-staining, which I\nunderstand is now a lost art. And then Sophocles, as I have already\nsuggested, will tell us where we can find his lost dramas; or if he\ndoesn't know where any copies are buried, let him find in the spirit\nworld some scribe or librarian or book-lover who can give us this\npriceless information. All over the ancient lands are buried and\nforgotten cities, and in those cities are papyrus scrolls and graven\ntablets and bricks. Infinite stores of knowledge are thus concealed from\nus; and how simple for the ancient ones who possess this information to\nmake it known to us, and so to convince us of their reality!\n\nOr, again, supposing that spirits are not immortal, but that they slowly\nfade from life as do their bodies. Suppose that a Raymond Lodge or other\nrecently dead soldier wishes to communicate with his father and to\nconvince his father that it is really an independent being, and not\nsimply a part of the father's subconscious mind--let him try something\nlike this. Let the father write six brief notes, and put them in six\nenvelopes all alike, and shuffle them up and put them in a hat and draw\nout one of them. Now, assuming that the experimenter is honest, there is\nno living human being who knows the contents of that envelope, and if\nthe medium is dipping into the subconscious mind of the experimenter,\nthe chances are one in six of the right note being hit upon. Assuming\nthat spirits may not be able to get inside an envelope and read a folded\nletter, there is no objection to the experimenter, provided he is\nhonest, and provided there are no mirrors or other tricks, holding the\nenvelope behind his back, and tearing it open, and spreading it out for\nthe convenience of the spirit. And now, if the spirit can read that\nletter correctly every time, we shall be fairly certain that whatever\nforce we are dealing with, it is not the subconscious mind of the\nexperimenter.\n\nOr, let us take another test. Let us have a roulette wheel in a covered\nbox, or hidden away so that no one but the spirit can see it. We spin\nthe wheel, and any one of the habitues of Monte Carlo can figure out the\nchance of the little ball dropping into any particular number. If now\nthe spirit can tell us each time where we shall find the ball, we shall\nknow that we are dealing with knowledge which does not exist either in\nthe conscious or the subconscious mind of any living human being.\n\nAmong the things that \"spirits\" have been accustomed to do, since the\ndays when they first made their appearance with the Fox sisters in\nAmerica, are the lifting of tables and the ringing of bells and the\nassuming of visible forms. These are what is known as\n\"materializations,\" and when I was a boy, and used to hear people\ntalking about these things, there was always one test required: let the\nmaterializations manifest themselves upon recording instruments\nscientifically devised; let photographs be taken of them, let them be\nweighed and measured, and so on. Well, time has moved forward, and these\ntests have been met, and it appears that \"materializations\" are\nfacts--although it is still as uncertain as ever what they are\nmaterializations of. An English scientist, Professor Crawford, has\npublished a book entitled \"The Reality of Psychic Phenomena,\" in which\nhe tells the results of many years of testing materializations by the\nstrictest scientific methods. When the medium \"levitates\" a table--that\nis, causes it to go up in the air without physical contact--it appears\nthat her own weight increases by exactly the weight of the table. When\nshe exerts any force, which apparently she can do at a distance, the\nrecording instruments show the exact counter-force in her own body.\n\nThe results of these investigations are calculated at first to take your\nbreath away. It begins to appear that the theosophists may be right, and\nthat we may have one or more \"astral\" bodies within or coincident with\nthe physical body; and that under the trance conditions we mold and make\nover this \"astral\" body in accordance with our imaginations, precisely\nas a sculptor molds the clay. At any rate, our subconsciousness has the\npower to project from it masses of substance, and to cause these to take\nall kinds of forms, for example, human faces, which have been\nphotographed innumerable times. Or the body can shoot out long rods or\nsnaky projections, which lift tables, and exert force which has been\nrecorded upon pressure instruments and weighed by scales.\n\nAs I write, a friend lends me a fifteen-dollar volume, a translation\njust published of an elaborate work by Baron von Schrenck-Notzing, a\nphysician of Munich, giving minute details of four years' experiments in\nthis field. So rigid was this investigator in his efforts to exclude\nfraud, that not merely was the medium stripped and sewed up in black\ntights, but the \"cabinet\" in which she sat was a big sack of black\ncloth, everywhere sewed tight by machine. Every crevice of the medium's\nbody was searched before and after the tests, and every inch of the\n\"cabinet\" gone over. The investigators sat within a couple of feet of\nthe medium, and would draw back the curtains, and while holding her\nhands and her feet, would watch great masses of filmy gray and white\nstuff exude from the medium's mouth, from her armpits and breasts and\nsides. This would happen in red light of a hundred candle power, by\nwhich print could be easily read; and the medium would herself\nilluminate the phenomena with a red electric torch. The investigators\nwould be privileged to examine these \"phantom\" forms, to touch them\ngently, and be touched by them--soft and slimy, like the tongue of an\nanimal; but sometimes the things would misbehave, and strike them in the\neye, hurting them.\n\nThe medium, a young French girl living in the home of the wife of a\nwell-known French playwright, had begun with spiritualist ideas, but\ncame to take a matter-of-fact attitude to what happened, and in her\ntrances would labor to mold these emanations into hands or faces, as\nrequested by those present. She finally succeeded in allowing them to\nseparate the soft mucous stuff from her body, and keep it for chemical\nand bacteriological examination. All this time she would be surrounded\nby a battery of cameras, nine at once, some of them inside the cabinet;\nand when the desired emanation was in sight, all these cameras would be\nset off by flashlight, and in the book you have over two hundred such\nphotographs, showing faces and hands from every point of view. There are\neven moving-pictures, showing the material coming out of her mouth and\ngoing back!\n\nIt is evident that we have here a whole universe of unexplored\nphenomena; and it seems that many of the old-time superstitions which\nwere dumped overboard have now to be dragged back into the boat and\nexamined in the light of new knowledge. What could smack more of magic\nand fraud than crystal-gazing? Yet it appears that the subconsciousness\nhas power to project an image of its hidden memories into a crystal\nball, where it may be plainly seen. We find so well-recognized an\nauthority as Dr. Morton Prince using this method to enable one of the\nmany Miss Beauchamps to recall incidents in her previous life which were\notherwise entirely lost to her. Likewise this exploration of the\ndisintegration of personality enables us to watch in the making all the\nphenomena of trance and ecstasy which have had so much to do with the\nmaking of religions. We know now how Joan of Arc heard the \"voices,\" and\nwe can make her hear more voices or make her stop hearing voices, as we\nprefer. Also we know all about demons and \"demoniac possession.\" We can\ncast out demons--and without having to cause them to enter a herd of\nswine! We may some day be prepared to investigate the wonder stories\nwhich the Yogis tell us, about their ability to leave their physical\nbodies in a trance, and to appear in England at a few moments' notice\nfor the transaction of their spiritual business!\n\nBut we want things proven to us, and we don't want the people with whom\nwe work to be animated either by religious fanaticism or by money greed.\nWe are ready to unlimber our minds, and prepare for long journeys into\nstrange regions, but we want to move cautiously, and choose our route\ncarefully, and be sure we do not lose our way! We want to deal\nrationally with life; we don't want to make wild guesses, or to choose a\ncomplicated and unlikely solution when a simple one will suffice. But,\non the other hand, we must be alive to the danger of settling down on\nour little pile of knowledge, and refusing to take the trouble to\ninvestigate any more. That is a habit of learned men, I am sorry to say;\nthe law of inertia applies to the scientist, as well as to the objects\nhe studies. The scientists of our time have had to be prodded into\nconsidering each new discovery about the subconscious mind, precisely as\nthe scientists of Galileo's time had to be prodded to watch him drop\nweights from the tower of Pisa. When he told them that the earth moved\nround the sun instead of the sun round the earth, they tortured him in a\ndungeon to make him take it back, and he did so, but whispered to\nhimself, \"And yet it moves.\" And it did move, of course, and continued\nto move. And in exactly the same way, if it be true that we have these\nhidden forces in us, they will continue to manifest themselves, and\nmasses of people will continue to flock to Lily Dale, and to pay out\ntheir hard-earned money, until such a time as our learned men set to\nwork to find out the facts and tell us how we can utilize these forces\nwithout the aid of either superstition or charlatanry.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nTHE POWERS OF THE MIND\n\n     (Sets forth the fact that knowledge is freedom and ignorance is\n     slavery, and what science means to the people.)\n\n\nWe have now completed a brief survey of the mind and its powers.\nWhatever we may have proved or failed to prove, this much we may say\nwith assurance: the reader who has followed our brief sketch attentively\nhas been disabused of any idea he may have held that he knows it all;\nand this is always the first step towards knowledge.\n\nThe mind is the instrument whereby our race has lifted itself out of\nbeasthood. It is the instrument whereby we hold ourselves above the\nforces which seek to drag us down, and whereby we shall lift ourselves\nhigher, if higher we are to go. How shall we protect this precious\ninstrument? How shall we complete our mastery of it? What are the laws\nof the conduct of the mind?\n\nThe process of the mind is one of groping outward after new facts, and\ndigesting and assimilating them, as the body gropes after and digests\nand assimilates food. The senses bring us new impressions, and we take\nthese and analyze them, tear them into the parts which compose them,\ncompare them with previous sensations, recognize difference in things\nwhich seem to be alike, and resemblances in things which seem to be\ndifferent; we classify them, and provide them with names, which are, as\nit were, handles for the mind to grasp. Above all, we seek for causes;\nthose chains of events which make what we know as order in the world of\nphenomena. And when the mind has what seems to be a cause, it proceeds\nto test it according to methods it has worked out, the rules and\nprinciples of experimental science.\n\nIt is a comparatively small number of sensations which the body brings\nto the mind of itself; it is a narrow world in which we should live if\nour minds adopted a passive attitude toward life. But some minds possess\nwhat we call curiosity; they set out upon their own impulse to explore\nlife; they discover new laws and make new experiences and new\nsensations for themselves. The mind forms an idea, and at first, after\nthe fashion of the ancient Greek philosophers, it glorifies that idea\nand sets it in the seat of divinity. But presently comes the empirical\nmethod, which refuses authority to any idea unless it can stand the test\nof experiment, and prove that it corresponds with reality. Nowadays the\nthinker amasses his facts, and forms a theory to explain them, and then\nproceeds to try out this theory by the most rigid method that he or his\ncritics can devise. If the theory doesn't \"work\"--that is, if it doesn't\nexplain all the facts and stand all the tests--it is thrown away like a\nworn-out shoe. So little by little a body of knowledge is built up which\nis real knowledge; which will serve us in our daily lives, which we can\nuse as foundation-stones in the structure of our civilization.\n\nBy this method of research man is expanding his universe beyond anything\nthat could have been conceived in the pre-scientific days. Hour by hour,\nwhile we work and play and sleep, the mind of our race is discovering\nnew worlds in which our posterity will dwell. For uncounted ages man\nwalked upon the earth, surrounded by infinite swarms of bacterial life\nof whose existence he never dreamed. The invisible rays of the spectrum\nbeat upon him, and he knew nothing of what they did to him, whether good\nor evil. He lifted his head and saw vast universes of suns, in\ncomparison with which his world was a mere speck of dust; yet to him\nthese universes were globes or lanterns which some divinity had hung in\nthe sky.\n\nOne of the most fascinating illustrations of how the mind runs ahead of\nthe senses is the story of the planet Uranus, which, less than two\nhundred years ago, had never been beheld by the eye of man. A\nmathematician seated in his study, working over the observations of\nother planets, their motions in relation to their mass and distance,\ndiscovered that their behavior was not as it should be. At certain times\nnone of them were in quite the right place, and he decided that this\nvariation must be due to the existence of an unknown body. He worked out\nthe problem of what must be the mass and the exact orbit of this body,\nin order for it to be responsible for the variations observed; and when\nhe had completed these calculations, he announced to the astronomical\nworld, \"Turn your telescopes to a certain spot in the heavens at a\ncertain minute of a certain night, and you will find a new planet of a\ncertain size.\" And so for the first time the human senses became aware\nof a fact, which by themselves they might not have discovered in all\neternity.\n\nNow, the importance of exact knowledge concerning a new planet may not\nbe apparent to the ordinary man; but if the thing which is discovered\nis, for example, an unknown ray which will move an engine or destroy a\ncancer, then we realize the worthwhileness of research, and the masters\nof the world's commerce are willing to give here and there a pittance\nfor the increase of such knowledge. But men of science, who have by this\ntime come to a sense of their own dignity and importance, understand\nthat there is no knowledge about reality which is useless, no research\ninto nature which is wasted. You might say that to describe and classify\nthe fleas which inhabit the bodies of rats and ground-squirrels, and to\nstudy under the microscope the bacteria which live in the blood of these\nfleas--that this would be an occupation hardly worthy of the divinity\nthat is in man. But presently, as a result of this knowledge about fleas\nand flea diseases being in existence and available, a bacteriologist\ndiscovers the secret of the dread bubonic plague, which hundreds of\ntimes in past history has wiped out a great part of the population of\nEurope and Asia.\n\nMark Twain tells in his \"Connecticut Yankee\" how his hero was able to\novercome the wizard Merlin, because he knew in advance of an eclipse of\nthe sun. And this was fiction, of course; but if you prefer fact, you\nmay read in the memoirs of Houdin, the French conjurer, how he was able\nto bring the Arab tribes into subjection to the French government by\ndepriving the great chieftains of their strength. He gathered them into\na theatre, and invited their mighty men upon the stage, and there was an\niron weight, and they were able to lift it when Houdin permitted, and\nnot to lift it when he forbade. These noble barbarians had never heard\nof the electro-magnet, and could not conceive of a force that could\noperate through a solid wooden floor beneath their feet.\n\nSuch things, trivial as they are, serve to illustrate the difference\nbetween ignorance and knowledge, and the power which knowledge gives.\nThe man who knows is godlike to those who do not know; he may enslave\nthem, he may do what he pleases with their lives, and they are powerless\nto help themselves. Anyone who would help them must begin by giving them\nknowledge, real knowledge. There is no such thing as freedom without\nknowledge, and it must be the best knowledge, it must be new knowledge;\nhe who goes against new knowledge armed with old knowledge is like the\nChinese who went out to meet machine-guns with bows and arrows, and with\numbrellas over their heads.\n\nOnce upon a time knowledge was the prerogative of kings and priests and\nruling castes; but this supreme power has been wrested from them, and\nthis is the greatest step in human progress so far taken. \"Seek and ye\nshall find,\" is the law concerning knowledge today. \"Knock, and it shall\nbe opened unto you.\" In this, my Book of the Mind, I say to you that\nknowledge is your priceless birthright, and that you should repudiate\nall men and all institutions and all creeds and all formulas which seek\nto keep this heritage from you. Beware of men who bid you believe\nsomething because it is told you, or because your fathers believed it,\nor because it is written in some ancient book, or embodied in some\nancient ceremonial. Break the chains of these venerable spells; and at\nthe same time beware of the modern spells which have been contrived to\nreplace them! Beware of party cries and shibboleths, the idols of the\nforum, as Plato called them, the prejudices which are set as snares for\nyour feet. Beware of cant--that paraphernalia of noble sentiments,\nartificially manufactured by politicians and newspapers for the purpose\nof blinding you to their knaveries. Remember that you live in a world of\nclass conflicts; at every moment of your life your mind is besieged by\nsecret enemies, it is exposed to poison gas-clouds deliberately released\nby people who seek to make use of you for purposes which are theirs and\nnot yours. In the fairy-tales we used to love, the hero was provided\nwith magic protection against the perils of those times; but what hero\nand what magic will guard the modern man against the propaganda of\nmilitarism, nationalism, and capitalist imperialism?\n\nThe mind is like the body in that it can be trained, it can be taught\nsound habits, its powers can be enormously increased. There are many\nbooks on mind and memory training, some of which are useful, and some of\nwhich are trash. There is an English system widely advertised, called\n\"Pelmanism,\" of which I have personally made no test, but it has won\nendorsements of a great many people who do not give their endorsements\nlightly.\n\nThis is the subject of applied psychology, and just as in medicine, or\nin law, or in any of the arts, there is a vast amount of charlatanry,\nbut there is also genuine knowledge being patiently accumulated and\nstandardized. When the United States government had to have an army in a\nhurry it did not make its millions of young men into teamsters or\naviators at random. It used the new methods of determining reaction\ntimes, and testing the coordination of mind and body. Recently I visited\nthe Whittier Reform School in California, where delinquent boys are\neducated by the state. A boy had been set to work in the tailor shop,\nand it had been found that he was unable to make the buttons and the\nbuttonholes of a coat come in the right place. For nine years the state\nof California, and before it the state of Georgia, had been laboring to\nteach this boy to make buttons and buttonholes meet; the effort had cost\nsome five thousand dollars, to say nothing of all the coats which were\nspoiled, and all the mental suffering of the victim and his teachers.\nFinally someone persuaded the state of California to spend a few\nthousand dollars and install a psychological bureau for the purpose of\ntesting all the inmates of the institution; so by a half hour's\nexamination the fact was developed that this boy was mentally defective.\nAlthough he was eighteen years old in body, his mind was only eight\nyears old, and so he would never be able to achieve the feat of making\nbuttons and buttonholes meet.\n\nThis is a new science which you may read about in Terman's \"The\nMeasurement of Intelligence.\" By testing normal children, it is\nestablished that certain tasks can be performed at certain ages. A child\nof three can point to his eyes, his nose and his mouth; he can repeat a\nsentence of six syllables, and repeat two digits, and give his family\nname. Older children are asked to look at a picture and then tell what\nthey saw; to note omissions in a picture, to arrange blocks according to\ntheir weight, to arrange words into sentences, to note absurdities in\nstatements, to count backwards, and to make change. Children of fifteen\nare asked to interpret fables, to reverse the hands of a clock, and so\non. Of course there are always variations; every child will be better at\nsome kinds of tests than at others. But by having a wide variety, and\ntaking the average, you establish a \"mental age\" for the child--which\nmay be widely different from its physical age. You may find some whose\nminds have stopped growing altogether, and can only be made to grow by\nspecial methods of education. Enlightened communities are now conducting\nseparate schools for defective children--replacing the old-fashioned\nschoolmaster who wore out birch-rods trying to force poor little\nwretches to learn what was beyond their power.\n\nIn the same way psychology can be applied in industry, and in the\ndetection of crime. Here, too, there is a vast amount of \"fake,\" but\nalso the beginning of a science. Our laws do not as yet permit the use\nof automatic writing and the hypnotic trance in the investigation of\ncrime, but they have sometimes permitted some of the simpler tests, for\nexample, those of memory association. The examiner prepares a list of a\nhundred names of objects, and reads those names one after another, and\nasks the person he is investigating to name the first thing which is\nsuggested to him by each word in turn. \"Engine\" will suggest \"steam,\" or\nperhaps it will suggest \"train\"; \"coat\" will suggest \"trousers,\" or\nperhaps it will suggest \"pocket,\" and so on. The examiner holds a\nstop-watch, and notes what fraction of a second each one of these\nreactions takes. The ordinary man, who is not trying to conceal\nanything, will give all his associations promptly, and the reaction\ntimes will be approximately alike. But suppose the man has just murdered\nsomebody with an axe, and buried the body in a cellar with a fire\nshovel, and taken a pocketbook, and a watch, and a locket, and a number\nof various objects, and climbed out of the cellar window by breaking the\nglass; and now suppose that in his list of a hundred objects the\npsychologist introduces unexpectedly a number of these things. In each\ncase the first memory association of the criminal will be one which he\ndoes not wish to give. He will have to find another, and that inevitably\ntakes time. One or two such delays might be accidental; but if every\ntime there is any suggestion of the murder, or the method or scene of\nthe murder, there is noticed confusion and delay, you may be sure that\nthe conscious mind is interfering with the subconscious mind. The\ndifference between the conscious and the subconscious mind is always\npossible to detect, and if you are permitted to be thorough in your\nexperiments, you can make certain what is in the subconscious mind that\nthe conscious mind is trying to conceal.\n\nHere, as everywhere in life, knowledge is power, and expert knowledge\nconfers mastery over the shrewdest untrained mind. The only trouble is\nthat under our present social system the trained mind is very apt to be\nworking in the interest of class privilege. The psychologist who is\nemployed by a great corporation, or by a police department, may be as\nlittle worthy of trust as a chemist who is engaged in making poison\ngases to be used by capitalist imperialism for the extermination of its\nrebellious slaves. But what this proves is not that scientific knowledge\nis untrustworthy, but merely that the workers must acquire it, they must\nhave their own organizations and their own experiments in every field.\nTo give knowledge to the masses of mankind, slow and painful as the\nprocess seems, is now the most important task confronting the\nenlightened thinker.\n\nThe method of psychoanalysis gives us also much insight into the\nphenomena of genius, and the hope that we may ultimately come to\nunderstand it. At present we are embarrassed because genius is so often\nclosely allied to eccentricity; the supernormal appears in connection\nwith the subnormal--and it is often hard to tell them apart. Great poets\nand painters in revolt against a world of smug commercialism, adopt\nirresponsibility as their religion; they live in a world of their own,\nthey dress like freaks, they refuse to pay their debts, or to be true to\ntheir wives. They are followed by a host of disciples, who adopt the\ndefects of the master as a substitute for his qualities. And so there\ngrows up a perverted notion of what genius is, and wholly false\nstandards of artistic quality. There is nothing mankind needs more than\nsure and exact tests of mental superiority; not merely the ability to\nacquire languages and to solve mathematical equations, but the ability\nto carry in the mind intense emotions, while at the same time shaping\nand organizing them by the logical faculty, selecting masses of facts\nand weaving them into a pattern calculated to awaken the emotion in\nothers. This is the last and greatest work of the human spirit, and to\nselect the men who can do it, and foster their activity, is the ultimate\npurpose of all true science.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nTHE CONDUCT OF THE MIND\n\n     (Concludes the Book of the Mind with a study of how to preserve and\n     develop its powers for the protection of our lives and the lives of\n     all men.)\n\n\nSomeone wrote me the other day, asking, \"When is the best time to\nacquire knowledge?\" I answer, \"The time is now.\" It is easier to learn\nthings when you are young, but you cannot be young when you want to be,\nand if you are old, the best time to acquire knowledge is when you are\nold. It is true that the brain-cells seem to harden like the body, and\nit is less easy for them to take on new impressions; but it can be done,\nand just as Seneca began to learn Greek at eighty, I know several old\nmen whom the recent war has shaken out of their grooves of thought and\ncompelled to deal with modern ideas.\n\nBut if you are young, then so much the better! Then the divine thrill of\ncuriosity is keenest; then your memory is fresh, and can be trained;\nyour mind is plastic, and you can form sound habits. You can teach\nyourself to respect truth and to seek it, you can teach yourself\naccuracy, open-mindedness, flexibility, persistence in the search for\nunderstanding.\n\nFirst of all, I think, is accuracy. Learn to think straight! Let your\nmind be as a sharp scalpel, penetrating unrealities and falsehoods,\ncutting its way to the facts. When you set out to deal with a certain\nsubject, acquire mastery of it, so that you can say, \"I know.\" And yet,\nnever be too sure that you know! Never be so sure, that you are not\nwilling to consider new facts, and to change your way of thinking if it\nshould be necessary. I look about me at the world, and see tigers and\nserpents, dynamite and poison gas and forty-two centimeter shells--yet I\nsee nothing in the world so deadly to men as an error of the mind. Look\nat the mental follies about you! Look at the prejudices, the delusions,\nthe lies deliberately maintained--and realize the waste of it all, the\npity of it all!\n\nEvery man, it seems, has his pet delusions, which he hugs to his bosom\nand loves because they are his own. If you try to deprive him of those\ndelusions, it is as though you tore from a woman's arms the child she\nhas borne. I have written a book called \"The Profits of Religion,\" and\nnever a week passes that there do not come to me letters from people who\ntell me they have read this book with pleasure and profit, they are\ngrateful to me for teaching them so much about the follies and delusions\nof mankind, and it is all right and all true, save for two or three\npages, in which I deal with the special hobby which happens to be their\nhobby! What I say about all the other creeds is correct--but I fail to\nunderstand that the Mormon religion is a dignified and inspired\nreligion, a gift from on high, and if only I would carefully study the\n\"Book of Mormon,\" I would realize my error! Or it is all right, except\nwhat I say about the Christian Scientists, or the Theosophists, or\nperhaps one particular sect of the Theosophists, who are different from\nthe others. Today there lies upon my desk a letter from a man who has\nread many of my books, and now is grief-stricken because he must part\ncompany from me; he discovers that I permit myself to speak\ndisrespectfully about the Seventh Day Adventist religion, whereas he is\nprepared to show the marvels of biblical prophecy now achieving\nthemselves in the world. How could any save a divinely revealed religion\nhave foreseen the present movement to establish the Sabbath by law? Yes,\nand presently I shall see the last atom of the prophecy fulfilled--there\nwill be a death penalty for failure to obey the Sabbath law!\n\nCultivate the great and precious virtue of open-mindedness. Keep your\nthinking free, not merely from outer compulsions, but from the more\ndeadly compulsions of its own making--from prejudices and superstitions.\nThe prejudices and superstitions of mankind are like those diseased\nmental states which are discovered by the psychoanalyst; what he calls a\n\"complex\" in the subconscious mind, a tangle or knot which is a center\nof disturbance, and keeps the whole being in a state of confusion. Each\ngroup of men, each sect or class, have their precious dogmas, their\nshibboleths, their sacred words and stock phrases which set their whole\nbeings aflame with fanaticism. They have also their phobias, their words\nof terror, which cannot be spoken in their presence without causing a\nbrain-storm.\n\nAt present the dread word of our time is \"Communist.\"\n\nYou can scarcely say the word without someone telephoning for the\npolice. And yet, when you meet a Communist, what is he? A worn and\nfragile student, who has thought out a way to make the world a better\nplace to live in, and whose crime is that he tells others about his\nidea! Or perhaps you belong to the other side, and then your word of\nterror is the word \"Capitalist.\" You meet a Capitalist, and what do you\nfind? Very likely you find a man who is kindly, generous in his personal\nimpulses, but bewildered, possibly a little frightened, still more\nirritated and made stubborn. So you realize that nearly all men are\nbetter than the institutions and systems under which they live; you\nrealize the urgent need of applying your reasoning powers to the problem\nof social reorganization.\n\nCultivate also, in the affairs of your mind, the ancient virtue of\nhumility. There is an oldtime poem, which perhaps was in your school\nreaders, \"Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?\" My answer is,\nfor innumerable reasons. The spirit of mortal should be proud and must\nbe proud because life throbs in it, and because life is a marvelous\nthing, and the excitement of life is perpetual. Yesterday I met a young\nmother; and of what avail is all the pessimism of poets against the\npride of a young mother? \"Oh!\" she cried, and her face lighted up with\ndelight. \"He said 'Goo'!\" Yes, he said \"Goo!\"--and never since the world\nbegan had there been a baby which had achieved that marvel. Presently it\nwill be, \"Look, look, he is trying to walk!\" Then he will be getting\nmarks at school, and presently he will be displaying signs of genius.\nAlways it will take an effort of the mind of that young mother to\nrealize that there are other children in the world as wonderful as her\nown; and perhaps it will take many generations of mental effort before\nthere will be young mothers capable of realizing that some other child\nis more wonderful than her child.\n\nIn other words, it is by a definite process of broadening our minds that\nwe come to realize the lives of others, to transfer to them the interest\nwe naturally take in our own lives, and to admit them to a state of\nequality with ourselves. This is one of the services the mind must\nrender for us; it is the process of civilizing us. And there is another,\nand yet more important task, which is to make clear to us the fact that\nwe do not altogether make this life of ours, that there is a universe of\npower and wisdom which is not ours, but on which we draw. \"The fear of\nthe Lord is the beginning of wisdom,\" said the Psalmist. We know now\nthat fear is an ugly emotion, destructive to life; but it may be\npurified and made into a true humility, which every thinking man must\nfeel towards life and its miracles.\n\nAlso the man will have joy, because it is given him to share the high,\nmarvelous adventure of being. To the pleasures of the body there is a\nlimit, and it comes quickly; but the pleasures of the mind are infinite,\nand no one who truly understands them can have a moment of boredom in\nlife. To a man who possesses the key to modern thought, who knows what\nknowledge is and where to look for it, the life of the mind is a\npanorama of delight perpetually unrolled before him. To the minds of our\nancestors there was one universe; but to our minds there are many\nuniverses, and new ones continually discovered.\n\nThe only question is, which one will you choose? Will you choose the\nuniverse of outer space, the material world of infinity? Consider the\nsmallest insect that you can see, crawling upon the surface of the\nearth; small as that insect is in relation to the earth, it is not so\nsmall, by millions of times, as is the earth in relation to the universe\nmade visible to our eyes by the high-power telescope, plus the\nphotographic camera, plus the microscope. If you want to know the\nmiracles of this world of space, read Arrhenius' \"The Life of the\nUniverse,\" or Simon Newcomb's \"Sidelights on Astronomy.\" Suffice it here\nto say that we have a chemistry of the stars, by means of the\nspectroscope; that we can measure the speed and direction of stars by\nthe same means; that we have learned to measure the size of the stars,\nand are studying stars which we cannot even see! And then along comes\nEinstein, with his theories of \"relativity,\" and makes it seem that we\nhave to revise a great part of this knowledge to allow for the fact that\nnot merely everything we look at, but also we ourselves, are flying\nevery which way through space!\n\nOr will you choose the universe of the atom, the infinity of the\nmaterial world followed the other way, so to speak? Big as is the\nuniverse in relation to our world, and big as is our world in relation\nto the insect that crawls on it, the insect is bigger yet in relation to\nthe molecules which compose its body; and these in turn are millions of\nmillions of times bigger than the atoms which compose them; and then,\nbehold, in the atom there are millions of millions of electrons--tiny\nparticles of electric energy! We cannot see these infinitely minute\nthings, any more than we can see the electricity which runs our trolley\ncars; but we can see their effects, and we can count and measure them,\nand deal with them in complicated mathematical formulas, and be just as\ncertain of their existence as we are of the dust under our feet. If you\nwish to explore this wonderland, read Duncan's \"The New Knowledge,\" or\nDr. Henry Smith Williams' \"Miracles of Science.\"\n\nOr will you choose the universe of the subconscious, our racial past\nlocked up in the secret chambers of our mind? Or will you choose the\nuniverse of the superconscious, the infinity of genius manifested in the\narts? By the device of art man not merely creates new life, he tests it,\nhe weighs it and measures it, he tries experiments with it, as the\nphysicist with the molecule and the astronomer with light. He finds out\nwhat works, and what does not work, and so develops his moral and\nspiritual muscles, training himself for his task as maker of life.\n\nWritten words can give but a feeble idea of the wonders that are found\nin these enchanted regions of the mind. Here are palaces of splendor\nbeyond imagining, here are temples with sacred shrines, and\ntreasure-chambers full of gold and priceless jewels. Into these places\nwe enter as Aladdin in the ancient tale; we are the masters here, and\nall that we see is ours. He who has once got access to it--he possesses\nnot merely the magic lamp, he possesses all the wonderful fairy\nproperties of all the tales of our childhood. His is the Tarnhelm and\nthe magic ring which gives him power over his foes; his is the sword\nExcalibur which none can break, and the silver bullet which brings down\nall game, and the flying carpet upon which to travel over the earth, and\nthe house made of ginger-bread, and the three wishes which always come\ntrue, and the philter of love, and the elixir of youth, and the music of\nthe spheres, and--who knows, some day he may come upon heaven, with St.\nPeter and his golden key, and the seraphim singing, and the happy blest\nconversing!\n\n\n\n\nPART TWO\n\nTHE BOOK OF THE BODY\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nTHE UNITY OF THE BODY\n\n     (Discusses the body as a whole, and shows that health is not a\n     matter of many different organs and functions, but is one problem\n     of one organism.)\n\n\nThe reader who has followed our argument this far will understand that\nwe are seldom willing to think of the body as separate from the mind.\nThe body is a machine, to be sure, but it is a machine that has a\ndriver, and while it is possible for a sound machine to have a drunken\nand irresponsible driver, such a machine is not apt to remain sound very\nlong. Frequently, when there is trouble with the machine, we find the\nfault to be with the driver; in other words, we find that what is needed\nfor the body is a change in the mind.\n\nIf you wish to have a sound body, and to keep it sound as long as\npossible, the first problem for you to settle is what you want to make\nof your life; you must have a purpose, and confront the tasks of life\nwith energy and interest. What is the use of talking about health to a\nman who has no moral purpose? He may answer--indeed, I have heard\nvictims of alcoholism answer--\"Let me alone. I have a right to go to\nhell in my own way.\"\n\nI am aware, of course, that the opposite of the proposition is equally\ntrue. A man cannot enjoy much mental health while he has a sick body. It\nis a good deal like the old question, Which comes first, the hen or the\negg? The mind and the body are bound up together, and you may try to\ndeal with each by turn, but always you find yourself having to deal with\nboth. Most physicians have a tendency to overlook the mind, and\nChristian Scientists make a religion of overlooking the body, and each\npays the penalty in greatly reduced effectiveness.\n\nMy first criticism of medical science, as it exists today, is that it\nhas a tendency to concentrate upon organs and functions, and to overlook\nthe central unity of the system. You will find a doctor who specializes\nin the stomach and its diseases, and is apt to talk as if the stomach\nwere a thing that went around in the world all by itself. He will\ndiscuss the question of what goes into your stomach, and overlook to\npoint out to you that your stomach is nourished by your blood-stream,\nwhich is controlled by your nervous system, which in turn is controlled\nby hope, by ambition, by love, by all the spiritual elements of your\nbeing. A single pulse of anger or of fear may make more trouble with the\ncontents of your stomach than the doctor's pepsins and digestive\nferments can remedy in a week.\n\nOf course, you may do yourself some purely local injury, and so for a\ntime have a purely local problem. You may smash your finger, and that is\na problem of a finger; but neglect it for a few days, and let blood\npoison set in, and you will be made aware that the human body is one\norganism, and also that, in spite of any metaphysical theories you may\nhold, your body does sometimes dominate and control your mind.\n\nSome one has said that the blood is the life; and certainly the blood is\nboth the symbol and the instrument of the body's unity. The blood\npenetrates to all parts of the body and maintains and renews them. If\nthe blood is normal, the work of renewal does not often fail. If there\nis a failure of renewal--that is, a disease--we shall generally find an\nabnormal condition of the blood. The distribution of the blood is\ncontrolled by the heart, a great four-chambered pump. One chamber drives\nthe blood to the lungs, a mass of fine porous membranes, where it comes\ninto contact with the air, and gives off the poisons which it has\naccumulated in its course through the body, and takes up a fresh supply\nof oxygen. By another chamber of the heart the blood is then sucked out\nof the lungs, and by the next chamber it is driven to every corner of\nthe body. It takes to every cell of the body the protein materials which\nare necessary for the body's renewal, and also the fuel materials which\nare to be burned to supply the body's energy; also it takes some thirty\nmillion millions of microscopic red corpuscles which are the carriers of\noxygen, and an even greater number of the white corpuscles, which are\nthe body's scavengers, its defenders from invasion by outside germs.\n\nThere are certain outer portions of the body, such as nails and the\nscales of the skin, which are dead matter, produced by the body and\npushed out from it and no longer nourished by the blood. But all the\nstill living parts of the body are fed at every instant by the stream of\nlife. Each cell in the body takes the fuel which it needs for its\nactivities, and combines it with the oxygen brought by the red\ncorpuscles; and when the task of power-production has been achieved, the\ncell puts back into the blood-stream, not merely the carbon dioxide, but\nmany complex chemical products--ammonia, uric acid, and the \"fatigue\npoisons,\" indol, phenol and skatol. The blood-stream bears these along,\nand delivers some to the sweat glands to be thrown out, and some to the\nkidneys, and the rest to the lungs.\n\nAll of this complicated mass of activities is in normal health perfectly\nregulated and timed by the nervous system. You lie down to sleep, and\nyour muscles rest, and the vital activities slow up, your heart beats\nonly faintly; but let something frighten you, and you sit up, and these\nfaculties leap into activity, your heart begins to pound, driving a\nfresh supply of blood and vital energy. You jump up and run, and these\norgans all set to work at top speed. If they did not do so, your muscles\nwould have no fresh energy; they would become paralyzed by the fatigue\npoisons, and you would be, as we say, exhausted.\n\nAll the rest of the body might be described as a shelter and accessory\nto the life-giving blood-stream; all the rest is the blood-stream's\nmeans of protecting itself and renewing itself. The stomach is to digest\nand prepare new blood material, the teeth are to crush it and grind it,\nthe hands are to seize it, the eyes are to see it, the brain is to\nfigure out its whereabouts. Man, in his egotism, imagines his little\nworld as the center of the universe; but the wise old fellow who lives\nsomewhere deep in our subconsciousness and looks after the welfare of\nour blood-stream--he has far better reason for believing that all our\nconsciousness and our personality exist for him!\n\nNow, disease is some failure of this blood-stream properly to renew\nitself or properly to protect itself and its various subsidiary organs.\nWhen you find yourself with a disease, you call in a doctor; and unless\nthis doctor is a modern and progressive man, he makes the mistake of\nassuming that the disease is in the particular organ where it shows\nitself. You have, let us say, \"follicular tonsilitis.\" (These medical\nmen have a love for long names, which have the effect of awing you, and\nconvincing you that you are in desperate need of attention.) Your throat\nis sore, your tonsils are swollen and covered with white spots; so the\ndoctor hauls out his little black bag, and makes a swab of cotton and\ndips it, say in lysol, and paints your tonsils. He knows by means of the\nmicroscope that your tonsils are covered and filled with a mass of\nforeign germs which are feeding upon them; also he knows that lysol\nkills these germs, and he gives you a gargle for the same purpose, puts\nyou to bed, and gradually the swelling goes down, and he tells you that\nhe has cured you, and sends you a bill for services rendered. But maybe\nthe swelling does not go down; maybe it gets worse and you die. Then he\ntells your family that nature was to blame. Nature is to blame for your\ndeath, but it never occurs to anyone to ask what nature may have had to\ndo with your recovery.\n\nI do not know how many thousands of diseases medical science has now\nclassified. And for each separate disease there are complex formulas,\nand your system is pumped full of various mineral and vegetable\nsubstances which have been found to affect it in certain ways. Perhaps\nyou have a fever; then we give you a substance which reduces the\ntemperature of your blood-stream. It never occurs to us to reflect that\nmaybe nature has some purpose of her own in raising the temperature of\nthe blood; that this might be, so to speak, the heat of conflict, a\nstruggle she is waging to drive out invading germs; and that possibly it\nwould be better for the temperature to stay up until the battle is over.\nOr maybe the heart is failing; then our medical man is so eager to get\nsomething into the system that he cannot wait for the slow process of\nthe mouth and the stomach, he shoots some strychnine directly into the\nblood-stream. It does not occur to him to reflect that maybe the heart\nis slowing up because it is overloaded with fatigue poisons, of which it\ncannot rid itself, and that the effect of stimulating it into fresh\nactivity will be to leave it more dangerously poisoned than before.\n\nWe are dealing here with processes which our ancient mother nature has\nbeen carrying on for a long time, and which she very thoroughly\nunderstands. We ought, therefore, to be sure that we know what is the\nfinal effect of our actions; more especially we ought to be sure that we\nunderstand the cause of the evil, so that we may remove it, and not\nsimply waste our time treating symptoms, putting plasters on a cancer.\nThis is the fundamental problem of health; and in order to make clear\nwhat I mean, I am going to begin by telling a personal experience, a\ntest which I made of medical science some twelve or fourteen years ago,\nin connection with one of the simplest and most external of the body's\nproblems--the hair. First I will tell you what medical science was able\nto do for my hair, and second what I myself was able to do, when I put\nmy own wits to work on the problem.\n\nI had been overworking, and was in a badly run down condition. I was\nhaving headaches, insomnia, ulcerated teeth, many symptoms of a general\nbreakdown; among these I noticed that my hair was coming out. I decided\nthat it was foolish to become bald before I was thirty, and that I would\ntake a little time off, and spend a little money and have my hair\nattended to. I did not know where to go, but I wanted the best authority\navailable, so I wrote to the superintendent of the largest hospital in\nNew York, asking him for the name of a reliable specialist in diseases\nof the scalp. The superintendent replied by referring me to a certain\nphysician, who was the hospital's \"consulting dermatologist,\" and I went\nto see this physician, whose home and office were just off Fifth Avenue.\n\nHe examined my scalp, and told me that I had dandruff in my hair, and\nthat he would give me a prescription which would remove this dandruff\nand cause my hair to stop falling out. He charged me ten dollars for the\nvisit, which in those days was more money than it is at present. Being\nof an inquiring turn of mind, I tried to get my money's worth by\nlearning what there was to learn about the human hair. I questioned this\ngentleman, and he told me that the hair is a dead substance, and that\nits only life is in the root. He explained that barbers often persuade\npeople to have their hair singed, to keep it from falling out, and that\nthis was an utterly futile procedure, and likewise all shampooing and\nmassage, which only caused the hair to fall out more quickly. It was\nbetter even not to wash the hair too often. All that was needed was a\nmixture of chemicals to kill the dandruff germs; and so I had the\nprescription put up at a drug store, and for a couple of years I\nreligiously used it according to order, and it had upon my hair\nabsolutely no effect whatever.\n\nSo here was the best that medical science could do. But still, I did not\nwant to be bald, so I went among the health cranks--people who\nexperiment without license from the medical schools. Also, I\nexperimented upon myself, and now I know something about the human hair,\nsomething entirely different from what the rich and successful\n\"consulting dermatologist\" taught me, but which has kept me from\nbecoming entirely bald:\n\nFirst, the human hair is made by the body, and it is made, like\neverything else in the body, out of the blood-stream. It is perfectly\ntrue that the dandruff germ gets into the roots, and makes trouble, and\nthat the process of killing this germ can be helped by chemicals; but it\ndoes not take a ten-dollar prescription, it only takes ten cents' worth\nof borax and salt from the corner grocery. (Put a little into a saucer,\nmoisten it, rub it into the scalp, and wash it out again.) But\ninfinitely more important than this is the fact that healthy hair roots\nare a product of healthy blood, and that unhealthy blood produces sick\nhair roots, which cannot hold in the hair. Most important of all is the\nfact that in order to make healthy hair roots the blood must flow fully\nand freely to these hair roots; whereas I had been accustomed for many\nhours every day of my life to clap around my scalp a tight band which\nalmost entirely stopped the circulation of the life-giving blood to my\nsick hair roots. In other words, by wearing civilized hats, I was\nliterally starving my hair to death.\n\nAs soon as I realized this I took off my civilized hat, and have never\nworn one since. As a rule, I don't wear anything. On the few occasions\nwhen I go into the city, I wear a soft cap. Now and then I experience\ninconvenience from this--the elevator boy in some apartment house tells\nme to come in by the delivery entrance, or the porter of a sleeping-car\nwill not let me in at all. I remember discussing these embarrassments\nwith Jack London, who went even further in his defiance of civilization,\nand wore a soft shirt. It was his custom, he said, to knock down the\nelevator boys and sleeping-car porters. I answered that that might be\nall right for him, because he could do it; whereas I was reduced to the\npainful expedient of explaining politely why I went about without the\ncustomary symbols of my economic superiority.\n\nThe \"consulting dermatologist\" had very solemnly and elaborately warned\nme concerning the danger of moving my hair too violently, and thus\ncausing it to come out; but now my investigations brought out the fact\nthat moving the hair, that is, massaging the scalp, increases the flow\nof blood to the hair roots, and further increases resistance to disease.\nAs for causing the hair to fall out, I discovered that the more quickly\nyou cause a hair to fall out, the greater is the chance of your getting\nanother hair. If a hair is allowed to die in the root, it kills that\nroot forever, but if it is pulled out before it dies, the root will make\na new hair. Every \"beauty parlor\" specialist knows this; she knows that\nif a hair is pulled, it grows back bigger and stronger than ever, and so\nto pull out hair is the last thing you must do if you want to get rid of\nhairs!\n\nI know a certain poet, who happens to have been well-endowed with\nphysical graces by our mother nature. He finds it worth while to\npreserve them--they being accessory to those amorous experiences which\nform so large a part of the theme of poetry. Anyhow, this poet values\nhis beautiful hair, and you will see him sitting in front of his\nfireplace, reading a book, and meanwhile his fingers run here and there\nover his head, and he grabs a bunch of hair and pulls and twists it. He\nhas cultivated this habit for many years, and as a result his hair is as\nthick and heavy as the \"fuzzy-wuzzies\" of Kipling's poem. It is a\nfavorite sport of this poet to lure some rival poet into a contest. He\nwill mildly suggest that they take hold of each other's hair and have a\ntug of war. The rival poet, all unsuspecting, will accept the challenge,\nand my friend will proceed to haul him all over the place, to the\naccompaniment of howls of anguish from the victim, and howls of glee\nfrom the victor, who has, of course, a scalp as tough as a rhinoceros\nhide.\n\nI am not a poet, and it is not important that I should be beautiful, and\nI have been too busy to remember to pull my hair; but by giving up tight\nhats, and by limiting the amount of my overworking, I have managed to\nkeep what hair I had left when the hair specialist had got through with\nme. I tell this anecdote at the beginning of my discussion of health,\nbecause it illustrates so well the factors which appear in every case of\ndisease, and which you must understand in seeking to remedy the trouble.\n\nWe have a phrase which has come down to us from the ancient Latins,\n\"vis medicatrix naturae,\" which means the healing power of nature. So\nlong ago men realized that it is our ancient mother who heals our\nwounds, and not the physician. Out of this have grown the cults of\n\"nature cure\" enthusiasts; and according to the fashion of men, they fly\nto extremes just as unreasonable and as dangerous as those of the \"pill\ndoctors\" they are opposing. I have in mind a man who taught me probably\nmore than any other writer on health questions, and with whom I once\ndiscussed the subject of typhoid, how it seemed to affect able-bodied\nmen in the prime of their physical being. This, of course, was contrary\nto the theories of nature cure, and my friend had a simple way of\nmeeting the argument--he refused to believe it. He insisted that, as\nwith all other germ infections, it must be a question of bodily tone; no\ngerm could secure lodgment in the human body unless the body's condition\nwas reduced.\n\n\"But how can you be sure of that?\" I argued. \"You know that if you go\ninto the jungle, you are not immune against the scorpion or the cobra or\nthe tiger. There is nothing in all nature that is safe against every\nenemy. What possible right have you to assert that you are immune\nagainst every enemy which can attack your blood-stream?\"\n\nWe shall find here, as we find nearly always, that the truth lies\nsomewhere between the extremes of two warring schools. Our race has been\nexisting for a long time in a certain environment, and its very\nexistence implies superiority to that environment. The weaklings, for\nwhom its hardships were too severe, were weeded out; hostile parasites\ninvaded their blood-stream and conquered and devoured them. But those\nwho survived were able to make in their blood-stream the substances\nknown as anti-bodies, the \"opsonins,\" to help the white blood corpuscles\ndevour the germs. As the result of their victory, we carry those\nanti-bodies in our system, which gives us immunity to those particular\ndiseases, or at any rate gives us the ability to have the diseases\nwithout dying. Every time we go into a street car, we take into our\nthroat and lungs the germs of tuberculosis. Examination proves that we\ncarry around with us in our mouths the germs of all the common throat\nand nose diseases, colds, bronchitis, tonsilitis. No matter what\nprecautions we might take, no matter if we were to gargle our throats\nevery few minutes, we could never get rid of such germs. And they wage\ncontinual war upon the body's defenses; they batter in vain upon the\ngates of our sound health. But take us to some new environment to which\nwe are not accustomed; take us to Panama in the old days of yellow\nfever, or take us to Africa, and let the tsetse fly bite us, and infect\nus with \"sleeping sickness.\" Here are germs to which our systems are not\naccustomed; and before them we are as helpless as the ancient\nknights-at-arms, who had conquered everything in sight, and ruled the\ncontinent of Europe for many hundreds of years, but were wiped off the\nearth by a chemist mixing gunpowder.\n\nIn the Marquesas Islands, in the South Seas, there lived a beautiful and\nhappy race of savages, believed to have been descended, long ages ago,\nfrom Aryan stock. From the point of view of physical perfection, they\nwere an ideal race, living a blissful outdoor life, which you may read\nabout in Melville's \"Typee,\" and in O'Brien's \"White Shadows in the\nSouth Seas.\" This race conformed to all the requirements of the nature\nenthusiast. They went practically naked, their houses were open all the\ntime, they lived on the abundant fruits of the earth. To be sure, they\nwere cannibals, but this was more a matter of religious ceremony than of\ndiet. They ate their war captives, but this was only after battle, and\nnot often enough to count, one way or the other, in matters of health.\nThey had lived for uncounted ages in perfect harmony with their\nenvironment; they were happy and free; and certainly, if such a thing\nwere possible to human beings, they should have been proof against\ngerms. But a ship came to one of these islands, and put ashore a sailor\ndying of tuberculosis, and in a few years four-fifths of the population\nof this island had been wiped out by the disease. What tuberculosis left\nwere finished by syphilis and smallpox, and today the Marquesans are an\nalmost extinct race.\n\nBut there is another side to the argument--and one more favorable to the\nnature cure enthusiast. We civilized men, by soft living, by\nself-indulgence and lack of exercise, may reduce the tone of our body\ntoo far below the standard which our ancestors set for us; and then the\ncommon disease germs get us, then we have colds, sore throats,\ntuberculosis. The nature cure advocate is perfectly right in saying that\nthere is no use treating such diseases; the thing is to restore the body\nto its former tone, so that we may be superior to our normal environment\nand its strains.\n\nYou know the poem of the \"One Hoss Shay,\" which was so perfectly built\nin every part that it ran for fifty years and then collapsed all at once\nin a heap. But the human body is not built that way. It always has one\nor more places which are weaker than the others, and which first show\nthe effects of strain. In one person it will take the form of dyspepsia,\nin another it will be headaches, in another colds, in another decaying\nteeth, in another hardening of the arteries or stiffening of the joints.\nBut whatever the symptoms may be, the fundamental cause is always the\nsame, an abnormal condition of the blood-stream, and a consequent\nlowering of the body's tone. Therefore, studying any disease and its\ncure, you have first the emergency question, are there any germs lodged\nin the body, and if so, how can you destroy them? As part of the\nproblem, you have to ask whether your blood-stream is normal, and if\nnot, what are the methods by which you can make it normal and keep it\nso? Also you have to ask, what are the reasons why your trouble\nmanifests itself in this or that particular organ? Is there some\nweakness or defect there, and can the defect be remedied, or can your\nhabits be changed so as to reduce the strain on that organ? Are there\nany measures you can take to increase the flow of blood to that organ,\nand to promote its activity? In the study of your health, you will find\nthat circumstances differ, and the importance of one factor or the other\nwill vary; but you will seldom find any problem in which all these\nfactors do not enter, and you will seldom find an adequate remedy unless\nyou take all the factors into consideration.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nEXPERIMENTS IN DIET\n\n     (Narrates the author's adventures in search of health, and his\n     conclusions as to what to eat.)\n\n\nStudents of the body assure us that every particle of matter which\ncomposes it is changed in the course of seven years. It is obvious that\neverything that is a part of the body has at some time to be taken in as\nfood; so the problem of our diet today is the problem of what our body\nshall consist of seven years from now, and probably a great deal sooner.\n\nI begin this discussion by telling my own personal experiences with\nfood. I am not going to recommend my diet for anyone else; because one\nof the first things I have to say about the subject is that every human\nindividual is a separate diet problem. But I am going to try to\nestablish a few principles for your guidance, and more especially to\npoint out the commonest mistakes. I tell about my own mistakes, because\nit happens that I know them more intimately.\n\nI was brought up in the South, where it is the custom of people to give\na great deal of time and thought to the subject of eating. Among the\npeople I knew it was always taken for granted that there should be at\nleast one person in the kitchen devoting all her time to the preparing\nof delicious things for the family to eat. This person was generally a\nnegress, and, needless to say, she knew nothing about the chemistry of\nfoods, nothing about their constituents or nutritive qualities. All she\nknew was about their taste; she had been trained to prepare them in ways\nthat tasted best, and was continually being advised and exhorted and\nsometimes scolded by the ladies of the family on this subject. At the\ntable the family and the guests never failed to talk about the food and\nits taste, and not infrequently the cook would be behind the door\nlistening to their comments; or else she would wait until after the\nmeal, for the report which somebody would bring her.\n\nIn addition to this, the ladies of the family were skilled in what is\ncalled \"fancy cooking.\" They did not bother with the meats and\nvegetables, but they mixed batter cakes, and made all kinds of elaborate\ndesserts, and exchanged these treasures and the recipes for them with\nother ladies in the neighborhood. In addition to this, there were\ncertain periods of the week and of the year especially devoted to the\npreparing and consuming of great quantities of foods. Once every seven\ndays the members of the family expressed their worship of their Creator\nby eating twice as much as usual; and at another time they celebrated\nthe birth of their Redeemer by overeating systematically for a period of\ntwo or three weeks. Needless to say, of course, the children brought up\nin such an environment all had large appetites and large stomachs, and\ntheir susceptibility to illness was recognized by the setting apart for\nthem of a whole classification of troubles--\"children's diseases,\" they\nwere called. In addition to children's diseases, there were coughs and\ncolds and sore throats and pains in the stomach and constipation and\ndiarrhea, which the children shared with their adults.\n\nI had a little more than my share of all these troubles. Always a doctor\nwould be sent for, and always he was wise and impressive, and always I\nwas impressed. He gave me some pills or a bottle of liquid, a\nteaspoonful every two hours, or something like that--I can hear the\nteaspoon rattle in the glass as I write. I had a profound respect for\neach and every one of those doctors. He was wisdom walking about in\ntrousers, and whenever he came, I knew that I was going to get well; and\nI did, which proved the case completely.\n\nThen I grew up, and at the age of eighteen or nineteen became possessed\nof a desire for knowledge, and took to reading and studying literally\nevery minute of the day and a good part of the night. I seldom let\nmyself go to sleep before two o'clock in the morning, and was always up\nby seven and ready for work again. I did this for ten years or so, until\nnature brought me to a complete stop. During these ten years I was a\nregular experiment station in health; that is, I had every kind of\ncommon ailment, and had it over and over again, so that I could try all\nthe ways of curing it, or failing to cure it, and keep on trying until I\nwas sure, one way or the other. I came recently upon a wonderful saying\nby John Burroughs, which will be appreciated by every author. \"This\nwriting is an unnatural business. It makes your head hot and your feet\ncold, and it stops the digesting of your food.\"\n\nThis trouble with my digestion began when I was writing my second novel,\ncamping out on a lonely island at the foot of Lake Ontario. I went to\nsee a doctor in a nearby town, and he talked learnedly about dyspepsia.\nThe cause of it, he said, was failure of the stomach to secrete enough\npepsin, and the remedy was to take artificial pepsin, obtained from the\nstomach of a pig. He gave me this pig-pepsin in a bottle of red liquid,\nand I religiously took some after each meal. It helped for a time; but\nthen I noticed that it helped less and less. I got so that a simple meal\nof cold meat and boiled potatoes would stay in my stomach for hours, in\nspite of any amount of the pig-pepsin; I would lie about in misery,\nbecause I wanted to work, and my accursed stomach would not let me.\n\nAll the time, of course, I was using my mind on this problem, groping\nfor causes. I found that the trouble was worse if I worked immediately\nafter eating. I found also that it was worse when I was writing books.\nWhen I got sufficiently desperate, I would stop writing books and go off\non a hunting trip. I would tramp twenty miles a day over the mountains,\nlooking for deer, and I would come back at night too tired to think, and\nin a week or two every trace of my trouble would be gone. So my life\nregimen came to be--first the writing of a book, and then a hunting trip\nto get over the effects of it. But as time went on, alas, I noticed that\nthe recuperation was more slow and less certain. The working times grew\nshorter, and the hunting times grew longer, until finally I had got to a\npoint where I couldn't work at all; I would go to pieces in a few days\nif I tried it. It was apparently the end of my stomach, and the end of\nmy sleeping, and the end of my writing books. My teeth were decaying,\nnot merely outside but inside; I would have abscesses, and most\nfrightful agonies to endure. I would lie awake all night, and it would\nseem to me that I could feel my body going to pieces--an extremely\ndepressing sensation!\n\nI had been trying experiments all this time. I had been going to one\ndoctor after another, and had got to realize that the doctors only\ntreated symptoms; they treated the \"diseases\" when they appeared--but\nnobody ever told you how to keep the \"diseases\" from appearing. Why\ncould there not be a doctor who would look you over thoroughly, and tell\nyou everything that was wrong with you, and how to set it right? A\ndoctor who would tell you exactly how to live, so that you might keep\nwell all the time! I was studying economics, and becoming suspicious of\nmy fellow man; it occurred to me that possibly it might be embarrassing\nto a doctor, if he cured all his patients, and taught them how to live,\nso that none of them would ever have to come to him again. It occurred\nto me that possibly this might be the reason why \"preventive medicine,\"\nconstructive health work, was getting so little attention from the\nmedical fraternity.\n\nTwo things that plagued me were headache and constipation, and they were\nobviously related. For constipation, the world had one simple remedy;\nyou \"took something\" every night or every morning, and thought no more\nabout it. My stout and amiable grandmother had drunk a glass of Hunyadi\nwater every morning for the last thirty or forty years, and that she\nfinally died of \"fatty degeneration of the heart\" was not connected with\nthis in the mind of anyone who knew her. As for the headaches, people\nwould tell you this, that, and the other remedy, and I would try\nthem--that is, unless they happened to be drugs. I was getting more and\nmore shy of drugs. I had some blessed instinct which saved me from\nstimulants and narcotics. I had never used tea, coffee, alcohol or\ntobacco, and in my worst periods of suffering I never took to putting\nmyself to sleep with chloral, or to stopping my headaches with\nphenacetin.\n\nAt the end of six or eight years of purgatory, I came upon a prospectus\nof the Battle Creek Sanitarium. This seemed to me exactly what I wanted;\nthis was constructive, it dealt with the body as a whole. So I spent a\ncouple of months at the \"San,\" and paid them something like a thousand\ndollars to tell me all they could about myself.\n\nThe first thing they told me was that meat-eating was killing me. It was\nperfectly obvious, was it not, that meat is a horrible feeding place for\ngerms, that rotten meat is dreadfully offensive, and likewise digested\nmeat--consider the excreta of cats, for example! I listened solemnly\nwhile Doctor Kellogg read off the numbers of billions of bacteria per\ngram in the contents of the colon of a carnivorous person. It certainly\nseemed proper that the author of \"The Jungle\" should be a vegetarian, so\nI became one, and did my best to persuade myself that I enjoyed the\ntaste of the patent meat-substitutes which are served in hundred calory\nportions in the big Sanitarium dining-room.\n\nThere also I met Horace Fletcher, and learned to chew every particle of\nfood thirty-two times, and often more. I exercised in the Sanitarium\ngymnasium, and watched the sterilized dancing--the men with the men and\nthe women with the women. I was patiently polite with the Seventh Day\nAdventist religion, and laid in a supply of postage stamps on Friday\nevening. Finally, and most important of all, I went once a day to the\n\"treatment rooms,\" and had my abdomen doctored alternately with hot\ncloths and ice. By this means I kept up a flow of blood in the\nintestinal tract, and stimulated these organs to activity; so my\nconstipation was relieved, and my headaches were less severe--so long as\nI stayed at the Sanitarium, and was boiled and frozen once every day.\nBut when I left the Sanitarium, and abandoned the treatments, the\ntroubles began to return. Meantime, however, I had written a book in\npraise of vegetarianism--a book which has got into the libraries, and\ncannot be got out again!\n\nI went on to a new variety of health crank, the real \"nature cure\"\npractitioners. Vegetarianism was not enough, they insisted; the evil had\nbegun long before, when man first ruined his food and destroyed its\nnutritive value by means of fire. There was only one certain road to\nhealth, and that was by the raw food route, the monkey and squirrel\ndiet. I had gone out to California for a winter's rest, and decided I\nwould give this plan a thorough trial. For five months I lived by\nmyself, and the only cooked food I ate was shredded wheat biscuit. For\nthe rest I lived on nuts and salads and fresh and dried fruits; and\nduring this period I enjoyed such health as I had never known in my life\nbefore. I had literally not a single ailment. I was not merely well, but\nbubbling over with health. I had a friend who said it cheered him up\njust to see me walk down the street.\n\nI thought that it was entirely the raw food, and that I had solved the\nproblem forever; but I overlooked the fact that during those five months\nI had done no hard brain work, no writing. I went back to writing again,\nand things began to go wrong; my wonderful raw foods took to making\ntrouble in my stomach--and I assure you that until you try, you have no\nidea the amount of trouble that can be made in your stomach by a load of\nbananas and soaked prunes which has gone wrong! For a year or two I\nagonized; I could not give up my wonderful raw food diet, because I had\nalways before me the vision of those months in California, and could\nnot understand why it was not that way again.\n\nBut the time came when I would eat a meal of raw food, and for hours\nafterwards my stomach would feel like a blown-up football. Then somebody\ngave me a book by Dr. Salisbury on the subject of the meat diet. Of all\nthe horrible things in the world, a meat diet sounded to me the worst; I\nhad been a vegetable enthusiast for three years, and thought of eating\nmeat as you would think of cannibalism. But there has never been a time\nin my life when I would not hear something new, and give it a trial if\nit sounded well; so I read the books of Doctor Salisbury, which have\nlong been out of print, and have been curiously neglected by the medical\nprofession. Salisbury was a real pioneer, an experimenter. He wrote in\nthe days before the germ theory, and so missed his guess regarding\ntuberculosis, but he perceived that most of the common diseases are\ncaused by dietetic errors, and he set to work to prove it. He showed\nthat hog cholera and army diarrhea are the same disease, and come from\nthe same cause. He took a squad of men and fed them on army biscuit for\ntwo or three weeks, until they were nearly dead, and then he put them on\na diet of lean beef and completely cured them in a few days. He did this\nsame thing with one kind of food after another, and in each case he\nwould bring his men as near to death as he dared, and then he would cure\nthem. He showed that meat is the only food which contains all the\nelements of nutrition, the only food upon which a person can live for an\nunlimited period. As Salisbury said, \"Beef is first, mutton is second,\nand the rest nowhere.\"\n\nIt was his idea that tuberculosis of the lungs is caused by spores of\nfermenting starch clogging the minute blood vessels. He claimed that\nthere is an early stage of tuberculosis, in which the spores are\nfloating in the blood stream; he put large numbers of patients upon a\ndiet of lean beef, ground and cooked, and he cured them of tuberculosis,\nand if one of them would break the diet and yield to a craving for\nstarch or sugar, Salisbury claimed that he could find it out an hour or\ntwo later by examining a drop of their blood under the microscope. In\nhis books he described vividly the effects of an excess of starch and\nsugar in the diet. He called it \"making a yeast-pot of your stomach\";\nand you can imagine how that hit my stomach, full of half digested\nbananas and prunes!\n\nI tried the Salisbury diet, and satisfied myself of this one fact, that\nlean meat is for brain-workers the most easily assimilated of all foods.\nSalisbury claimed that you could not overeat on meat, but I do not\nbelieve there is any food you cannot overeat on, nor do I believe that\nanyone should try to live on one kind of food. We are by nature\nomnivorous animals. Our digestive tracts are similar to those of hogs\nand monkeys, which eat all varieties of food they can get. One of the\ncommon errors of the nature cure enthusiast is to cite the monkey and\nthe squirrel as fruit and nut-eating animals, when the fact is that\nmonkeys and squirrels eat meat when they can get it, and the ardor with\nwhich they go bird-nesting is evidence enough that they crave it. If\nthere is any race of man which is vegetarian, you will find that it is\nfrom necessity alone. The beautiful South Sea Islanders, who are the\ntheme of the raw fooders' ecstasy, spend a lot of their time catching\nfish, and sometimes they kill a pig, and celebrate the event precisely\nas Christians celebrate the birth of their Redeemer.\n\nFrom this you may be able to guess my conclusions, as the result of much\npainful blundering and experimenting. So far as diet is concerned, I\nbelong to no school; I have learned something from each one, and what I\nhave learned from a trial of them all is to be shy of extreme statements\nand of hard and fast rules. To my vegetarian friends who argue that it\nis morally wrong to take sentient life, I answer that they cannot go for\na walk in the country without committing that offense, for they walk on\ninnumerable bugs and worms. We cannot live without asserting our right\nto subject the lower forms of life to our purposes; we kill innumerable\ngerms when we swallow a glass of grape juice, or for that matter a glass\nof plain water. I shall be much surprised if the advance of science does\nnot some day prove to us that there are rudimentary forms of\nconsciousness in all vegetable life; so we shall justify the argument of\nMr. Dooley, who said, in reviewing \"The Jungle,\" that he could not see\nhow it was any less a crime to cut off a young tomato in its prime, or\nto murder a whole cradleful of baby peas in the pod!\n\nThere is no question that meat-eating is inconvenient, expensive, and\ndirty. I have no doubt that some day we shall know enough to be able to\nfind for every individual a diet which will keep him at the top of his\npower, without the maintenance of the slaughter-house. But we do not\npossess that knowledge at present; at least, I personally do not possess\nit. I happen to be one of those individuals--there are many of\nthem--with whom milk does not agree; and if you rule out milk and meat,\nyou find yourself compelled to get a great deal of your protein from\nvegetable sources, such as peas, beans and nuts. All these contain a\ngreat deal of starch, and thus there is no way you can arrange your diet\nto escape an excess of starch. Excess of starch, so my experience has\nconvinced me, is the deadliest of all dietetic errors. It is also the\ncommonest of errors, the cause, not merely of the common throat and nose\ninfections, but of constipation, and likewise of diarrhea, of anemia,\nand thus, through the weakening of the blood stream, of all disorders\nthat spring from this source--decaying teeth and rheumatism, boils, bad\ncomplexion, and tuberculosis. Starch foods are the cheapest, therefore\nthey form the common diet of the poor, and are responsible for the\ndiseases of undernourishment to which the poor are liable.\n\nOn the other hand, of course, there are perfectly definite diseases of\novernourishment; high blood pressure, which culminates in apoplexy;\nkidney troubles, which result from the inability of these organs to\neliminate all the waste matter that is delivered to them; fatty\ndegeneration of the heart, or of the liver, or any of the vital organs.\nYou may cause a headache by clogging the blood stream through\novereating, or you may cause it by eating small quantities of food, if\nthose foods are unbalanced, and do not contain the mineral elements\nnecessary to the making of normal blood. Whatever the trouble with your\nhealth, it is my judgment that in two cases out of three you will find\nit dates back to errors in diet. I do not think I exaggerate in saying\nthat a knowledge of what to eat and how much to eat is two-thirds of the\nknowledge of how to keep yourself in permanent health.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nERRORS IN DIET\n\n     (Discusses the different kinds of foods, and the part they play in\n     the making of health and disease.)\n\n\nIt is my purpose in this chapter to lay down a few general principles to\naid you in the practical problem of selecting the best diet for\nyourself. But it must be made clear at the outset that there can be no\nhard and fast rule. All human bodies are more or less alike, but on the\nother hand all are more or less different. Modern civilization has given\nvery few bodies the chance to be perfect; nearly all have some weakness,\nsome abnormality, and need some special modification in diet to fit\ntheir particular problem. The ideal in each case would be a complete\nstudy of the individual system. Some day, no doubt, medical science will\nanalyze the digestive juices and the gland secretions and the\nblood-stream of every human being, and say, you need a certain\npercentage of starch and a certain percentage of protein; you need such\nand such proportion of phosphorus and iron; you should avoid certain\nacids--and so on. But at present we are devoting our science to the task\nof killing and maiming other people, instead of enabling ourselves to\nlive in health and happiness; so it is that most of those who read this\nbook will be too poor to command the advice of a diet specialist. The\nbest you can do is to get a few general ideas and try them out, watching\nyour own body and learning its peculiarities.\n\nHuman food contains three elements: proteins, fats and carbohydrates.\nThe proteins are the body-building material, and the foods which are\nrich in proteins are lean meat, the white of eggs, milk and cheese,\nnuts, peas and beans. A certain amount of this kind of food is needed by\nthe body. If it is missing, the body will gradually waste away. If too\nmuch of it is taken, the body can turn it into energy-making material,\nbut this is a wasteful process, and the best evidence appears to be that\nit is a strain upon the system. Experiments conducted by Professor\nChittenden of Yale have proven conclusively that men can live and\nmaintain body weight upon much less protein food than previous dietetic\nstandards had indicated.\n\nThe fats are found in fat meats and dairy products, and in nuts, olives,\nand vegetable oils. The body is prepared to digest and assimilate a\ncertain amount of fat, no one knows how much. I have found in my own\ncase that I require a great deal less than people ordinarily eat. I have\nfor many years maintained good health upon a diet containing no more fat\nthan one gets with lean meat once or twice a day. I never use butter or\nolive oil, nor any fat in cooking. My reason for this is that fats are\nthe most highly concentrated form of food, and the easiest upon which to\novereat. Excess of fat is a cause, not merely of obesity, but also of\nboils and pimples and \"pasty\" complexion, and other signs of a clogged\nblood-stream.\n\nThe third variety of food is the carbohydrates, and of these there are\ntwo kinds, starches and sugars. Starch is the white material of the\ngrains and tubers; the principal food element of bread and cereals,\nrice, potatoes, bananas, and many prepared substances such as\ncorn-starch, tapioca, farina and macaroni. Starchy foods compose\nprobably half the diet of the average human being. In my own case, they\ncompose about one-sixth, so you see to what extent my beliefs differ\nfrom the common. Starch is not really necessary in the diet at all. I\nhave a friend who is subject to headaches, and finds relief from them by\na diet of meat, salads, and fresh fruits exclusively. The first thing\nthat excess of starch or sugar does is to ferment in the system, and\ncause flatulence and gas. But strange as it may seem, if the excess of\nstarch is perfectly digested and assimilated into the system, the\ncondition may be worse yet, because you may have a great quantity of\nenergy-producing material, without the necessary mineral elements which\nthe body requires in the handling of it.\n\nIf you cremate a human body and study the ashes chemically, you find a\nscore or more of mineral salts. You find these in the blood, and no\nblood is normal and no body can be kept normal which does not contain\nthe right percentage of these elements. It is not merely that they are\nneeded to build bones and teeth; they are needed at every instant for\nthe chemistry of the cells. Every time you move a muscle, you fill the\ncells of that muscle with a certain amount of waste matter. You may\nprove how deadly this matter is by binding a tight cord about your arm,\nand then trying to use the arm. We are only at the beginning of\nunderstanding the subtle chemistry of the body; but this much we know,\nthe cells transform the waste products, and they are thrown out of the\nsystem as ammonia, uric acid, etc.; and for this process the blood must\nhave a continual supply of many mineral salts.\n\nSo vital are they, and so fatal to health is their absence, that it is\nfar better for you to eat nothing at all than to eat improperly balanced\nfoods, or foods which are deficient in the organic salts. You may prove\nthis to yourself by a simple experiment. Put two chickens in separate\npens, where nobody can feed them but yourself. Feed one of them on water\nand white bread, or corn starch, or sugar, or any energy-making\nsubstance which contains little of the mineral elements. Feed the other\nchicken on plain water. You will find that the one which has the food\nwill quickly become droopy and sickly; its feathers will fall out, it\nwill have what in human beings would be known as headaches, colds, sore\nthroats, decaying teeth and boils. At the end of a couple of weeks it\nwill be a dead chicken. The one which you feed on water alone will not\nbe a happy chicken, neither will it be a fat chicken, but it will be a\nlive chicken, and a chicken without disease. I am going later on to\ndiscuss the subject of fasting. For the present I will merely say that a\nchicken which has nothing but water is living upon its own flesh, and\ntherefore has a meat diet, containing the mineral elements necessary to\nthe elimination of the fatigue poisons.\n\nI am going to try not to be dogmatic in this book, and not to say things\nthat I do not know. I confess to innumerable uncertainties about the\nsubject of diet; but one thing I think I do know, and that is that human\nbeings should eliminate absolutely from their food those modern\nartificial products, which look so nice, and are so easy to handle, and\nare put up in packages with pretty labels, and have been in some way\nartificially treated to remove the wastes and impurities--including the\nvital mineral salts. Among such food substances I include lard and its\nimitations made from cottonseed oil, white flour, all the prepared and\nrefined cereals, polished rice, tapioca, farina, corn starch, and\ngranulated and powdered sugar. Any of these substances will kill a\nchicken in a couple of weeks, and the only reason they take a longer\ntime to kill you is because you mix them with other kinds of foods. But\nto the extent that you eat them, your diet is deficient; and do not\nconsole yourself with the idea that the mineral elements will be made up\nfrom other foods, because you don't know that, and nobody else knows it.\nNobody knows just how much of any particular organic salt the body\nneeds. All we know is that the primitive races, which ate natural foods,\nenjoyed vigorous health, while the American people, who consume the\ngreatest proportion of the so-called \"refined\" foods, have the very best\ndentists and the very worst teeth in the world.\n\nThere are many kinds of sugar, found in the sugar-cane and the beet, and\nin all fruits. Sugar may also be made from any form of starch; this is\nglucose, which is put up in cans and sold as an imitation of maple\nsyrup. The ordinary granulated and powdered sugar is made by taking from\nthe natural syrup every trace of mineral elements; so I have no\nhesitation in saying that the ordinary cane sugar and beet sugar of our\nbreakfast tables and our confectionery stores is not a food, but a slow\npoison. The causes of the wonderful progress of American dentistry,\nwhich is the marvel of the civilized world, are cane sugar, white flour,\nand the frying-pan, each of which dietetic crimes I shall take up in\nturn.\n\nWe have the richest country in the world; we eat more food, probably by\n50 per cent, and we waste more food, probably by 500 per cent, than any\nother people in the world; and yet, go to any small farming community in\nAmerica, and what do you find? You find the teeth of the young children\nrotting in their heads, and having to be pulled out before their second\nteeth come. You find these second teeth rotting often before the age of\ntwenty. A friend of mine, who knows the American farmer, sums it up this\nway: \"He has two things that he requires if he is to be really\nrespectable and happy. First, he wants to get all the fireplaces in his\nhome boarded up, and all the windows nailed tight; and second, he wants\nto get all his teeth out, and an artificial set installed. Out of the\nfarmers' wives in my neighborhood, not one in ten keeps her own teeth\nuntil she is thirty.\"\n\nIf you go to the Balkans, where the peasants live on sour milk, with\ngrains which they grind at home; or to southern Italy and Sicily, where\nthey live on cheese and black bread and olives; or among savage people,\nwhere they hunt and fish and gather the natural fruits, you find old\nmen without a single decayed tooth. There must be some reason for this,\nand the reason is found in our denatured grocery-store foods. The\nfarmer's wife will gather up her eggs and her butter and cheeses, and\ntake them to the store and bring back cans of lard and packages of\nsugar. The farmer will sell his perfectly good wheat and corn meal, and\nbring back in his wagon cases of \"refined\" cereal foods, for which he\nhas paid ten times the price of the grain!\n\nDentists will tell you that the way candy injures the teeth is by\nsticking to them and fermenting, forming acids, which destroy the tooth\nstructure. And that may be a part of the reason. But the principal\nreason why the teeth decay is because the blood-stream is abnormal, and\nis unable to keep up the repairs of the body. Your teeth are living\nstructures, just as much as any other part of you, and they will resist\ndecay if you supply them with the proper nourishment.\n\nYou need sugar; you need a considerable quantity of it every day. Nature\nprovides this sugar in combination with the organic salts, and also with\nthe precious vitamines, whose function in the body we are only beginning\nto investigate. All the mineral substances which give the color and\nflavor to oranges, apples, peaches, grapes, figs, prunes, raisins--all\nthese you take out when you make sugar. Or perhaps you put in some\nimitations of them, made from coal tar chemicals, and drink them at your\nsoda fountains! So little appreciation has the American farmer's wife of\nnatural fruits, that when she preserves them, she considers it necessary\nto fill them full of cane sugar; in fact, she has a notion that they\nwon't keep unless she cooks them up with sugar! So snobbish are we\nAmericans about our eating, that we make the best of our foods into\nbywords. We make jokes in our comic papers about the \"boarding-house\nprune\"; and yet prunes and raisins are among the wholesomest foods we\nhave, and if we fed them to our children instead of cakes and candy and\ncoal-tar flavorings, our dental industry would rapidly decline.\n\nAnd the same thing is true of bread. When I was a boy, I thought I had\nto have hot bread at least twice a day, and if I were called upon to eat\nbread that was more than a day old, I felt that I was being badly abused\nby life. I used to read fairy stories, in which something called \"black\nbread\" was mentioned, something obscure and terrible; the symbol of\nhuman misery was Cinderella sitting in the ashes and eating a crust of\ndry \"black bread.\" But now since I have studied diet, I have taken my\nplace with Cinderella. I can afford to buy whatever kind of bread I\nwant; I can have the best white bread, piping hot, three times a day, if\nI want it; but what I eat three times a day is a crust of hard dry\n\"black bread.\"\n\n\"Black bread\" is the fairy story name for bread made of the whole grain.\nIt is eaten that way by the peasant because he has no patent milling\nmachinery at his disposal, to fan away the life-giving elements of his\nfood. Nearly all the mineral elements of the grain are contained in the\nouter, dark-colored portion. The white part is almost pure starch; and\nwhen you use white flour, you are not merely starving your blood-stream,\nyour bones, and your teeth, you are also depriving the digestive tract\nof the rough material which it is accustomed to handle, and which it\nneeds to stimulate it to action. I am aware that whole grain products\nare a trifle less easy of digestion, but we should not pamper and weaken\nour digestive tract any more than we let our muscles get flabby for lack\nof action. We should require our stomachs to handle the ordinary natural\nfoods, precisely as we accustom our body to react from cold water, and\nto stand honest hard work.\n\nFor ages the Japanese peasants have lived on rice, with a little dried\nfish. Quite recently there began to spread throughout Japan a mysterious\ndisease known as beri-beri. It was especially prevalent in the army, and\nso the scientists of Japan set out to discover the cause, and it proved\nto be the modern practice of polishing rice, which takes off the outer\ncoating of the grain. Rice is one of the most wholesome of foods, if it\nis eaten in the natural state; but in order to get it in that state in\nthis country, you have to find a special food store of the health\ncranks, and have to pay a special price for it. You have to pay a higher\nprice for whole wheat bread--because ninety-nine people out of a hundred\nare ignorant, and insist upon having their foodstuffs pretty to look at!\n\nProbably you have read sea stories, and know of the horrors of scurvy.\nScurvy and beri-beri are similar diseases, with a similar cause. The men\non the old sailing ships used to have to live on white biscuit and salt\nmeat, and they always knew that to recover from their gnawing illness,\nthey must get to port and get fresh vegetables and fruits, especially\nonions and lemons, which contain the vitamines as well as the salts. But\nyou will see the modern housewife going into the grocery store, and\nsurveying the shelves of \"package\" goods, and in her ignorance picking\nout the scurvy-making products, and frequently paying for them a much\nhigher price than for the health-making ones!\n\nThen, when she has got her white flour, and her cane sugar, and her\nlard, she will take it home, and mix it up, and put it in the frying\npan, and serve it hot to her husband and children. Nature has so\nconstituted her husband and children that they digest starch before they\ndigest fat; that is to say, the starch is digested mainly in the\nstomach, while the fat is digested mainly after the food has been passed\non into the small intestine. But by frying the starch before it is\neaten, the housewife carefully takes each grain of the starch and\nprotects it with a little covering of fat. Thus the digestive juices of\nthe stomach cannot get at the starch, and the starch goes down into the\nsmall intestine a good part undigested. If some evil spirit, wishing to\nmake trouble for the human organism, had charge of the laying out of our\ndiet, he could hardly devise anything worse than that. And yet it would\nbe no exaggeration to say that the average American, especially the\naverage farmer, eats out of a frying-pan. If his potatoes have to be\nwarmed over, they go into the frying-pan; his precious batter-cakes and\ndoughnuts are cooked in a frying-pan, and all his precious hot breads\nare mixed with lard. If it were not for the fact that you cannot broil a\nbeefsteak over a modern gas range, I would tell you that the first step\ntoward health for the average American would be to throw the frying-pan\nout of the window, and to throw the cook-book after it.\n\nThe whole modern art of cooking is largely a perversion; a product of\nidleness, vanity, and sensuality. It is one of the monstrous growths\nconsequent upon our system of class exploitation. We have a number of\nidle people with nothing to do but eat, and who demonstrate their\nsuperiority to the rest of us by their knowledge of superior foods, and\nsuperior ways of preparing them. They have the wealth of the world at\ntheir disposal, also the services of their fellow man without limit, and\nthey set their fellow man to work to enable them to give elaborate\nbanquets, and to sit in solemn state and gorge themselves, and to have a\nfull account of their behavior published in the next morning's\nnewspapers. A great part of this perverse art we owe to what is called\nthe \"ancient regime\" in France--a regime which starved the French\npeasantry until they were black skinned beasts hiding in caves and\nhollow trees. So it comes about that our modern food depravity parades\nitself in French names, and American snobbery requires of its devotees a\ncourse in the French language sufficient to read a menu card. Needless\nto say, this elaborate gastronomic art has been developed without any\nrelation to health, or any thought of the true needs of the body. It is\none of the products of the predatory system which we can say is absolute\nwaste. Having done my own cooking for the past twenty-five years, I make\nbold to say that I can teach anybody all he needs to know about cooking\nin one lesson of half an hour, and that the total amount of cooking\nrequired for a large family can be done by one person in twenty minutes\na day.\n\nIn the first place, a great many foods do not have to be cooked at all,\nand are made less fit by cooking. In the next place, the only cooking\nthat is ever required is a little boiling, or in the case of meat,\nroasting or broiling. In the next place, the art of combining foods in\ncooking is a waste art, because no foods should be combined in cooking.\nEvery food has its own natural flavor, which is lost in combination, and\nif anybody is unable to enjoy the natural flavors of simply cooked\nfoods, there is one thing to say to that person, and that is to wait\nuntil he is hungry. Let him take a ten-mile walk in the open air, and he\nwill have more interest in his next meal. I am not a fanatic, and have\nno desire to destroy the pleasures of life; I am recommending to people\nthat they should seek the higher pleasures of the intellect, and those\npleasures are not found in standing over a cook stove, nor in compelling\nothers to stand over a cook stove. Moreover, I know that the artificial\nmixing of foods to tempt peoples' palates is one of the principal causes\nof overeating, and therefore of ill health, and therefore of the\nultimate destruction of the pleasures of life.\n\nI went out from the world of cooks before I was twenty. I wanted to\nwrite a book, and to be let alone while I was doing it. I lived by\nmyself, and found out about cooking by practical experience. On a few\noccasions since then, I have lived in a house with a servant, and had\nsome cooking done for me, but it was always because somebody else\nwanted it, and against my protest. In the last ten years we have had no\nservant in our home, and because I want my wife to give her energy to\nmore important things than feeding me, I do my share of getting every\nmeal. We have worked out a system of housekeeping by which we get a meal\nin five minutes, and when we finish it, it takes three minutes to clear\nthings away.\n\nIf I tell you what I eat, please do not get the impression that I am\nadvising you to eat these same things. My diet consists of the foods\nwhich I have found by long experience agree with me. There are many\nother foods which are just as wholesome, but which I do not eat, either\nbecause they don't happen to agree with me, or because I don't care for\nthem so much. I am fond of fruit, and eat more of that than of anything\nelse. It is not a cheap article of diet, but you can save a good deal if\nyou buy it in quantities, as I do. A little later I am going to discuss\nthe prices of foods.\n\nFor breakfast I eat a slice of whole wheat bread, three good-sized\napples, stewed, and eight or ten dates. It takes practically no time to\nprepare this breakfast. The bread has to be baked, of course, but this\nis done wholesale; we buy four loaves at a time, and it is just as good\nat the end of a couple of weeks as when we buy it. When I lived in the\nworld of cooks, I would call for apple sauce; which meant that somebody\nhad to pare apples, cut them up, stew them, mix them with sugar, grate a\nlittle nutmeg over them, set them on ice, and serve them to me on a\nglass dish, with a little pitcher of cream. But now what happens is that\nI put a dozen apples in a big sauce-pan and let them simmer while I am\neating. We have a rule in our family that we do not do any cooking\nexcept while we are eating, because if we try it at any other time of\nthe day, we get buried in a book or in a manuscript, and forget about it\nuntil the smoke causes somebody in the street to summon the fire\ndepartment. So the apples for my breakfast were cooked during last\nnight's supper; and during the breakfast there will be some vegetable\ncooking for lunch.\n\nAt this lunch, which is my \"square meal,\" I eat a large slice of\nbeefsteak, say a third of a pound. Jack London used to say that the only\nman who could cook a beefsteak was the fireman of a railway locomotive,\nbecause he had a hot, clean shovel. The best imitation you can get is a\nhot, clean frying-pan; and when you are sure that it is hot, let it get\nhotter. The whole secret of cooking meat is to keep the juices inside,\nand to do that you must cook it quickly. When you slap it down on a hot\nfrying-pan, the meat is seared, and the juices stay inside, and if you\ndo not turn it over until it is almost ready to burn, you don't need to\ncook it very long on the other side. That is the one secret of cooking\nworth knowing; it doesn't cost anything, and saves time instead of\nwasting it. As I have never found anybody else capable of learning it, I\nreserve the cooking of the beefsteak as one of my family duties.\n\nTo continue the lunch, a slice of whole wheat bread, and a large\nquantity of some fresh salad, such as celery, or lettuce and tomatoes,\nwithout dressing. For a part of this may be substituted a vegetable, one\nor two beets or turnips, cooked during a previous meal, and warmed up in\na couple of minutes; and we do not throw away the tops of the turnips\nand beets and celery, we put them on and cook them, and they serve for\nthe next day's meal. If you would eat a large quantity of such \"greens\"\nonce a day, you would escape many of the ills that your flesh is at\npresent heir to. Finally, for dessert, an orange and a small handful of\nraisins, or one or two figs.\n\nThe evening meal will be the same as the breakfast; except once in a\nwhile when I am especially hungry, and want some meat. I am writing in\nthe winter season, so the fruits suggested are those available in\nwinter. The menu will be varied with every kind of fruit at the season\nwhen it is cheapest and most easily obtained. The beefsteak will appear\nat about three meals out of four; occasionally it will be replaced by\nthe lean meat of pork or mutton, or by fish. The bread may be replaced\nby rice, or boiled potatoes, either white or sweet, and occasionally by\ngraham crackers. I know that these contain a little fat and sugar, but I\ntry not to be fanatical about my diet, and the rules I suggest do not\ncarry the death penalty. There was a time when I used to allow my\nfriends to make themselves miserable by trying to provide me with\nspecial foods when they invited me to a meal, but now I tell them to\n\"forget it,\" and I politely nibble a little of everything, and eat most\nof what I find wholesome; if there is nothing wholesome, I content\nmyself with the pretense of a meal. If I find myself in a restaurant, I\nquite shamelessly get a piece of apple or pumpkin pie, omitting most of\nthe crust. As I don't go away from home more than once or twice a month,\nI do not have to worry about such indulgence. The main thing is to\narrange one's home diet on sound lines, and learn to enjoy the simple\nand wholesome foods, of which there is a great variety obtainable, and\nat prices possible to all but the wretchedly poor.\n\nIn conclusion, since everybody likes to have a feast now and then, I\nspecify that my diet regimen allows for holidays. Assuming that I am\nyour guest for a day, and that you wish to \"blow\" me, regardless of\nexpense, here will be the menu. Breakfast, some graham crackers, a bunch\nof raisins, a can of sliced pineapple in winter, or a big chunk of\nwatermelon in summer. Dinner, or lunch, roast pork, a baked apple, a\nbaked sweet potato and some spinach. Supper, lettuce, dates, and a dish\nof popcorn flavored with peanut butter. Try this next Christmas!\n\nP. S. After this book had been put into type, I chanced to be looking\nover Herbert Quick's illuminating book, \"On Board the Good Ship Earth.\"\nDiscussing the importance of certain organic salts to the body, Dr.\nQuick states: \"Animals have been fed, as an experiment, on foods\ndeficient in phosphorus. For a while they seemed to do well. Then they\ncollapsed. It takes only three months of a ration without phosphorus to\nwreck an animal. Individual creatures were killed after a month of this\ndiet, and it was found that the flesh was taking the phosphate--for the\nphosphorus exists in the body in that form--from the bones to supply its\nneed. In other words, the body was eating its own bones! When this\nprocess had robbed the bones to the limit, the collapse came, and the\nanimal could never recover.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\nDIET STANDARDS\n\n     (Discusses various foods and their food values, the quantities we\n     need, and their money cost.)\n\nI think there is no more important single question about health than the\nquestion of how much food we should eat. It is one about which there is\na great deal of controversy, even among the best authorities. We shall\ntry here for a common-sense solution. At the outset we have to remind\nourselves of the distinction we tried to draw between nature and man. To\nwhat extent can civilized man rely upon his instincts to keep him in\nperfect health?\n\nLet us begin by considering the animals. How is their diet problem\nsolved? Horses and cattle in a wild state are adjusted to certain foods\nwhich they find in nature, and so long as they can find it, they have no\ndiet problem. Man comes, and takes these animals and domesticates them;\nhe observes their habits, and gives to them a diet closely approaching\nthe natural one, and they get along fairly well. But suppose the man,\nwith his superior skill in agriculture, taking wild grain and planting\nit, reaping and threshing it by machinery, puts before his horse an\nunlimited quantity of a concentrated food such as oats, which the horse\ncan never get in a natural state--will that horse's instincts guide it?\nNot at all. Any horse will kill itself by overeating on grain.\n\nI have read somewhere a clever saying, that a farm is a good place for\nan author to live, provided he can be persuaded not to farm it. But once\nupon a time I had not heard that wise remark, and I owned and tried to\nrun a farm. I had two beautiful cows of which I was very proud, and one\nmorning I woke up and discovered that the cows had got into the pear\norchard and had been feeding on pears all night. In a few hours they\nboth lay with bloated stomachs, dying. A farmer told me afterwards that\nI might have saved their lives, if I had stuck a knife into their\nstomachs to let out the gas. I do not know whether this is true or not.\nBut my two dead cows afford a perfect illustration of the reason why\ncivilized man cannot rely upon his instincts and his appetites to tell\nhim when he has had enough to eat. He can only do this, provided he\nrigidly restricts himself to the foods which he ate in the days when his\nteeth and stomach and bowels were being shaped by the process of natural\nselection. If he is going to eat any other than such strictly natural\nfoods, he will need to apply his reason to his diet schedule.\n\nIn a state of nature man has to hunt his food, and the amount that he\nfinds is generally limited, and requires a lot of exercise to get.\nExplorers in Africa give us a picture of man's life in the savage state,\nguided by his instincts and very little interfered with by reason. The\nsavages will starve for long periods, then they will succeed in killing\na hippopotamus or a buffalo, and they will gorge themselves, and nearly\nall of them will be ill, and several of them will die. So you see, even\nin a state of nature, and with natural foods, restraint is needed, and\nreason and moral sense have a part to play.\n\nWhat do reason and moral sense have to tell us about diet? Our bodily\nprocesses go on continuously, and we need at regular intervals a certain\nquantity of a number of different foods. The most elementary experiment\nwill convince us that we can get along, maintain our body weight and our\nworking efficiency upon a much smaller quantity of food than we\nnaturally crave. Civilized custom puts before us a great variety of\ndelicate and appetizing foods, upon which we are disposed to overeat;\nand we are slow observers indeed if we do not note the connection\nbetween this overeating and ill health. So we are forced to the\nconclusion that if we wish to stay well, we need to establish a\ncensorship over our habits; we need a different diet regimen from the\nhaphazard one which has been established for us by a combination of our\ninstincts with the perversions of civilization.\n\nUp to a few years ago, it was commonly taken for granted by authorities\non diet that what the average man actually eats must be the normal thing\nfor him to eat. Governments which were employing men in armies, and at\nroad building, and had to feed them and keep them in health, made large\nscale observations as to what the men ate, and thus were established the\nold fashioned \"diet standards.\" They are expressed in calories, which is\na heat unit representing the quantity of fuel required to heat a certain\nsmall quantity of water a certain number of degrees. In order that you\nmay know what I am talking about, I will give a rough idea of the\nquantity of the more common foods which it takes to make 100 calories:\none medium sized slice of bread, a piece of lean cooked steak the size\nof two fingers, one large apple, three medium tablespoonfuls of cooked\nrice or potatoes, one large banana, a tablespoonful of raisins, five\ndates, one large fig, a teaspoonful of sugar, a ball of butter the size\nof your thumbnail, a very large head of lettuce, three medium sized\ntomatoes, two-thirds of a glass of milk, a tablespoonful of oil. You\nobserve, if you compare these various items, how little guidance\nconcerning food is given by its bulk. You may eat a whole head of\nlettuce, weighing nearly a pound, and get no more food value than from a\nhalf ounce of olive oil which you pour over it. You may eat enough lean\nbeefsteak to cover your plate, and you will not have eaten so much as a\ngenerous helping of butter. A big bowl of strawberries will not count\nhalf so much as the cream and sugar you put over them. So you may\nrealize that when you eat olive oil, butter, cream, and sugar, you are\nin the same danger as the horse eating oats, or as my two cows in the\npear orchard; and if some day a surgeon has to come and stick a knife\ninto you, it may be for the same reason.\n\nThe old-fashioned diet standards are as follows: Swedish laborers at\nhard work, over 4,700 calories; Russian workmen at moderate work, German\nsoldiers in active service, Italian laborers at moderate work, between\n3,500 and 3,700 calories; English weavers, nearly 3,500 calories;\nAustrian farm laborers, over 5,000 calories. Some twenty years ago the\nUnited States government made observations of over 15,000 persons, and\nestablished the following, known as the \"Atwater standards\": men at very\nhard muscular work, 5,500 calories; men at moderately active muscular\nwork, 3,400 calories; men at light to moderate muscular work, 3,050\ncalories; men at sedentary, or women at moderately active work, 2,700\ncalories.\n\nIn the last ten or fifteen years there has arisen a new school of\ndietetic experts, headed by Professors Chittenden and Fisher of Yale\nUniversity. Professor Chittenden has published an elaborate book, \"The\nNutrition of Man,\" in which he tells of long-continued experiment upon a\nsquad of soldiers and a group of athletes at Yale University, also upon\naverage students and professors. He has proved conclusively that all\nthese various groups have been able to maintain full body weight and\nfull working efficiency upon less than half the quantity of protein food\nhitherto specified, and upon anywhere from one-half to two-thirds the\ncalory value set forth in the former standards.\n\nWhen I first read this book, I set to work to try its theories upon\nmyself. During the five or six months that I lived on raw food, I took\nthe trouble to weigh everything that I ate, and to keep a record. It is,\nof course, very easy to weigh raw foods exactly, and I found that I\nlived an active life and kept physical health upon slightly less than\n2,500 calories a day. I have set this as my standard, and have\naccustomed myself to follow it instinctively, and without wasting any\nthought upon it. Sometimes I fall from grace; for I still crave the\ndelightful cakes and candies and ice cream upon which I was brought up.\nI always pay the penalty, and know that I will not get back to my former\nstate of health until I skip a meal or two, and give my system a chance\nto clean house. The average man will find the regimen set forth in this\nbook austere and awe-inspiring; I do not wish to pose as a paragon of\nvirtue, so perhaps I should quote a sarcastic girl cousin, who remarked\nwhen I was a boy that the way to my heart was with a bag of\nginger-snaps. I live in the presence of candy stores and never think of\ntheir existence, but if someone brings candy into the house and puts it\nin front of me, I have to waste a lot of moral energy in letting it\nalone. A few years ago I had a young man as secretary who discovered\nthis failing of mine, and used to afford himself immense glee by buying\na box of chocolates and leaving it on top of my desk. I would give him\nback the box--with some of the chocolates missing--but he would persist\nin \"forgetting it\" on my desk; he would hide and laugh hilariously\nbehind the door, until my wife discovered his nefarious doings, and\nwarned me of them.\n\nProfessor Chittenden states quite simply the common sense procedure in\nthe matter of food quantity. Find out by practical experiment what is\nthe very least food upon which you can do your work without losing\nweight. That is the correct quantity for you, and if you are eating\nmore, you certainly cannot be doing your body any good, and all the\nevidence indicates that you are doing it harm. You need not have the\nleast fear in making this experiment that you will starve yourself.\nLater on, in a chapter on fasting, I shall prove to you that you carry\naround with you in your body sufficient reserve of food to keep you\nalive for eighty or ninety days; and if you draw on a small quantity of\nthis you do not do yourself the slightest harm. Cut down the amount of\nyour food; eat the bulky foods, which contain less calory value, and\nweigh yourself every day, and you will be surprised to discover how much\nless you need to eat than you have been accustomed to.\n\nOne of the things you will find out is that your stomach is easily\nfooled; it is largely guided by bulk. If you eat a meal consisting of a\nmoderate quantity of lean meat, a very little bread, a heaping dish of\nturnip greens, and a big slice of watermelon, you will feel fully\nsatisfied, yet you will not have taken in one-third the calory value\nthat you would at an ordinary meal with gravies and dressings and\ndessert. The bulky kind of food is that for which your system was\nadapted in the days when it was shaped by nature. You have a large\nstomach, many times as large as you would have had if you had lived on\nrefined and concentrated foods such as butter, sugar, olive oil, cheese\nand eggs. You have a long intestinal tract, adapted to slowly digesting\nfoods, and to the work of extracting nutrition from a mass of roughage.\nYou have a very large lower bowel, which Metchnikoff, the Russian\nscientist, one of the greatest minds who ever examined the problems of\nhealth, declares a survival, the relic of a previous stage of evolution,\nand a source of much disease. The best thing you can do with that lower\nbowel is to give it lots of hay, as it requires; in other words, to eat\nthe salads and greens which contain cellulose material. This contains no\nfood value, and does not ferment, but fills the lower bowel and\nstimulates it to activity.\n\nIf you eat too much food, three things may happen. First, it may not be\ndigested, and in that case it will fill your system with poisons.\nSecond, it may be assimilated, but not burned up by the body. In that\ncase it has to be thrown out by the kidneys or the sweat glands, and\nthis puts upon these organs an extra strain, to which in the long run\nthey may be unequal. Or third, the surplus material may be stored up as\nfat. This is an old-time trick which nature invented to tide you over\nthe times when food was scarce. If you were a bear, you would naturally\nwant to eat all you could, and be as fat as possible in November, so\nthat you might be able to hunt your prey when you came out from your\nwinter's sleep in April. But you are not a bear, and you expect to eat\nyour regular meals all winter; you have established a system of\ncivilization which makes you certain of your food, and the place where\nyou keep your surplus is in the bank, or sewed up in the mattress, or\nhidden in your stocking. In other words, a civilized man saves money,\nand the habit of storing globules of grease in the cells of his body is\na survival of an old instinct, and a needless strain upon his health.\nNot merely does the fat man have to carry all the extra weight around\nwith him, but his body has to keep it and tend it; and what are the\neffects of this is fully shown by life insurance tables. People who are\nfive or ten per cent over weight have five or ten per cent more chance\nof dying all the time, while people who are five or ten per cent under\nweight have five or ten per cent more than the average of life\nexpectation. There is no answer to these figures, which are the result\nof the tabulation of many hundreds of thousands of cases. The meaning of\nthem to the fat person is to put himself on a diet of lean meat, green\nvegetables and fresh fruits, until he has brought himself down, not\nmerely to the normal fatness of the civilized man, but to the normal\nleanness of the athlete, the soldier on campaign, and the student who\nhas more important things to think about than stuffing his stomach.\n\nThere is, of course, a certain kind of leanness which is the result of\nill health. There are wasting diseases; tuberculosis, for example, and\nanemia. There are people who worry themselves thin, and there are a few\nrare \"spiritual\" people, so-called, who fade away from lack of\nsufficient interest in their bodies. That is not the kind of leanness\nthat I mean, but the active, wiry leanness, which sometimes lives a\nhundred years. Nearly always you will find that such people are spare\neaters; and you will find that our ideal of rosy plumpness, both for\nadults and children, is a wholly false notion. We once had in our home\nas servant an Irish girl, who was what is popularly called \"a picture of\nhealth,\" with those beautiful flaming cheeks that Irish and English\nwomen so often have. She was in her early twenties, and nobody who knew\nher had any idea but that her health was perfect. But one morning she\nwas discovered in bed with one side paralyzed, and in a couple of weeks\nshe was dead with erysipelas. The color in her cheeks had been nothing\nbut diseased blood vessels, overloaded with food material; and with the\nblood in that condition, one of the tiny vessels in the brain had become\nclogged.\n\nIn the same way I have seen children, two or three years old, plump and\nrosy, and considered to be everything that children should be; but\npneumonia would hit them, and in two or three days they would be at\ndeath's door. I do not mean that children should be kept hungry; on the\ncontrary, they should have four or five meals a day, so that they do not\nhave a chance to become too hungry. But at those meals they should eat\nin great part the bulky foods, which contain the natural salts needed\nfor building the body. If a child asks for food, you may give it an\napple, or you may give it a slice of bread and butter with sugar on it.\nThe child will be equally well content in either case; but it is for\nyou, with your knowledge of food values, to realize that the bread with\nbutter and sugar contains two or three times as much nutriment as the\napple, but contains practically none of the precious organic salts which\nwill make the child's bones and teeth.\n\nSo far I have discussed this subject as if all foods grew on bushes\noutside your kitchen door, and all you had to do was to go and pick off\nwhat you wanted. But as a matter of fact, foods cost money, and under\nour present system of wage slavery, the amount of money the average\nperson can spend for food is strictly limited. In a later book I am\ngoing to discuss the problem of poverty, its causes and remedies. All\nthat I can do here is to tell you what foods you ought to have, and if\nsociety does not pay you enough for your work to enable you to buy such\nfoods, you may know that society, is starving you, and you may get busy\nto demand your rights as human beings. Meantime, however, such money as\nyou do have, you want to spend wisely, and the vast majority of you\nspend it very unwisely indeed.\n\nIn the first place, a great many of the simplest and most wholesome\nfoods are cheap--often because people do not know enough to value them.\nWe insist upon having the choice cuts of meats, because they are more\ntender to the teeth, but the cheaper cuts are exactly as nutritious. We\ninsist upon having our meats loaded with fat, although fatness is an\nabnormal condition in an animal, and excess of fat is a grave error in\ndiet. I live in a country where jack rabbits are a pest, and in the\nmarket they sell for perhaps one-fourth the cost of beef, and yet I can\nhardly ever get them, because people value them so little as food; they\nprefer the meat of a hog which has been wallowing in a filthy pen, and\nhas been deliberately made so fat that it could hardly walk!\n\nI have already spoken of prunes, a much despised and invaluable food.\nAll the dried fruits are rich in food values, and if we could get them\nuntreated by chemicals, they would be worth their cost. I was brought up\nto despise the cheaper vegetables, such as cabbage and turnips; I never\ntasted boiled cabbage until I was forty, and then to my great surprise I\nmade the discovery that it is good. Raw cabbage is as valuable as any\nother salad; it is a trifle harder to digest for some people, but I do\nnot believe in pampering the stomach. Both potatoes and rice are cheap\nand wholesome, if only we would get unpolished rice, and if we would\nleave the skins on the potatoes until after they are cooked. Nearly all\nthe mineral salts of the potato are just under the outer skin, and are\nremoved by the foolish habit of peeling them.\n\nThe prices of food differ so widely at different seasons and in\ndifferent parts of the world, that there is not much profit in trying to\nfigure how cheaply a person can live. I have found that I spend for the\ndiet I have indicated here, from sixty to eighty cents a day. I do not\nbuy any fancy foods, but on the other hand, I do not especially try to\neconomize; I buy what I want of the simple everyday foods in their\nseason. Most everyone will find that it is a good business proposition\nto buy the foods which he needs to keep in health. If the average\nworkingman would add up the money he spends, not merely in the\nrestaurants, but in the candy stores, the drug stores, the tobacco\nstores, and the offices of doctors and dentists, he would find, I think,\nthat he could afford to buy himself the necessary quantity of wholesome\nnatural foods. For a family of three, in the place where I live, enough\nof these foods can be purchased for a dollar a day, and this is about\none-fourth what common labor is being paid, and one-eighth of what\nskilled labor is being paid. I will specify the foods: a pound and a\nhalf of shoulder steak, a loaf of whole wheat bread or a box of shredded\nwheat biscuit, a head of cabbage, a pound of prunes, and four or five\npounds of apples.\n\nThere are many ways of saving in the purchase of food if you put your\nmind upon it. If you are buying prunes, you may pay as high as fifty\ncents or a dollar a pound for the big ones, and they are not a bit\nbetter than the tiny ones, which you can buy for as low as eight cents a\npound in bulk. When bread is stale, the bakers sell it for half price,\ndespite the fact that only then has it become fit to eat. If you buy\ncanned peaches, you will pay a fancy price for them, and they will be\nheavy with cane sugar; but if you inquire, you find what are known as\n\"pie peaches,\" put up in gallon tins without sugar, and at about half\nthe price. The butcher will sell you what he calls \"hamburg steak\" at a\nvery low price, and if you let him prepare it out of your sight, he will\nfill it with fat and gristle; but let him make some while you watch, and\nthen you have a very good food. One of my diet rules is that I do not\ntrust the capitalist system to fix me up any kind of mixed or ground or\nprepared foods. I have not eaten sausage since I saw it made in Chicago.\n\nAlso there is something to know about the cooking of foods, since it is\npossible to take perfectly good foods and spoil them by bad cooking.\nOnce upon a time our family discovered a fireless cooker, and thought\nthat was a wonderful invention for an absent-minded author and a wife\nwho is given to revising manuscripts. But recent investigations which\nhave been made into the nature of the \"vitamines,\" food ferments which\nare only partly understood, suggest that prolonged cooking of food may\nbe a great mistake. The starch has to be cooked in order to break the\ncell walls by the expansion of the material inside. Twenty minutes will\nbe enough in the case of everything except beans, which need to be\ncooked four or five hours. Meat should be eaten rare, except in the case\nof pork, which harbors a parasite dangerous to the human body; therefore\npork should always be thoroughly cooked. The white of eggs is made less\ndigestible by boiling hard or frying. Eggs should never be allowed to\nboil; put them on in cold water, and take them off as soon as the water\nbegins to boil. It is not necessary to cook either fresh fruit or dried.\nThe dried fruits may be soaked and eaten raw, but I find that several\nfruits, especially apples and pears, do not agree with me well if they\nare eaten raw, so I stew them for fifteen or twenty minutes. I have no\nobjection to canned fruits and vegetables, provided one takes the\ntrouble in opening them to make sure there is no sign of spoiling. If\nyou put up your own fruits, do not put in any sugar. All you have to do\nis to let them boil for a few minutes, and to seal them tightly while\nthey are boiling hot. The whole secret of preserving is to exclude the\nair with its bacteria.\n\nIf you live on a farm, you will have no trouble in following the diet\nhere outlined, for you can produce for yourselves all the foods that I\nhave recommended; only do not make the mistake of shipping out your best\nfoods, and taking back the products of a factory, just because you have\nread lying advertisements about them. Take your own wheat and oats and\ncorn to the mill, and have it ground whole, and make your own breads and\ncereals. Try the experiment of mixing whole corn meal with water and a\nlittle salt, and baking it into hard, crisp \"corn dodgers.\" I do not eat\nthese--but only because I cannot buy them, and have no time to make\nthem.\n\nAnother common article of food which I do not recommend is salted and\nsmoked meats. I do not pretend to know the effects of large quantities\nof salt and saltpetre and wood smoke upon the human system, but I know\nthat Dr. Wiley's \"poison squad\" proved definitely that a number of these\ninorganic minerals are injurious to health, and I prefer to take fresh\nmeat when I can get it. I use a moderate quantity of common salt on meat\nand potatoes, because there seems to be a natural craving for this. I\nknow that many health enthusiasts insist that I am thus putting a strain\non my kidneys, but I will wait until these health enthusiasts make clear\nto me why deer and cattle and horses in a wild state will travel many\nmiles to a salt-lick. I have learned that it is easy to make plausible\nstatements about health, but not so easy to prove them. For example, I\nwas told that it is injurious to drink water at meals, and for years I\nreligiously avoided the habit; but it occurred to some college professor\nto find out if this was really true, and he carried on a series of\nexperiments which proved that the stomach works better when its contents\nare diluted. The only point about drinking at meals is that you should\nnot use the liquid to wash down your food without chewing it.\n\nI can suggest two other ways by which you may save money on food. One is\nby not eating too much, and another is by eating all that you buy. The\namount of food that is wasted by the people of America would feed the\npeople of any European nation. The amount of food that is thrown out\nfrom any one of our big American leisure class hotels would feed the\nchildren of a European town. I think it may fairly be described as a\ncrime to throw into the garbage pail food which might nourish human\nlife. In our family we have no garbage pail. What little waste there is,\nwe burn in the stove, and my wife turns it into roses. It consists of\nthe fat which we cannot help getting at the butcher's, and the bones of\nmeat, and the skins of some fruits and vegetables. It would never enter\ninto our minds to throw out a particle of bread, or meat, or other\nwholesome food. If we have something that we fear may spoil, we do not\nthrow it out, but put it into a saucepan and cook it for a few minutes.\nIf you will make the same rule in your home, you will stop at least that\nmuch of the waste of American life; and as to the big leisure class\nhotels, and the banquet tables of the rich--just wait a few years, and I\nthink the social revolution will attend to them!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\nFOODS AND POISONS\n\n     (Concludes the subject of diet, and discusses the effect upon the\n     system of stimulants and narcotics.)\n\n\nA few years ago there died an old gentleman who had devoted some twenty\nyears of his life to teaching people to chew their food. Horace Fletcher\nwas his name, and his ideas became a fad, and some people carried them\nto comical extremes. But Fletcher made a real discovery; what he called\n\"the food filter.\" This is the automatic action of the swallowing\napparatus, whereby nature selects the food which has been sufficiently\nprepared for digestion. If you chew a mouthful of food without ever\nperforming the act of swallowing, you will find that the food gradually\ndisappears. What happens is that all of it which has been reduced to a\nthin paste will slip unnoticed down your throat, and you may go on\nputting more food into your mouth, and chewing, and can eat a whole meal\nwithout ever performing the act of swallowing. Fletcher claimed that\nthis is the proper way to eat, and that you can train yourself to follow\nthis method. I have tried his idea and adopted it. One of my diet rules,\nto which there is no exception, is that if I haven't the time to chew my\nfood properly, I haven't the time to eat; I skip that meal.\n\nThe habit of bolting food is a source of disease. To be sure, the\ncarnivorous animals bolt their food, but they are tougher than we are,\nand do not carry the burden of a large brain and a complex nervous\nsystem. If you swallow your meals half chewed, and wash them down with\nliquids, you may get away with it for a while, but some day you will pay\nfor it with dyspepsia and nervous troubles. And the same thing applies\nto your habit of jumping up from meals and rushing away to work, whether\nit be work of the muscles, or of brain and nerves. Proper digestion\nrequires the presence of a quantity of blood in the walls of the stomach\nand digestive tract. It requires the attention of your subconscious\nmind, and this means rest of muscles and brain centers. If you cannot\nrest for an hour after meals, omit that meal, or make it a light one, of\nfruit juices, which are almost immediately absorbed by the stomach, and\nof salads, which do not ferment. You may rest assured that it will not\nhurt you to skip a meal, and make up for it when you have time to be\nquiet. I have been many times in my life under very intense and long\ncontinued nervous strain; for example, during the Colorado coal strike,\nI led a public demonstration which kept me in a state of excitement all\nthe day and a good part of the night several weeks. During this period I\nate almost nothing; a baked apple and a cup of custard would be as near\nas I would go to a meal, and as a result I came through the experience\nwithout any injury whatever to my health. I lost perhaps ten pounds in\nweight, but that was quickly made up when I settled back to a normal way\nof life.\n\nI have been on camping trips when I had a great deal of hard work to do,\ncarrying a canoe long distances on my back, or paddling it forty miles a\nday. On the mornings of such a trip I have seen a guide cook himself an\nelaborate breakfast of freshly baked bread, bacon, and even beans, and\nmake a hearty meal and then go straight to work. My meal, on the\ncontrary, would consist of a small dish of stewed prunes, or perhaps\nsome huckleberries or raspberries, if they could be found. I will not\nsay that I could do as much as the guide, because he was used to it, and\nI was not. But I can say this--if I had eaten his breakfast at the start\nof the day, I would have been dead before night; and I mean the word\n\"dead\" quite literally. I know a man who started to climb Whiteface\nmountain in the Adirondacks. He climbed half way, and then ate lunch,\nwhich consisted of nine hard boiled eggs. Then he started to climb the\nrest of the mountain, and dropped dead of acute indigestion.\n\nThere are few poisons which can affect the system more quickly, or more\ndangerously, than a mass of food which is not digested. The stomach is\nan ideal forcing-house for the breeding of bacteria. It provides warmth\nand moisture, and you, in your meal, provide the bacteria and the\nmaterial upon which they thrive. Under normal conditions, the stomach\npours out a gastric juice which kills the bacteria; but let this gastric\njuice for any reason be lacking--because your nervous energy has gone\nsomewhere else, or because your blood-stream, from which the gastric\njuice must be made, has been drawn away to the muscles by hard labor;\nthen you have a yeast-pot, with great quantities of gases and poisons.\nIn acute cases the results are evident enough: violent pains and\nconvulsions, followed by coma and the turning black of the body. But\nwhat you should understand is that you may produce a milder case of such\npoisoning, and may do it day after day habitually, and little by little\nyour vital organs will be weakened by the strain.\n\nIt does not make any difference at what hour of the twenty-four you take\nthe great bulk of your food. It is one of the commonest delusions that\nyou get some strengthening effect from your food immediately, and must\nhave this strength in order to do hard work. To be sure, there are\nsubstances, such as grape-sugar, which require practically no digesting;\nyou can hold them in the mouth, and they will be digested by the saliva,\nand absorbed at once into the blood-stream. But unless you have been\nstarved for a long period you do not need to get your strength in this\nrush fashion. If you ate your normal meals on the previous day, your\nblood-stream is fully supplied with nutriment which has been put through\na long process of preparation, and you can get up in the morning and\nwork all day, if necessary, upon what is already in your system. To be\nsure, you may feel hungry, and even faint, but that is merely a matter\nof habit; your system is accustomed to taking food and expects it. But\nif you are a laborer doing hard work, you can easily train yourself to\neat a light meal in the morning, and another light meal at noon, and to\neat a hearty meal when your work is done and you can rest. Two light\nmeals and a hearty meal are all that any system needs, and you can prove\nit to yourself by trying it, and watching your weight once a week.\n\nI have tried many experiments, and the conclusion to which I have come\nis that there is no virtue in any particular meal-hours or any\nparticular number of meals. For several years I tried the experiment of\ntwo meals a day. I was living a retired life, and had little contact\nwith the world, and I would make a hearty meal at ten o'clock in the\nmorning, and another at five in the afternoon. But later on I found that\ninconvenient, and now I take a light breakfast, and two moderate-sized\nmeals at the conventional hours of lunch and dinner. I can arrange my\nown time, so after meal times is when I get my reading done. Sometimes,\nwhen I am tired, I feel sleepy after meals, but I have learned not to\nyield to this impulse. I do not know how to explain this; I have\nobserved that animals sleep after eating, and it appears to be a natural\nthing to do; but I know that if I go to sleep after a meal, nature makes\nclear to me that I have made a mistake, and I do not repeat it. I never\neat at night, and always go to bed on an empty stomach, so I am always\nhungry when I open my eyes in the morning. I never know what it is not\nto be hungry at meal times, and my habits are so regular that I could\nset my watch by my stomach.\n\nAnother common habit which is harmful is eating between meals. I have\nknown people who are accustomed to nibble at food nearly all the time.\nShelley records that he tried it as an experiment, thinking it might be\na convenient way to get digestion done--but he found that it did not\nwork. The stomach is apparently meant to work in pulses; to do a job of\ndigesting, and then to rest and accumulate the juices for another job.\nIt will accustom itself to a certain regime, and will work accordingly,\nbut if, when it has half digested a load of food, you pile more food in\non top, you make as much trouble as you would make in your kitchen if\nyou required your cook to prepare another meal before she has cleaned up\nafter the last one. Three times a day is enough for any adult to eat.\nChildren require to eat oftener, because their bodies are more active,\nand they not merely have to keep up weight, but to add to it. The\nsimplest way to arrange matters with children is to give them three good\nmeals at the hours when adults eat, and then to give them a couple of\npieces of fruit between breakfast and lunch, and again between lunch and\nsupper. I have never seen a child who would not be satisfied with this,\nwhen once the habit was established.\n\nI have already spoken of the cooking and serving of food. I consider\nthat the \"gastronomic art,\" as it is pompously called, is ninety-nine\nper cent plain rubbish. To be sure, if foods are appetizingly prepared,\nand look good and smell good and taste good, they will cause the gastric\njuices to flow abundantly, as the Russian scientist Pavlov has\ndemonstrated by practical experiment with the stomach-pump. But I know\nwithout any stomach-pump that the best thing to make my gastric juices\nflow is hard work and a spare diet. When I come home from five sets of\ntennis, and have a cold shower and a rub-down, my gastric juices will\nflow for a piece of cold beefsteak and a cold sweet potato, quite as\nwell as for anything that is served by a leisure class \"chef.\" Needless\nto say, I want food to be fresh, and I want it to be clean, but I have\nother things to do with my time and money than to pamper my appetites\nand encourage food whims.\n\nIf you have a grandmother, or ever had one, you know what grandmothers\ntell you about \"hot nourishing food\"; but I have tried the experiment,\nand satisfied myself that there is absolutely no difference in\nnourishing qualities between hot food and cold food. If you chew your\nfood sufficiently, it will all be ninety-eight and six-tenths degree\nfood when it gets to your stomach, and that is the way your stomach\nwants it. Of course, if you have been out in a blizzard, and are\nchilled, and want to restore the body temperature, a hot drink will be\none of the quickest ways, and if the emergency is extreme, you may even\nadd a stimulant. On the other hand, if you are suffering from heat, it\nis sensible to cool your body by a cold drink. But you should use as\nmuch judgment with yourself as you would with a horse, which you do not\npermit to drink a lot of cold water when he is heated up, and is going\ninto his stall to stand still.\n\nI have mentioned the word \"stimulants,\" and this opens a large subject.\nThere are drugs which affect the body in two different ways: some excite\nthe nerves, and through the nerves the heart and blood-stream, to more\nintense activity; others have the effect of deadening the nerves, and\ndulling the sense of exhaustion and pain. One of these groups is called\nstimulants, and the other is called narcotics; but as a matter of fact\nthe stimulants are really narcotics, because they operate by dulling the\nnerves whose function it is to prevent the over-accumulation of fatigue\npoisons; in other words, they keep the nerves and muscles from knowing\nthat they are tired, and so they go on working.\n\nIt is possible, of course, to conceive of an emergency in which that is\nnecessary. Once upon a time, on a hunting trip, I had been traveling all\nday, and was caught in a rain storm, and exhausted and chilled to the\nbone; I had to make camp without a fire, so when I got the tent up I\nwrapped myself in blankets and drank a couple of tablespoons full of\nwhiskey. That is the only time I have ever taken whiskey in my life,\nand it warmed me almost instantly, and did me no harm. In the same way\nthere were two or three occasions when I was on the verge of a nervous\nbreakdown, and could not sleep, and let the doctor give me a sleeping\npowder. But in each case I knew that I was fooling with a dangerous\nhabit, and I did no more fooling than necessary. No one should make use\nof either stimulants or narcotics except in extreme emergency, and never\nbut a few times in a lifetime. What you should do is to change your\nhabits so that you will not need to over-strain.\n\nAll these drugs are habit forming; that is to say, they leave the body\nno better, and with a craving for a repetition of the relief. When you\nare tired, it is because your muscles and nerves are storing up fatigue\npoisons more rapidly than your blood-stream can get rid of them. You\nneed to know about this condition, and exhaustion and pain are nature's\nprotective warning. If you put a stop to the warning, you are as\nunintelligent as the Eastern despots who used to cut off the head of the\nmessenger who brought bad tidings. If, when you have a headache, you go\ninto a drug store and let the druggist mix you one of those white fizzy\ndrinks, what you are doing is not to get rid of the poisons in your\nblood-stream, but merely to reduce the action of your heart, so as to\nkeep the blood from pressing so fast into the aching blood vessels and\nnerves. You may try that trick with your heart a number of times, but\nsooner or later you will try it once too often--your heart will stop a\nlittle bit quicker than you meant it to!\n\nDrugs are poisons, and their action depends upon their poisoning some\nparticular portion of the body, and temporarily paralyzing it. And bear\nthis in mind, they are none the less poisonous because they are\n\"natural\" products. You can kill yourself by cyanide of potassium, which\ncomes out of a chemist's retort; but you can kill yourself just as dead\nwith laudanum, which comes out of a plant, or with the contents of the\nvenom sac of a snake. You are poisoning yourself none the less certainly\nif you use alcohol, which is made from the juices of beautiful fruits,\nand has had hosts of famous poets writing songs about it; or you can\npoison yourself with the caffein which you get in a lovely brown bean\nwhich comes from Brazil, fragrant to the nostrils and delicious to the\ntaste. You may drink wine and tea and coffee for a hundred years, and\nhave your picture published in the newspapers as a proof that these\nhabits conduce to health; but nothing will be said about the large\nnumber of people who practiced these habits, and didn't live so long,\nand about how long they might have lived if they hadn't practiced these\nhabits.\n\nI was brought up in the South, and my \"elders\" belonged to a generation\nwhich had grown up in war time. For this reason many of the men both\ndrank and smoked to excess, and in my boyhood I lived among them and\nwatched them, and with the help of advice from a wise mother, I\nconceived a horror of every kind of stimulant. The alcoholic poets could\nnot fool me; I had been in the alcoholic wards of the hospitals. I had\nseen one man after another, beautiful and kindly and gracious men,\ndragged down into a pit of torment and shame.\n\nAlcohol is, I think, the greatest trap that nature ever set for the feet\nof the human race. It is responsible for more degradation and misery\nthan any other evil in the world; and I say this, knowing well that my\nSocialist friends will cry, \"What about Capitalism?\" My answer is that I\ndoubt if there ever would have been any Capitalism in the world, if it\nhad not been for alcohol. If the workers had not been systematically\npoisoned, and all their savings taken from them by the gin-mill, they\nwould never have submitted to the capitalist system, they would have\nbuilt the co-operative commonwealth at the time they were building the\nfirst factories. I listen to the arguments of my radical friends about\n\"personal liberty,\" but I note that in Russia, when it was a question of\nmaking a practical revolution and keeping it alive, the first thing the\nleaders did was to drag out the contents of the wine-cellars of the\npalaces, and smash them in the gutters.\n\nTea and coffee are, of course, much milder in their effects than\nalcohol; you can play with them longer, and the punishment will be less\nsevere. But if you make habitual use of them, you will pay the penalty\nwhich all drugs exact from the system. Your brain and your nerve centers\nwill be less sensitive, less capable of working except under the\ninfluence of drugs; their reacting power will be dulled, and they will\nwear out more quickly. I have watched the slaves of the \"morning cup of\ncoffee,\" and know how they suffer when they do not get it. Likewise, I\nhave watched the tea drinkers. It is comical to live in England, and see\nall the able-bodied men obliged to leave their work at four o'clock in\nthe afternoon, and seek the regular stimulus for their tired nerves. If\nyou are to meet anybody, it is always for \"tea\" that the ceremony is\nset, and if you refuse to drink tea, your hostess will be uncomfortable,\nunable to talk about anything but the strange, incredible notion that\none can live without tea. I discovered after a while the solution of\nthis problem; I would say that I preferred a little hot water, if you\nplease, and so my hostess would pour me a cup of hot water, and I would\nsit and gravely sip it, and everybody would be perfectly content: I was\nconforming to the outward appearance of normality, which is what the\nBritish conventions require.\n\nI have never drunk a cup of coffee, so I do not know what its effect on\nme would be. But some fifteen years ago I drank a glass of very weak\niced tea at eight o'clock in the evening, and did not get to sleep until\nfour or five the next morning. So I know that there is really a drug in\ntea. I know also that I might accustom my system to it, just as I might\nlearn to poison my lungs with nicotine without being made immediately\nand suddenly ill; but why should I wish to do this? Life is so\ninteresting to me that I do not need to stimulate my brain centers in\norder to appreciate the thrill of it. And when I am tired, I can rest\nmyself by listening to music, or by reading a worth-while novel--things\nwhich I have found do not leave the after effects of nicotine.\n\nI remember the first time I met Jack London. Our meeting consisted in\ngood part of his \"kidding\" me, because I was lacking in the congenial\nvices of the cafe. He told me how much I had missed, because I had never\nbeen drunk; One ought to try the great adventure, at least once! Poor\nJack is gone, because his kidneys gave out at forty; and nothing could\nseem more ungracious than to point out that I am still alive, and\nfinding life enjoyable. Yet, in this book we are trying to find out how\nto live, and if there are habits which wreck and destroy a magnificent\nphysique, and bring a great genius to death at the age of forty--surely\nthe rest of us want to know about it, and to be warned in time. I\nmention Jack London in this connection, because he has said the last\nword on the subject of alcohol. Read \"John Barleycorn,\" and especially\nread between the lines of it, and you will not need my argument to\npersuade you to be glad that the Eighteenth Amendment has been written\ninto the Constitution, and that it is your duty as a Socialist, not\nmerely to obey it, but to vote for its enforcement.\n\nI am proceeding on the assumption that your life is of importance to\nyou; that you have a job to do which you know to be worth while, and to\nwhich you desire to apply your powers. You agree with me that the\nworkers of the world are suffering, and that it is necessary for them to\nfind their freedom, and that this takes hard work and hard thinking. You\nmay say that I exaggerate the amount of harm that is done to the system\nby tea and coffee, alcohol and tobacco. Well, let us assume that in\nmoderate quantities they do no harm at all: even so, I have the right to\nask you to show that they do some good; otherwise, surely, it is a\nmistake for the workers to spend their savings upon them.\n\nConsider, for example, the amount of money which the wage slaves of the\nworld spend upon tobacco. Suppose they could be persuaded for two or\nthree years to spend this amount upon good reading matter--do you not\nthink there would be an improvement in their condition? Surely you\ncannot maintain that the use of tobacco is necessary to the activities\nof the brain! Surely you do not think that a man has to have a cigarette\nin order to stimulate his thoughts, or to smoke a pipe to rest himself\nafter his work is done! I offer myself as evidence in such a\ncontroversy; I have written as many books as any man in the radical\nmovement, and the sum total of my lifetime smoking amounts to one-half\nof one cigarette. I tried that when I was eight years old, and somebody\ntold me a policeman would arrest me if he caught me, and I threw away\nthe cigarette, and ran and hid in an alley, and have not yet got over my\nscare.\n\nIn the \"Journal for Industrial Hygiene\" for October, 1920, is an article\nentitled \"Fatigue and Efficiency of Smokers in a Strenuous Mental\nOccupation.\" Experiments were conducted among telegraph operators, and\nthe result showed that \"the heavy smokers of the group show a higher\noutput rate at the beginning of the day than the light smokers, but\ntheir rate falls off more markedly in the late hours, and their\nproduction for the whole day is definitely less than that of the light\nsmokers. The heavy smokers also show less ability than the light smokers\nto respond to increasing pressure of work in the late hours of the day\nby handling their full share of the work presented.\"\n\nOne point upon which every medical authority agrees is--that the use of\nnicotine is of deadly effect upon the immature organism. Half-grown\nyouths who smoke cigarettes will never be full-sized men; they will\nnever have normal lungs or a normal heart. And likewise, all authorities\nagree about the effect of smoking upon the organism of women. I gave\nwhat little help I could to the task of helping to set women free, and\nto make them the equals of men; but I was always pained when I\ndiscovered that some of my feminist friends understood by woman's\nemancipation no more than her right to adopt men's vices. I would say to\nthese ardent young female radicals, who cultivate the art of dangling a\ncigarette from their lower lip, and sip cocktails out of coffee-cups in\nGreenwich Village cafes, that they will never be able to bear sound\nchildren; but I know that this would not interest them--they don't want\nto bear any children at all. So I say that they will never be able to\nthink straight thoughts, and will be nervous invalids when they are\nthirty.\n\nWe went to war to make the world safe for democracy, and we put several\nmillions of our young men into armies, and if there were any of them who\ndid not already know how to smoke cigarettes, they learned it under\nofficial sanction. So now we have a national tobacco bill that runs up\nto two billions, and will insure us a new generation of \"Class C\"\nrating. Speaking to the young radicals who are reading my books, I say:\nWe want to make the world over, to make it a place of freedom and\nkindness, instead of the hell of greed and hate that it is today. For\nthat purpose we need a new moral code, and we can never win our victory\nwithout it. I have attended radical conventions, sitting in unventilated\nhalls amid clouds of tobacco smoke, and listening to men wrangle all\nthrough the day and a great part of the night; I have watched the fatal\ndissensions in the movement, the quarrelings of the right wingers and\nthe left wingers and all stages and degrees in between, and I have\nwondered--not jestingly, but in pitying earnest--how much of all those\npersonalities and factional misunderstanding had their origin in carbon\ndioxide and nicotine. There is no use suggesting such ideas to the older\nmen, whose habits are fixed; but a new generation is coming on, with a\nnew vision of the enormous task before it; and is it too much to expect\nof these young men and women, that they shall realize in advance the\ngrim tasks they have to do, and shall learn to run the machine of their\nbody so as to get out of it the maximum amount of service? Is it too\nmuch to hope for, that some day we shall have a race of young fighters\nfor truth and justice, who are willing to live abstemious lives, and\nconsecrate themselves to the task of delivering mankind from wage\nslavery and war?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\n\nMORE ABOUT HEALTH\n\n     (Discusses the subjects of breathing and ventilation, clothing,\n     bathing and sleep.)\n\n\nIn discussing the question of health, we have given the greater part of\nthe space to the subject of diet, for the reason that experience has\nconvinced us that diet is two-thirds of health, and that nearly always\nin disease you find errors of diet playing a part. There are, however,\nother important factors of health, now to be discussed.\n\nEverything of which the body makes use is taken in the form of food and\ndrink, with the exception of one substance, the oxygen we get out of the\nair. Every time we draw a breath we take in a certain amount of oxygen,\nand every time we expel a breath, we drive out a certain amount of a gas\ncalled carbon dioxide, which is what the body makes of the fuel it\nburns. The body can get along for several days without water, and for\ntwo or three months without food, but it can only get along for two or\nthree minutes without oxygen. It should be obvious that when the body\nexpels carbon dioxide, with a slight mixture of other more poisonous\ngases, and sucks back what it expects will be a fresh supply of oxygen,\nit wants to get oxygen, and not the same gases it has just expelled, nor\ngases which have been expelled from the lungs of other people.\n\nIn the days when primitive man lived outdoors, he did not have to think\nabout this problem. When he breathed poison from his lungs, the moving\nair of nature blew it away, and the infinite vegetation of nature took\nthe carbon dioxide and turned it back into oxygen. And even when man\nbuilt himself shelters, he was not cunning enough to make them\nair-tight; he had to leave a big hole for the smoke to get out, and\nsmaller holes through which to get light. But now our wonderful\ncivilization has solved these problems; we make our walls of air-tight\nplaster, and we have invented a substance which will admit light without\nadmitting air. So we have the \"white plague\" of tuberculosis, and so we\nhave innumerable minor plagues of coughs and colds and sore throats.\n\nIn the summer time the solution of the problem is easy. Have as many\ndoors and windows in your home as possible, and keep them open, and have\nnothing in your home to make dust or to retain dust. But then comes\nstormy and cold weather, and you have to close your doors and windows,\nand keep your home at a higher temperature than the air outside. How\nshall you do this, and at the same time get a continual supply of fresh\nair?\n\nI will take the various methods of heating one by one. The problem in\neach case is simple and can be made clear in a sentence or two.\n\nFirst, the open fireplace. This is a perfect solution, if you have\nenough fuel, and do not have to worry about the waste of heat. An open\nfireplace draws out all the air in the room in a short time, and you do\nnot have to bother about opening doors or windows; you may be sure that\nthe air is getting in through some cracks, or else the fire would not\nburn.\n\nSecond, a wood or coal or gas stove in the room, provided with a proper\nvent, so that all the gases of combustion are drawn up the chimney. This\nchanges the air more slowly than an open fireplace, but it does the work\nfairly well. All that you have to be careful about is that your vent is\nsufficiently large and is working properly. If your fire does not\n\"draw,\" you will have smoke or coal-gas in the house, and this is bad\nfor the lungs; but worse for the lungs is a gas that you can neither see\nnor smell nor taste, the deadly carbon monoxide. This gas is produced by\nincomplete combustion, and whenever you see yellow flames from gas or\ncoal, you are apt to have this poisonous substance. Small quantities of\nit are sufficient to cause violent headaches, and repeated doses of it\nare fatal. Men who work in garages which are not properly ventilated run\nthis risk all the time, because carbon monoxide is one of the products\nof imperfect combustion in the gas engine.\n\nNext, the furnace. A furnace sends fresh warm air into your house; the\nonly trouble is that it takes out all the moisture, and some authorities\nsay that this is bad for the lungs and throat. I do not know whether\nthis is true, but all furnaces are supposed to have a water chamber to\nsupply moisture to the air, and you should keep a pan of water on every\nstove or radiator in your house.\n\nNext, steam heat, which includes hot-water heating. This is one of the\nabominations of our civilization, and one of the methods by which our\nrace is committing suicide. There is nothing wrong about steam heat in\nitself; the room is warmed in a harmless way; but the trouble is it\nstays warm only so long as the doors and windows are kept shut. You are\nin an air-tight box, and can be warm provided you do not mind being\nsuffocated. The moment you open a door or window, you have a cold draft\non your feet, and if you wish to change the air entirely you have to let\nout all the heat; so, of course, you never do change it entirely, but go\non breathing the same air over and over, and every time you breathe it\nthe condition of your body is a little more reduced.\n\nThe solution of this problem is not to heat the air in the room, but to\nuse your steam coils to heat fresh air, and then drive this air, already\nwarmed, into the room, at the same time providing a vent through which\nthe old air can be pushed out. This is the hot air system of heating,\nand it requires some kind of engine or dynamo, and therefore is\nexpensive. It has been installed in a few office buildings and theaters.\nOne of the most perfect systems I ever inspected is in the building of\nthe New York Stock Exchange, where the air is warmed in winter, and\ncooled in summer, and freed from dust, and exactly the right quantity is\nsupplied. It is a humorous commentary upon our civilization that we take\nperfect care of the breathing apparatus of our stock-gamblers, but pay\nno attention to the breathing apparatus of our senators and congressmen,\nwhose one business in life is to use their lungs. The stately old\nbuilding with its white marble domes looks impressive in moving pictures\nand on illustrated postcards, but it has no system of ventilation\nwhatever, and is a death-trap to the poor wretches who are compelled to\nspend their days, and sometimes their nights, within its walls. This\ncontrast is one symptom of the rise of industrial capitalism and the\ncollapse of political democracy.\n\nWe have reserved to the last a method of heating which is the worst, and\ncan only be described as a crime against health: the use of gas and oil\nstoves set out in the middle of the room, without a vent, and\ndischarging their fumes into the room. These stoves are simply\ninstruments of slow death, and their manufacture should be prohibited\nby law. In the meantime, what you have to do is to refuse to live in a\nroom or to work in an office where such stoves are used. I have heard\ndealers insist that this or the other kind of gas or oil stove was so\ncontrived as to consume all the fumes. Do not let anybody fool you with\nsuch nonsense. There has never been any form of combustion devised which\nconsumes all the fumes. No such thing can be, because the products of\ncombustion are not combustible. The so-called \"wickless blue flame\"\nstoves do burn all the oil, and a properly regulated gas stove will burn\nall the gas, but that simply means that it turns the oil and gas into\ncarbon dioxide, the very substance which your lungs are working day and\nnight to get out of your body.\n\nMoreover, there is no oil or gas stove which ever burns perfectly all\nthe time, either because there is too much gas or insufficient air. Oil\nand gas stoves sometimes give a partly yellow flame. You can cause them\nto give a yellow flame at any time by blowing air against them, and that\nyellow flame means imperfect combustion, and a probability of the deadly\ncarbon monoxide. These facts are known to every chemist and to every\nstudent of hygiene, and the fact that civilized people continue to burn\nsuch oil and gas stoves in their homes and offices is simply one more\nproof that our civilization values human welfare and health at nothing\nwhatever in comparison with profits.\n\nNot merely should you see that you have a continuous supply of fresh air\nin your home, but you should try to keep down dust in your home, and\nespecially fine particles of lint. Once upon a time our ancestors were\nunable to make houses and floors tight, and so they put rugs on the\nfloors and hung tapestries on the walls to keep out the wind. We\ncivilized people are able to make both floors and walls absolutely\ntight, and yet we continue to use rugs and curtains, it being the first\nprinciple of our education that propriety requires us to continue to do\nthe things which our ancestors did. I am unable to think of a more silly\nor stupid thing in the world than a rug or a curtain, but I have lived\nin the house with them all my life, because, alas, the ladies cannot be\nhappy otherwise. They want their homes to be \"pretty,\" and so they\ncontinue to set dust traps, and to set themselves futile jobs of house\ncleaning and shopping.\n\nNot all of us are able to be out of doors as much as we ought to be, but\nall of us spend seven or eight hours out of every twenty-four in sleep,\nand this time at least we ought to spend out of doors. I understand that\nthis is futile advice to give to the very poor. I was poor myself for\nmany years, and had to put all my clothes on at night in order to keep\nwarm, and even then I could not always do it. Nevertheless, from the\ntime I first realized the importance of ventilation I never slept in a\nroom with a closed window.\n\nI say, sleep outdoors if you possibly can. You do not have to be afraid\nof exposure, for cold will not hurt you if you keep your body in proper\ncondition. I have slept out in a rubber blanket, with the rain beating\non my head and face; I have spread a rubber blanket on a hummock in the\nmidst of a swamp, and waked up in the morning with my hair and face\nsoaked in cold, white fog, but I never caught cold from such things;\nthere is no harm whatever in dampness or in \"night air,\" if you are in\nproper condition. Of course, you may get your ears frostbitten in the\nmiddle of winter, but you can have a sleeping hood to remove that\ndanger.\n\nThe \"nature cure\" enthusiasts, who lay so much stress upon an outdoor\nlife, also insist that the wearing of clothes is a harmful civilized\ncustom. They urge us to take \"sun baths\" and to \"ventilate the skin.\"\nNow, as a matter of fact, the skin does not breathe, it merely gives out\nmoisture, and it does not give out any less because we have clothing on\nus, provided the clothing is dry and clean, and will absorb moisture.\nBut bye and bye the clothing becomes loaded with the waste substances\ngiven out by the skin, and then it will absorb no more, and if you do\nnot change your clothing, no doubt it may have some effect upon health.\n\nBut the principal evil of civilized clothing is that it binds the body\nand prevents the free play of the muscles, and, more important yet,\nstops the free circulation of the blood. I have already discussed hats,\nwhich are the principal cause of baldness. I will go to the other\nextremity of the body, and mention tight shoes, which, strange as it may\nseem, cause headaches and colds. You will be able to find a few\ncivilized men with normal feet, but you will hardly ever find a woman\nwhose toes are not crowded together and misshapen. I have said that the\nhuman body is one organism, and that it is fed and its health\nmaintained by the blood-stream; I say now that the circulation of the\nblood is one thing, and if you block it at any one place, you block it\neverywhere. Of course, not all the blood-stream goes down into the feet,\nbut some of it does, and if it is clogged in the feet, and the blood\nvessels cramped and crowded, there is a certain amount of poison kept in\nthe system, which the system should have got rid of.\n\nWhy do women wear tight shoes? Because the leisure class members of\ntheir sex have been kept in harems and used as the playthings of men. To\nbe fragile and delicate was the thing admired by the masters of wealth,\nand to have small hands and feet was a sign that women belonged to this\nparasite class. Therefore at all hazards women's feet must be kept\nsmall, even at the expense of their health and happiness; and so they\nput themselves up on several inches of heels, which cause them to toddle\naround like marionettes on a stage, with all their toes crowded down\ninto a lump.\n\nWhy do men wear tight bands around their scalps, which cause their hair\nto drop out, and tight, stiff columns around their necks, which stop the\ncirculation of the blood into their heads, and cause them to have\nheadaches instead of ideas? The reason is that for ages the rulers of\nthe tribe have wished to demonstrate publicly their superiority to the\ncommon herd, which does the menial tasks. In England all gentlemen wear\ntall black silk band-boxes on their heads, and in America they have a\nchoice among several varieties of round tight boxes. All men who work in\noffices wear stiffly starched collars and cuffs, as a means of\ndemonstrating their superiority to the common workers, who have to sweat\nat their necks. I think it is not too much to hope that when class\nexploitation is done away with, we shall also get rid of these class\nsymbols, and choose our clothing because it is warm and comfortable, and\nnot according to the perverted imbecilities of \"style.\"\n\nThe skin gives out perspiration which is greasy; also the skin is\nconstantly growing, putting out layers of cells which dry up and are\nworn off. We need to bathe with soap to remove the grease, and we need\nto rub with a towel to brush away the dead cells of the skin, so that\nthe pores may be kept open. No one is taking care of his body who does\nnot wash and rub it once every twenty-four hours, and once or twice a\nweek with warm water and soap. It is often stated that hot baths are\nweakening, but I have never found it so; however, I think it is a bad\npractice to pamper the body, which should be accustomed to the shock of\ncold water. The rule as to bathing, both as to temperature and time, is\nsimple. If, after the bath and rub-down, your body has reacted and you\nfeel vigorous and fresh, that bath has done you good. If, on the other\nhand, you feel chilled and depressed, then you have been too long in the\nwater, or its temperature was too low. Every person has to find his own\nrules in such matters. The only general rule is that as one grows older\nthe body reacts less quickly.\n\nAll day, as we work and think, we store up more poisons in our cells\nthan the body can get rid of, and the time comes when the cells are so\nloaded with poisons that we have to stop for a while, and let our\nblood-stream clean house. The quantity of sleep one needs is a problem\nlike that of cold water; each person has to find his own rule. In\ngeneral, one needs less and less sleep as one grows older. Infants sleep\nthe greater part of the time; growing children should sleep ten or\neleven hours, adults seven or eight, and old people, unless they have\nlet themselves get fat, generally do not want to sleep more than six,\nand part of this in short naps. When you sleep, your bodily energies\nrelax, and you make less heat, therefore you need extra clothing; but\nthis clothing should never cover the mouth and nose, nor should it be so\nheavy as to make breathing a burden. If you are in good condition, it\nwill do you no harm to be chilly when you sleep, except that you do not\nsleep so soundly. Sleeping too much is just as harmful as sleeping too\nlittle. Nature will tell you that. The important thing, as in all other\nproblems of health, is to have something interesting to think about,\nsome exciting work to do in the world, and then you will sleep as little\nas you have too.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV\n\nWORK AND PLAY\n\n     (Deals with the question of exercise, both for the idle and the\n     overworked.)\n\n\nIn discussing the important question of exercise, there is one\nfundamental fact to begin with: that our present civilization divides\nmen sharply into two classes, those who do not get enough exercise, and\nthose who get too much. Obviously it would be folly to make the same\nrecommendations to the two classes.\n\nI begin with those who get too much exercise. They include a great\nnumber, probably the majority of those who do the manual work of the\nworld. They include the farmers and the farm-hands, who work from dawn\nto sunset, and sometimes by lantern light. They include also the\nfarmers' wives, the kitchen slaves of whom the old couplet tells:\n\n    \"Man's work ends from sun to sun,\n     But woman's work is never done.\"\n\nI am aware that men have worked that way for countless ages, and yet the\nrace is still surviving; but I am aware also that men wither up with\nrheumatism, and contract chronic diseases of the kidneys and the blood\nvessels, consequent upon the creation of greater quantities of fatigue\npoisons than the body can regularly eliminate.\n\nI have very little interest in the past, and none whatever in finding\nfault with it. My purpose is to criticize the present for the benefit of\nthe future, and therefore I say that modern machinery and the whole\ndevelopment of modern large-scale production make it absolutely\nunnecessary that women should slave all their waking hours in kitchens,\nor that men should slave all day. I say it is monstrous folly that men\nshould work for twelve-hour stretches in steel mills, and for ten and\neleven hours in factories and mines. Organized labor has adopted the\nslogan, \"Eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for\nplay\"; but my slogan is \"Four hours for work, four hours for study,\neight hours for sleep, and eight hours for play.\"\n\nI know, and am prepared to demonstrate to any thinking man, that modern\ncivilization can produce, not merely all the necessities, but all the\ncomforts of life for every man, woman and child in the community, by the\nexpenditure of four hours a day work of the adult, able-bodied men and\nwomen. So to all the wage slaves of the factories and mines, the fields\nand the kitchens, I say that too much exercise is what is the matter\nwith you, and what you need is to get off in a quiet nook in the woods\nand read a good novel, not merely for a few hours, but for a few months,\nuntil you get over the effects of capitalist civilization. I know that\nnot many of you can get away as yet, but I urge you to insist upon\ngetting away, to fight for the chance to get away; and I will here\nsuggest a few of the novels for you to read when finally you do get\naway. I choose the easy ones, which the dullest and most tired of you\nwill love; I say, make up your mind to read these thirty-two books\nbefore you die, and do not let the world cheat you out of your chance!\n\nMark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Charles D.\nStewart: The Fugitive Blacksmith. W. Clark Russell: The Wreck of the\nGrosvenor. R. L. Stevenson: Treasure Island, Kidnapped. Jack London: The\nSea Wolf, The Call of the Wild, Martin Eden. Joseph Conrad: Youth. H. G.\nWells: The War of the Worlds, When the Sleeper Wakes, The Sea Lady, The\nHistory of Mr. Polly, The Food of the Gods, The Island of Dr. Moreau.\nUpton Sinclair: The Jungle, King Coal, Jimmie Higgins, 100 Per Cent.\nTheodore Dreiser: Sister Carrie. George Moore: Esther Waters. Frank\nNorris: The Octopus. Brand Whitlock: The Turn of the Balance. De Foe:\nRobinson Crusoe. Fielding: Tom Jones, Jonathan Wild the Great.\nThackeray: The Adventures of Barry Lyndon. Marmaduke Pickthall: The\nAdventures of Hadji Baba. Blasco Ibanez: The Fruit of the Vine. Frank\nHarris: Montes the Matador. Frederik van Eeden: The Quest. Tolstoi:\nResurrection.\n\nAnd now for the people who do not get enough exercise. In the armies of\nKing Cyrus it was the law that every man was required to sweat once\nevery twenty-four hours, and that is still the law for every business\nman and office-worker and writer of books. There is no substitute for\nit, and there is no health without it. I have heard Dr. Kellogg say that\nthe modern woman sends out her health with her washing, and I have\nheard the leisure class ladies at the Sanitarium discuss this cryptic\nutterance and wonder what he meant by it. I know that there is use\ntelling leisure class ladies what exercise at the wash-tub would do for\ntheir abdomens and backs. I will only tell them that unless they can\nfind some kind of vigorous activity which keeps them in a free\nperspiration for an hour or two each day, they will never be really\nwell, and will never bear children without agony and abortion.\n\nFor myself, I have found that the minimum is three or four times a week.\nUnless I get that much hard exercise I am soon in trouble. So my advice\nto the business man is to take off his coat and collar and turn out and\nhelp his truck-man; my advice to the white collar slave is to get a\npart-time job, and dig ditches the rest of the time. To the man who has\ncares which pursue him, and likewise to the ardent student and\nbrain-worker, I say that they should find, not merely exercise, but\nplay. The distinction between the two things is important. There can be\nplay that is not exercise, for example cards and chess; and, of course,\nthere can be exercise that is not play. What you must have is something\nthat is both play and exercise; something that not merely causes your\nheart to beat fast, and your lungs to pump fast, and your sweat glands\nto throw out poisons from your body, but something that fully occupies\nyour mind and gives your higher brain centers a chance to relax.\n\nOur civilization has very largely destroyed the possibility of play and\nthe spirit of play. We civilized people no longer know what play is, and\nregard the desire to play as something abnormal--a form of vice. We\nallow children to play after school hours, and on Saturdays; but for\ngrown-up, serious-minded men and women to want to play would be almost\nas disreputable as for them to want to get drunk. What could foe more\npitiful than the spectacle of tens of thousands of men crowding into our\nbaseball parks and amusement fields to watch other men play for them!\nImagine, if you can, a crowd of people gathering in a restaurant or\ntheater to watch other people _eat_ for them! Imagine yourself a man\nfrom Mars, coming down to a world with so many people in want, and\nfinding whole classes of men forbidden to do any work, under penalty of\ndisgrace, and compelled, in order to exercise their muscles, to pull on\nrubber straps and lift weights and wave dumb-bells and Indian clubs in\nthe air--methods of expending their muscular energy which are\nrespectable because they accomplish nothing!\n\nWhen I was a boy, I was fond of all kinds of games. I was a good tennis\nplayer, and in the country an incessant hunter and fisherman. When on\nthe city streets we boys could not find any other game to play, we would\nget up on the roofs of the houses and throw clothes-pins and snow-balls\nat the \"Dagoes\" working in the nearby excavations; so we had the fine\ngame of being chased by the \"Dagoes,\" with the chance, real or\nimaginary, of having a knife stuck into us. But then, as I grew older,\nand became aware of the pain and misery of the world, I lost my interest\nin games, and for ten years or so I never played; I did nothing but\nstudy and write. So my health gave way, and I had the problem of\nrestoring it, and I spent some twenty years wrestling with this problem,\nbefore I thoroughly convinced myself on the point that there can be no\nsuch thing as sound and permanent health without a certain amount of\nplay.\n\nI don't think there is any kind of hard physical work I failed to try,\nin the course of my experiments. I rode horseback, and took long walks,\nand climbed mountains, and swam, and dug gardens, and chopped down whole\ngroves of trees and cut them up and carried them to the fireplace. I\nhave done this latter work for a whole winter in the country, several\nhours every day, and it has done my health no good to speak of; I have\nbeen ready for a breakdown at the end of it. The reason is that all the\ntime I was doing these things with my body, I was going right on working\nmy brain. While I was swimming or climbing a mountain or galloping on\nhorseback, I was absorbed in the next chapter of the book I was writing,\nso that I literally did not know where I was. I would make up my mind\nthat I would not think about my work, and would make desperate efforts\nnot to do so; but it was like walking along the edge of a slippery\nditch--sooner or later I was bound to fall in, and go floundering along,\nunable to get out again!\n\nAnd the same thing applies to all gymnastic work. I have experimented\nwith a dozen different systems of exercises, and with all kinds of water\ntreatments; I have used dumb-bells and Indian clubs and Swedish\ngymnastics, MacFadden's exercises in bed, and the Yogi breathing\nexercises, and more kinds of queer things than I can remember now; but\nfor me there is only one solution of the problem, which is to have an\nantagonist. It may be a deer I am trying to shoot, or some trout I am\ntrying to lure out of their holes; it may be some boys I am trying to\nbeat at football or hockey, or it may be the game I know best and find\nmost convenient, which is tennis. If it is tennis, then it has to be\nsomeone who can make me work as hard as I know how; for if it is someone\nI can beat easily, why, before I have been playing ten minutes, I am\nbusily working out the next chapter of a book, or answering letters I\nhave just got in the mail.\n\nRecently I came upon a book, \"The Psychology of Relaxation,\" by Dr.\nPatrick, in which the theory of this is set forth. Civilized man is\nworking his higher brain centers more than his body can stand; his brain\nis running away with him, absorbing a constantly increasing share of his\nenergies. True relaxation is only possible where the higher brain\ncenters are lulled, and the back lobes of the brain brought into\nactivity. One of the means of doing this is alcohol, and that is why\nthrough the ages all races of men have craved to get drunk. There is a\nmethod which is harmless, and does not break down the system, and that\nis play. When we become really interested in play, we are as children,\nor as primitive man; we do all the things that our race used to do many\nages ago; we hunt and fight, we pit our wits against the wits of our\nenemies, and struggle with desperation to get the better of them. If our\nplay is physical play, if we are absorbed in a game or bodily contest,\nthen we are exerting and developing all those portions of us which\ncivilization tends to atrophy and deaden.\n\nThere are people who will dispute with you about Socialism, and ask, how\nwe are going to provide incentives if we do away with wage slavery. When\nyou tell them that activity is natural to human beings, and that if\nthere were no work, men and women would have to make some, they shake\ntheir heads mournfully and tell you about the problem of \"human nature.\"\nBut consider games and sports: men do not have to work their bodies, yet\nthey go out and deliberately hunt for trouble! They invent themselves\nsubtle and complicated games, and are not content until they find people\nwho can beat them at it, or at any rate can make them work to the limit\nof their strength, until they are in a dripping perspiration and\nthoroughly exhausted! I may be too optimistic about \"human nature,\" but\nI believe that this is the attitude every normal human being takes\ntoward the powers, both mental and physical, which he possesses; he\nwants to use them, and for all they are worth. If you don't believe it,\njust take any group of youngsters, give them a baseball and bat, turn\nthem loose in a vacant lot, and watch them \"choose up sides\" and fall to\nwork, screaming and shouting in wild excitement! There are some races of\nthe earth which do not yet know baseball, but the Filipinos and the\nJapanese have learned it, and even the war-worn \"Poilus\" and the\nsupercilious \"Tommies\" condescended to experiment with it. And if you\nthink it is only physical competition that young human animals enjoy,\ntry them at putting on a play, or printing a magazine, or conducting a\ndebate, or building a house--anything whatever that involves healthy\ncompetition, and is related to the big things of life, but without being\nfor the profit of some exploiter! Get clear the plain and simple\ndistinction between work and play: play is what you want to do, while\nwork is what the profit system makes you do!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\n\nTHE FASTING CURE\n\n     (Deals with nature's own remedy for disease, and how to make use of\n     it.)\n\n\nWe have next to consider the various human ailments, what causes them,\nand how they can be remedied. As it happens, I know of a cure that comes\npretty near being that impossible thing, a \"cure-all.\" At any rate, it\nis so far ahead of all other cures, that a discussion of it will cover\nthree-fourths of the subject.\n\nWhen I was a boy living in New York, there was a man by the name of Dr.\nTanner, who took a forty-day fast. He was on public exhibition at the\ntime, and was supposed to be watched day and night; the newspapers gave\na great deal of attention to the story, and crowds used to come to gaze\nat him. I remember very well the conversations I heard about the matter.\nPeople were quite sure that it couldn't be true. The man must be getting\nsomething to eat on the sly; he must have some nourishment in the water\nhe drank; no human being could fast more than five or six days without\nstarving to death.\n\nIn the year 1910 I published in the United States and England a magazine\narticle telling how on several occasions I had fasted ten or twelve\ndays, and what I had accomplished by it. I found that I had the same\ndifficulty to confront as old Dr. Tanner; I received scores of letters\nfrom people who called me a \"faker,\" and I read scores of newspaper\neditorials to the same effect. The New York Times published a dispatch\nabout three young ladies on Long Island who were trying a three-day\nfast, and the Times commented editorially to the effect that these young\nladies were \"the victims of a shallow and unscrupulous sensationalist.\"\n\nThe notion that human beings can perish for lack of food in a few days\nis deeply rooted in people's minds. Recently a group of eleven Irishmen\nin jail set to work to starve themselves to death, as a protest against\nBritish rule in their country. Day after day the newspapers reported the\nnews from Cork prison, and at about the twentieth day they began to\nstate that the prisoners were dying, that the priest had been sent for,\nthat their relatives were gathered on the prison steps. Day after day\nsuch reports continued, through the thirties, and the forties, and the\nfifties, and the sixties, and the seventies. One man died on the\neighty-eighth day, and MacSwiney died on the seventy-fourth. The other\nnine gave up after ninety-four days and were all restored to health. I\nwatched carefully the newspaper and magazine comment on this incident,\nyet I did not see a single remark on the medical aspects of it; I could\nnot discover that scientific men had learned anything whatever about the\nability of the body to go without food for long periods.\n\nGet this clear at the outset: Nobody ever \"starved to death\" in less\nthan two months, and it is possible for a fat person to go without food\nfor as long as three or four months. People who \"starve to death\" in\nshorter times do not die of starvation, but of fright. The first time I\nfasted happened to be at the time of the Messina earthquake. I was\nwalking about, perfectly serene and happy, having been without food for\nthree days, and I read in my newspaper how the rescue ships had reached\nMessina, and found the population ravenous, in the agonies of\nstarvation, some of the people having been without food for seventy-two\nhours! (It sounds so much worse, you see, when you state it in hours.)\n\nThe second point to get clear is that the fast is a physiological\nprocess; that is to say, it is something which nature understands and\ncarries through in her own serene and efficient way. When you take a\nfast, you are not carrying out a freak notion of your own, or of mine;\nyou are discovering a lost instinct. Every cat and dog knows enough not\nto take food when it is ill; it is only in hospitals conducted by modern\nmedical science that the custom prevails of serving elaborate \"trays\" to\ninvalids. I remember a story about a man who made himself a reputation\nand a fortune by curing the pet dogs of the rich. These beautiful little\ncreatures, which sleep between silken covers, and have several servants\nto wait upon them, and are fed from gold and silver dishes upon rich and\nelaborately cooked foods, fall victim to as many diseases as their\nmistresses, and they would be brought to this specialist, who conducted\nhis dog hospital in an old brickyard. In each one of the compartments of\nthe brick kiln he would shut up a dog with a supply of fresh water, a\ncrust of stale bread, a piece of bacon rind, and the sole of an old\nshoe; and after a few days he would go back and find that the dog had\neaten the crust of bread, and then he would write to the owner that the\ndog was on the high road to recovery. He would go back a few days later\nand find that the dog had eaten the piece of bacon rind, and then he\nwould write that the dog was very nearly cured. He would wait until the\ndog had eaten the piece of shoe leather, and then he would write that\nthe dog was completely cured, and the owner might come and take it away.\n\nJust what is the process of the fast cure? I do not pretend to know\npositively. I can only make guesses, and wait for science to\ninvestigate. I believe that the main source of the diseases of civilized\nman is improper nutrition, and the clogging of the system with food\npoisons in various stages. And when you fast you do two things: first,\nyou stop entirely the fresh supply of those food poisons, and second,\nyou allow the whole of the body's digestive and assimilative tract to\nrest--to go to sleep, as it were--so that all the body's energy may go\nto other organs. The body carries with it at all times a surplus store\nof nutriment, which can be taken up and used by the blood stream,\napparently with much less trouble than is required to convert fresh food\nto the body's uses. In other words, the body can feed on its own tissues\nmore easily than it can feed from the stomach. In the fast you may lose\nanywhere from half a pound to two pounds in weight per day, and this\nwill be taken, first from your store of fat, and then from your muscular\ntissues. Every part of your muscular tissue will be taken, before\nanything is taken from your vital organs, your nerves or your\nblood-stream. So long as there is a particle of muscular material left,\nso long as you can make even the slightest movement of one finger, you\nare still fasting, and it is only when your muscular tissue is all gone\nthat you begin at last to starve. So far as I know, the cases of\nMacSwiney and the other Irishman are the only cases on record where\nfasters have died of starvation.\n\nWhat the body does during the fast is quite plain, and can be told by\nmany symptoms. It begins a thorough house-cleaning, throwing out\npoisonous material by every channel. The perspiration and the breath\nbecome offensive, the tongue becomes heavily coated, so that you can\nscrape the material off with a knife. I have heard vegetarians explain\nthis by saying that when the body is living off its own tissues, it is\nfollowing a cannibal diet; but that is all nonsense, because you can\nlive on meat exclusively, and quickly satisfy yourself that none of\nthese symptoms occurs. It is evident that the body is taking advantage\nof the opportunity to get rid of waste products; and this will go on for\nten days, for twenty days, in some cases for as long as forty or fifty\ndays; and then suddenly occurs a strange thing: in spite of the\n\"cannibal diet\" the symptoms all come to a sudden end. The tongue\nclears, the breath becomes sweet, the appetite suddenly awakens.\n\nDuring the period of a normal fast you lose all interest in food. You\nalmost forget that there is such a thing as eating; you can look at food\nwithout any more desire for it than you have to swallow marbles and\ncarpet tacks. But then suddenly appetite returns, as I have explained,\nand you find that you can think of nothing but food. This is what\nstudents of the subject describe as a \"complete fast,\" and while I do\nnot want to go to extremes and say that the \"complete fast\" will cure\nevery case of every disease, I can certainly say this: in the letters\nwhich have come to me from people who tried the fast at my suggestion,\nthere are cases of every kind of common disease. In my book, \"The\nFasting Cure,\" I give the results in cases reported to me after the\npublication of my first magazine article. I quote two paragraphs:\n\n\"The total number of fasts taken was 277, and the average number of days\nwas six. There were 90 of five days or over, 51 of ten days or over, and\nsix of 30 days or over. Out of the 119 person who wrote to me, 100\nreported benefit, and 17 no benefit. Of these 17 about half give wrong\nbreaking of the fast as the reason for the failure. In cases where the\ncure had not proved permanent, about half mentioned that the recurrence\nof the trouble was caused by wrong eating, and about half of the rest\nmade this quite evident by what they said. Also it is to be noted that\nin the cases of the 17 who got no benefit, nearly all were fasts of only\nthree or four days.\n\n\"Following is the complete list of diseases benefited--45 of the cases\nhaving been diagnosed by physicians: indigestion (usually associated\nwith nervousness), 27; rheumatism, 5; colds, 8; tuberculosis, 4;\nconstipation, 14; poor circulation, 3; headaches, 5; anaemia, 3;\nscrofula, 1; bronchial trouble, 5; syphilis, 1; liver trouble, 5;\ngeneral debility, 5; chills and fever, 1; blood poisoning, 1; ulcerated\nleg, 1; neurasthenia, 6; locomotor ataxia, 1; sciatica, 1; asthma, 2;\nexcess of uric acid, 1; epilepsy, 1; pleurisy, 1; impaction of bowels,\n1; eczema, 2; catarrh, 6; appendicitis, 3; valvular disease of heart, 1;\ninsomnia, 1; gas poisoning, 1; grippe, 1; cancer, 1.\"\n\nThere are many diseases with many causes, and some yield more quickly\nthan others to the fast. In the first group I put the diseases of the\ndigestive and alimentary tract. Stomach and bowel troubles, and the\nnervous disorders occasioned by these, stop almost immediately when you\nfast. Next come disorders of the blood-stream, which are generally a\nsecond stage of digestive troubles. Everything immediately due to\nimpurities of the blood, pimples, boils, and ulcers, inflammation, badly\nhealing wounds, etc., respond to a few days of fasting as to the magic\ntouch of the old-time legends. When it comes to diseases caused by germ\ninfections, you have a double aspect of the problem, and must have a\ndouble method of attack. I would not like to say that fasting could cure\nsuch a disease as sleeping sickness, to the germs of which our systems\nare not accustomed, and against which they may well be helpless. On the\nother hand, in the case of common infections, such as colds and sore\nthroats, the fast is again the touch of magic. Having been plagued a\ngreat deal by these ailments in past times, I am accustomed to say that\nI would not trade my knowledge of fasting for everything else that I\nknow about health.\n\nThe first thing you must do if you want to take a fast is to read the\nliterature on the subject and make up your mind that the experiment will\ndo you no injury. You should also try to get your relatives to make up\ntheir minds, because you are nervous when you are fasting, and cannot\nwithstand the attacks of the people around you, who will go into a panic\nand throw you into a panic. As I said before, it is quite possible for\npeople to die of panic, but I do not believe that anybody ever died of a\nfast. I have known of two or three cases of people dying while they were\nfasting, but I feel quite certain that the fast did not cause their\ndeath; they would have died anyhow. You must bear in mind that among the\npeople who try the fast, a great many are in a desperate condition; some\nhave been given up by the doctors, and if now and then one of these\nshould die, we may surely say that they died in spite of the fast, and\nnot because of it. There is no physician who can save every patient, and\nit would be absurd to expect this. I have read scores of letters from\npeople who were at the point of death from such \"fatal\" diseases as\nBright's disease, sclerosis of the liver, and fatty degeneration of the\nheart, and were literally snatched out of the jaws of death by beginning\na fast. I would not like to guess just what percentage of dying people\nin our hospitals might be saved if the doctors would withdraw all food\nfrom them, but I await with interest the time when medical science will\nhave the intelligence to try that simple experiment and report the\nresults.\n\nJust the other day in the Los Angeles county jail, a chiropractor went\non hunger strike, as a protest against imprisonment, and he fasted 41\ndays. Then he broke his fast, the reason being given that his pulse was\ndown to 54, and he was afraid of dying. I smiled to myself. The normal\npulse is 70. I have taken my pulse many times at the end of a ten-day\nfast, and it has been as low as 32, and I am not dead yet, and if I wait\nto die from the symptoms of a fast, I expect to live a long time indeed!\n\nThe first time I fasted, I felt very weak, and lay around and hardly\ncared to lift my head; if I walked from my bed to the lawn, I was tired\nin the legs. But since then I have grown used to fasting. I have fasted\nfor a week probably twenty or thirty times, and on such occasions I have\ngone about my business as if nothing were happening. Of course I would\nnot try to play tennis, or to climb a mountain, but it is a fact that on\nthe seventh day of a fast in New York, I climbed the five or six flights\nof stairs to the top of the Metropolitan Opera House, and felt no ill\neffects from doing this. I climbed slowly, and was careful not to tire\nmyself. The simple rule is not to have anything that you must do on the\nfast, and then do what you feel like doing. Lie down and rest, and read\na book, and take as much exercise as you find you enjoy. Keep your mind\nquiet and free from worries, and lock out of the house everybody who\ntells you that your heart is going to stop beating in the next few\nminutes, and that you must have an injection of strychnine to start it,\nand some beefsteak and fried onions to \"restore your strength.\" Give\nyourself up to the care of your wise old mother nature, who will attend\nto your heart just as securely and serenely as she attended to it in the\ndays before you were born.\n\nBy fasting I mean that you take no food whatever. I know some nature\ncure teachers who practice what they call a \"fruit fast.\" All I know is\nthat if I eat nothing but fruit, I soon have my stomach boiling with\nfermentation, and also I suffer with hunger; whereas, if I take a\ncomplete fast, I promptly forget all about food. You must drink all the\nwater you can on the fast. This helps nature with her house-cleaning; it\nis well to drink a glass of water every half hour at least. Do not try\nto go without water, and then write me that the fasting cure is a\nfailure. Also please do not write and ask me if it will be fasting if\nyou take just a little crackers and milk, or some soup, or something\nelse that you think doesn't count!\n\nI recommend a dose of laxative to clean out the system at the beginning\nof a fast, because the bowels are apt to become sluggish at once, and\nthe quicker you get the system cleansed, the better. It does no good to\ntake laxatives if you are going to pile in more food, but if you are\ngoing to fast, that is a different matter. You should take a full warm\nenema every day during the fast, so long as it brings any results. There\nare some people whose bowels are so frightfully clogged that I have\nknown the enema to bring results even in the second and third weeks. On\nthe other hand, if there is no solid matter to be removed, a small enema\nevery day will suffice. Take a warm bath every day; and needless to say,\nyou should get all the fresh air you can, and should sleep as much as\nyou can. You may have difficulty in sleeping, because the fast is apt to\nmake you nervous and wakeful. I have known people who could not fast\nbecause they could not sleep, and I have taught them a little trick, to\nput a hot water bottle at the feet, and another on the abdomen, to draw\nthe blood away from the head. So they would quickly fall asleep, and\nthey got great benefit from their fasts.\n\nYou should supply yourself with good music if you can, and with plenty\nof good reading matter. You will be amazed to find how active your mind\nbecomes; perhaps you had never known before what a mind you had. Your\nblood has always been so clogged with food poisons that you didn't know\nyou could think. My three act play, \"The Nature Woman,\" was conceived\nand written in two days and a half on a fast; but I do not recommend\nthis kind of thing--on the contrary, I strongly urge against it, because\nif you work your brain on a fast, you do not get the good from your\nfast, and do not recover so quickly. Put off all your problems until you\nhave got your health back, and seek only to divert your mind while\nfasting.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI\n\nBREAKING THE FAST\n\n     (Discusses various methods of building up the body after a fast,\n     especially the milk diet.)\n\n\nThere remains the question of how to break the fast, and this is the\nmost important part of the problem. You may undo all the good of your\nfast by breaking it wrong, and you are a thousand times as apt to kill\nyourself then, as while you are fasting. When your hunger comes back, it\ncomes back with a rush, and some people have not the will power to\ncontrol it.\n\nI do not advocate a complete fast in any case except of serious chronic\ndisease, and then only under the advice of someone with experience; but\nI advocate a short fast of a week or ten days for almost every common\nailment, and I know that such a fast will help, even where it may not\ncompletely cure. You may go on fasting so long as you are quiet and\nhappy; but when you find you are becoming too weak for comfort, or for\nthe peace of mind of your family physician and your friends, you may\nbreak your fast, and show them that it is possible to restore your\nstrength and body weight, and then they won't bother so much when you\ntry it again! Take nothing but liquid foods in the breaking of a fast; I\nrecommend the juices of fruits and tomatoes, also meat broths. If you\nhave fasted a week or two, take a quarter of a glass; if you have fasted\na month, take a tablespoonful, and wait and see what the results are.\nRemember that your whole alimentary tract is out of action, and give it\na chance to start up slowly. Take small quantities of liquid food every\ntwo hours for the first day. Then you can begin taking larger\nquantities, and on the next day you can try some milk, or a soft poached\negg, or the pulp of cooked apples or prunes. Do not take any solid food\nuntil you are quite sure you can digest it, and then take only a very\nlittle. Do not take any starchy food until the third day.\n\nI have known people to break these rules. I knew a man who broke his\nfast on hamburg steak, and had to be helped out with a stomach pump.\nOnce I broke a week's fast with a plate of rich soup, because I was at a\nfriend's house and there was nothing else, and I yielded to the claims\nof hospitality, and made myself ill and had to fast for several days\nlonger.\n\nThe easiest way to break a fast is upon a milk diet. I have seen\nhundreds of people take this diet, and very few who did not get benefit.\nThe first time I fasted, which was twelve days, I lost 17 pounds, and I\ntook the milk diet for 24 days thereafter, and gained 32 pounds. I took\nit at MacFadden's Sanitarium, where I had every attention. Since then, I\nhave many times tried to take a milk diet by myself, but have never been\nable to get it to agree with me. I do not know how to explain this fact;\nI state it, to show how hard it is to lay down general rules. On the\nmilk diet you take into your system two or three times as much food as\nyou can assimilate, and this is a violation of all my diet rules; but it\nappears that the bacteria which thrive in milk produce lactic acid,\nwhich is not harmful to the system, and if you do not take other foods\nyou may safely keep the system flooded with milk.\n\nAfter a fast you should begin with small quantities of milk, and by the\nthird day you may be taking a full glass of warm milk every half hour or\nevery twenty minutes, until you have taken seven or eight quarts per\nday. It is better to take it warm, but sometimes people take it just as\nwell without warming. Dr. Porter, who has a book on the milk diet,\ninsists upon complete rest, and makes his patients stay in bed.\nMacFadden, on the other hand, recommends gymnastics in the morning\nbefore the milk, and during the afternoon he recommends a rest from the\nmilk for a couple of hours, followed by abdominal exercises to keep the\nbowels open. This is very important during a fast, because you are\ntaking great quantities of material into your system and it must not be\npermitted to clog. Therefore take an enema daily, if necessary to a free\nmovement. Also take a warm bath daily. Take the juice of oranges and\nlemons if you crave them.\n\nUpon one thing everyone who has had experience with the milk diet\nagrees, and that is the necessity of absolute mental rest. If you\nbecome excited, or nervous, or angry on a milk diet, you may turn all\nthe contents of your stomach into hard curds, and may put yourself into\nconvulsions. The wonderful thing about the milk diet is the state of\nphysical and mental bliss it makes possible. It is the ideal way of\nbreaking a fast, because it leaves you no chance to get hungry; you have\nall the food you want, and your system is bathed in happiness, a sense\nof peace and well-being which is truly marvelous and not to be\ndescribed. You gain anywhere from half a pound to two pounds a day, and\nyou feel that you have never before in your life known what perfect\nhealth could be. The fast sets you a new standard, you discover how\nnature meant you to enjoy life, and never again are you content with\nthat kind of half existence with which you managed to worry along before\nyou discovered this remedy.\n\nBut let me hasten to add that I do not recommend the fast as a regular\nhabit of life. The fast is an emergency measure, to enable the body to\ncleanse itself and to cure disease. When you have got your body clean\nand free from disease, it is your business to keep it that way, and you\nshould apply your reason to the problem of how to live so that you will\nnot have to fast. If you find that you continue to have ailments, then\nyou must be eating wrongly, or overworking, or committing some other\noffense against nature; either that, or else you must have some organic\ntrouble--a bone in your spine out of place, as the osteopaths tell you,\nor your eyes out of focus, or your appendix twisted and infected. I do\nnot claim that the fasting cure will supplant the surgeons and the\noculists and the dentists. It will not mend your bones if you break\nthem, and it will not repair your teeth that are already decayed; but it\nwill help to keep your teeth from decaying in the future, and it will\nhelp you to prepare for a surgical operation, and to recover from it\nmore quickly. I had to undergo an operation for rupture a couple of\nyears ago, and I fasted for two days before the operation, and for three\ndays after it, and I had no particle of nausea from the ether, and was\nable to tend to my mail the day after the operation.\n\nThere is one disease for which I hesitate to recommend the fast, and\nthat is tuberculosis, because I have been told of cases in which the\npatient lost weight and did not recover it. However, in my tabulation\nof 277 cases, you will note four cases of tuberculosis, and in my book\nis given a letter from a patient who claimed great benefit. If I had the\nmisfortune to contract tuberculosis, I would take a three or four day\nfast, followed by a milk diet for a long period. The milk diet is\npleasant to take, and it cannot possibly do any harm. If it did not\neffect a cure, I would try the Salisbury treatment--that is, lean meat\nground up and medium cooked, and nothing else, except an abundance of\nhot water between meals. Prof. Irving Fisher wrote me that there is\nurgent need of experiment to determine proper diet in tuberculosis; and\nuntil these experiments have been made, we can only grope. I am quite\nsure that the \"stuffing system,\" ordinarily used by doctors, is a tragic\nmistake.\n\nIn the case of any other disease whatever, even though I might take\nmedical or surgical treatment, I would supplement this by a fast,\nbecause there is no kind of treatment which does not succeed better with\nthe blood in good condition. In the case of emergencies, accidents,\nwounds, etc., I would rest assured that recovery would be more prompt if\nI were fasting. When David Graham Phillips was shot, I wrote a letter to\nthe New York Call, saying that his doctors had killed him, because they\nhad fed him while he was lying in a critical condition in the hospital.\nTo take nutriment into the body under such circumstances is the greatest\nof blunders.\n\nThe fast will help children, just as it helps adults, only they do not\nneed to fast so long. It will help the aged and make them feel young.\n(You need not be afraid to fast, no matter how old you are.) It is, of\ncourse, an immediate cure for fatness, and strange as it may seem, it is\nalso a cure for unnatural thinness. People with ravenous appetites are\njust as apt to be thin as to be fat, because it is not what you eat that\nbuilds up your body, but only what you assimilate, and if you eat too\nmuch, you can make it impossible to assimilate anything properly. If you\ntake a fast and break it carefully, your body will come to its normal\nweight, and all your functions to their normal activity.\n\nA physician wrote me, taking me to task for listing among the cures\nreported in my tabulation a case of locomotor ataxia. This disease, he\nexplained, is caused because a portion of a nerve has been entirely\ndestroyed, and it is a disease that is absolutely and positively and\nforever incurable. I answered that I knew this to be the teaching of\npresent day medical science, but I invited him to consider for a moment\nwhat happens in nature. When a crab loses a claw, we do not take it as a\nmatter of course that the crab must go about with one claw for the\nbalance of its life; nature will make that crab another claw. Man has\nlost the power of replacing a lost leg, but he stills retains the power\nof replacing tissue which has been cut away by a surgeon's knife, and\nmedical science takes this as a matter of course. How shall anybody say\nthat nature has forever lost the power of rebuilding a bit of nervous\ntissue? How shall anyone say that if the blood-stream is cleansed of\npoisons, and the energy of the whole body restored, one of the results\nmay not be the repairing of a broken nerve connection? I invite my\nreaders who have ailments, and especially I invite all medical men among\nmy readers, to make a fair test of the fasting cure. The results will\nsurprise them, and they will quickly be forced to revise their methods\nof treating illness.\n\n\n\n\nXXVII\n\nDISEASES AND CURES\n\n     (Discusses some of the commoner human ailments, and what is known\n     about their cause and cure.)\n\n\nI begin with the commonest of all troubles, known as a \"cold.\" This name\nimplies that the cause of the trouble lies in exposure or chill. All the\ngrandmothers of the world are agreed about this. They have a phrase--or\nat least they had it when I was a boy: \"You will catch your death.\"\nEvery time I went out in the rain, every time I played with wet feet, or\nsat in a draft, or got under a cold shower, I would hear the formula,\n\"You will catch your death.\"\n\nAnd, on the other hand, there are the \"health cranks,\" who declare\nvehemently that the name \"cold\" is a misnomer and a trap for people's\nthoughts. Cold has nothing to do with it, they say, and point to arctic\nexplorers who frequently get frozen to death, but do not \"catch cold\"\nuntil they get back into the warm rooms of civilization. As for drafts,\nthe \"health cranks\" aver that a draft is merely \"fresh air moving\";\nwhich is supposed to settle the matter. However, when you come to think\nabout it, you realize that a cyclone is likewise merely \"fresh air\nmoving,\" so you have not decided the question by a phrase.\n\nWhile I was writing these chapters on health I contracted a severe\ncold--which was a joke on me. The history of this cold is as clear in my\nmind as anything human can be, and it will serve for an illustration,\nshowing how much truth the grandmothers have on their side, and how much\nthe \"health cranks\" have.\n\nTo begin with, I had been overworking. All sorts of appeals come to me;\nhundreds of people write me letters, and I cannot bear to leave them\nunanswered. I accepted calls to speak, and invitations where I had to\neat a lot of stuff of which my reason disapproves; so one morning I woke\nup with a slight sore throat. I fasted all day, and by evening felt all\nright. But there came another call, and I consented to take a long\nautomobile ride on a cold and rainy night, and when I got back home,\nafter five or six hours, I was thoroughly chilled, and my \"cold\" came on\nduring the night.\n\nThis explanation will, I imagine, be satisfactory to all the\ngrandmothers of the world. All the dear, good grandmothers know that an\nautomobile ride on a cold, rainy night is enough to give any man \"his\ndeath.\" But listen, grandmothers! I have lain out watching for deer all\nnight in the late fall, with only a thin blanket to cover me, and gotten\nup so stiff with cold that I could hardly move; yet I did not \"catch\ncold.\" When I was a youth, I have ridden a bicycle twenty miles to the\nbeach in April, with snow on the ground, and plunged into the surf and\nswam, and then ridden home again. I have bathed in the sea when I had to\nrun a quarter of a mile in a bathing suit along a frost-covered pier,\nand with an icy wind blowing through my bones; yet I never took cold\nfrom that, and never got anything but a feeling of exhilaration. So it\nmust be that there is some reason why exposure causes colds at one time\nand not at another.\n\nThe explanation takes you over to the \"health cranks.\" They understand\nthat your blood-stream must be clogged, your bodily tone reduced by bad\nair and lack of exercise, and more especially by over-eating, or by an\nimproperly balanced diet. But then most of them go to extremes, and\ninsist that the automobile ride and the chilled condition of my body had\nnothing to do with my cold. But I know otherwise--I have watched the\nthing happen so often. In times when I was run down, the slightest\nexposure would cause me a cold, literally in a few minutes. I have got\nmyself a sore throat going out to the wood-pile on a winter day with\nnothing on my head. I have got a cold by sitting still with wet feet, or\nby sitting in a draft on a warm summer day, when I had been perspiring a\nlittle. How to explain this I am not sure, but my guess is that you\ndrive the blood away from the surface of the body at a time when it is\nweakened and exposed to infection, and you drive away the army of the\nwhite corpuscles, and give the battlefield of your body to the germs.\n\nI know there are nature curists who argue that germs have nothing to do\nwith disease; but they have never been able to convince me--germs are\ntoo real, and too many, and too easy to watch. If you leave a piece of\nmeat exposed to the air in warm temperature, the germs in the air will\nsettle upon it and begin to feed upon it and to multiply; the meat,\nbeing dead, is powerless to protect itself. But your nose and throat are\nalso meat, and just as good food for the germs. The only difference is\nthat this meat is alive, there is a living blood-stream circulating\nthrough it, and several score billions of the body's own kind of germs,\nthe blood corpuscles. If these blood corpuscles are sound and properly\nnourished, and are brought to the place of infection, they are able to\ndestroy all the common germs; so it is that you do not have diseases,\nbut instead have health. But your health always implies a struggle of\nyour organism against other organisms, and it is the business of your\nreason to watch your body and give all the help you can in protecting\nit. Coughs and colds, sore throats and headaches, are the first warnings\nthat your defenses are being weakened. As a rule these ailments are not\nserious in themselves, but they are signs of a wrong condition, and if\nyou neglect this condition, pretty soon you will find that you have to\ndeal with something deadly.\n\nMy cure for a cold is to take an enema and a laxative, eat nothing for\ntwenty-four hours, and drink plenty of water. If you have a severe cold\nor sore throat, you will be wise to lie in bed for a day or two, by an\nopen window. You may also use sprays and gargles if you wish, but you\nwill find them of little use, because the germs are deep in your mucous\nmembranes, and cannot all be reached from the outside. In the old sad\ndays of my ignorance I would get a cold, and go to the doctor, and have\nmy throat and nose pumped full of black and green and yellow and purple\nliquids, which did me absolutely no good whatever; the cold would stay\non for two or three weeks, sometimes for eight or ten weeks, and I would\nbe miserable, utterly desperate. I was dying by inches, and not one of\nthe doctors could tell me why.\n\nThe next most common ailment is a headache, and this means poisons in\nyour blood-stream. It may be from improper diet, from alcohol, or drugs,\nor bad air, or nervous excitement. If it is none of these things, then\nyou should begin to look for some organic difficulty, eye-strain, for\nexample, or perhaps defects in the spine. The osteopaths and the\nchiropractors specialize on the spine, and have made important\ndiscoveries. Their doctrine is, in brief, that the nervous force which\ndirects the blood-stream is carried to the organs of the body by nerves\nwhich leave the spinal cord through openings between the vertebrae. If\nany of these openings are pinched, you have a diminished nerve supply,\nwhich means ill-health in that part of the body to which the nerve\nleads. That such trouble can be corrected by straightening the bones of\nthe spine, seems perfectly reasonable; but like most people with a new\nidea, the discoverers proceed to carry it to absurd extremes. I have\nbefore me an official chiropractic pamphlet which states that vertebral\ndisplacement is \"the physical and perpetuating cause of ninety-five per\ncent of all cases of disease; the remaining five per cent being due to\nsubluxations of other skeletal segments.\" Naturally people who believe\nthis will devote nearly all their study to the bones and the nervous\nsystem. But surely, there are other parts of your body which are\nnecessary besides bones and nerves! And what if some of these parts\nhappen to be malformed or defective? What if your eyes do not focus\nproperly, and you are continually wearing out the optic nerve, thus\ngiving yourself headaches and neurasthenia? What if you have an appendix\nthat has been twisted and malformed from birth, and is a center of\ninfection so long as it remains in the body?\n\nSeveral years ago I had an experience with the appendix, from which I\nlearned something about one of the commonest of human ailments,\nconstipation, or sluggishness of the bowels. This is a cause of\ninnumerable chronic ailments grouped under the head of auto-intoxication,\nor the poisoning of the body by the absorption into the system of the\nproducts of fermentation and decay in the bowels. The bowels should move\nfreely two or three times every day, and the movements should be soft. I\nsuffered from constipation for some twenty years, and tried, I think,\nevery remedy known both to science and to crankdom. In the beginning the\ndoctors gave me drugs which by irritating the intestinal walls cause\nthem to pour out quantities of water, and hurry the irritating\nsubstances down the intestinal tract. That is all right for an\nemergency; if you have swallowed a poison, or food which is spoiled, or\nif you have overeaten and are ill, get your system cleaned out by any\nand every device. But if you habitually swallow mild poisons, which is\nwhat all laxatives are, you weaken the intestinal tract, and you have to\ntake more and more of these poisons, and you get less results. We may\nset down as positive the statement that drugs are not a remedy for\nconstipation.\n\nNext comes diet. Eat the rough and bulky foods, say the nature curists,\nand stimulate the intestinal walls to activity. I tried that. I listened\nto the extreme enthusiasts, and boiled whole wheat and ate it, and\nconsumed quantities of bran biscuit, and of a Japanese seaweed which Dr.\nKellogg prepares, and of petroleum oil, and even the skins of oranges,\nwhich are most uncomfortable eating, I assure you. I would eat things\nlike this until I got myself a case of diarrhea--and so was cured of\nconstipation for a time! Strange as it may seem to you, there are even\npeople who tell you to eat sand. I listened to them, and ate many\nquarts.\n\nThen there is exercise. MacFadden taught me a whole series of exercises\nfor developing the muscles of the abdominal walls and the back, which\nare greatly neglected by civilized man. The fundamental cause of\nconstipation is a sluggish life, and to exercise our bodies is a duty;\nbut to me it was always an agony of boredom to lie on a bed and wiggle\nmy abdomen for a quarter of an hour. The same thing applies to hot water\ntreatments, which are effective, but a nuisance and a waste of time. I\nnever could keep them up except when I was in trouble.\n\nThree or four years ago I began to notice a continual irritating pain in\nmy right side, which I quickly realized must lie in the appendix. I\ntried massage, and hot and cold water treatments, and my favorite\nremedy, a week's fast. The pain disappeared, but it returned, so finally\nI decided, to the dismay of my physical culture friends, to have the\nappendix out. For years I had been reading the statements of nature\ncurists, that the appendix is an important and vital part of the body,\nwhich pours an oil or something into the intestinal tract, and so helps\nto prevent constipation. Well, evidently my appendix wasn't doing its\njob, so I took it to a good surgeon. What I found was that it had been\ntwisted and malformed from birth, so that it was a center of continuous\ninfection. From the time I had that operation, I have never had to think\nabout the subject of constipation. This experience suggests to me how\neasy it is for people to make statements about health which have no\nrelationship to facts.\n\nI do not recommend promiscuous surgery, and I perfectly well realize\nthat if human beings would take proper care of their health, the great\nproportion of surgical operations would be unnecessary. I realize,\nalso, that surgeons get paid by the job, and therefore have a money\ninterest in operating, and it is perfectly futile to expect that none of\nthem will ever be influenced by the profit motive. Nevertheless, it is\ntrue that sometimes surgical operations are necessary, and that by\nstanding a little temporary inconvenience you can save yourself a\nlife-time of discomfort.\n\nTake, for example, rupture. The human body has here a natural weakness,\nfrom which there results a dangerous and uncomfortable affliction.\nHundreds of thousands of men are going around all their lives wearing\nelaborate and expensive trusses which are almost, if not entirely\nuseless, and trying advertised \"cures\" which are entirely fakes. An\noperation takes an hour or two, and two or three weeks in bed, and when\nour government drafted its young men into the army and found that\nfourteen in every thousand of them had rupture, it shipped them into the\nhospitals wholesale and sewed them up. It happens that rupture affords\none case where scar tissue is stronger than natural tissue, and there\nwere practically no returns from the great number of army cases.\n\nLikewise you find extreme statements repeated concerning the evils of\nvaccination; but if you will read Parkman's \"History of the Jesuits in\nNorth America,\" you will see the horrible conditions under which the\nIndians lived in the United States--noble savages, you understand,\nentirely uncontaminated by civilized white men, and whole populations\nregularly wiped out every few years by epidemics of smallpox. That these\nepidemics ceased was due to the discovery that by infecting the body\nwith a mild form of the disease, it could be made to develop substances\nwhich render it immune to the deadly form. Here in California we have a\nlaw which makes vaccination for school children optional, and so we may\nsome day have another epidemic to test the theories of the\nanti-vaccinationists.\n\nI know, of course, the dreadful stories of people who have been given\nsyphilis and other diseases by impure vaccines. I don't know whether\nsuch stories are true; but I do know that people who live in houses are\nsometimes killed by earthquakes and by lightning, yet we do not cease to\nlive in houses because of this chance. It seems to me that the remedy\nfor such vaccination evils is not to abolish vaccination, but to take\nmore care in the manufacture of our vaccines.\n\nThis danger is removed by using vaccines which are sterile, and are made\nespecially for each person. Germs are taken from the sick person, and\ninjected into an animal. The body of the animal develops with great\nrapidity the \"anti-bodies\" necessary to resistance to the germs; and as\nthese \"anti-bodies\" are chemical products, not affected by heat, we can\ntake a serum from the animal, sterilize it, and then inject it into the\nsystem of the patient, thus increasing resistance to the disease. I\nadmit that the best way to increase such resistance is to take care of\nyour health; but sometimes we confront an emergency, and must use\nemergency remedies. We have serums that really cure diphtheria and\nmeningitis, and one that will prevent lock-jaw; anyone who has ever seen\nwith his own eyes how the deadly membranes of diphtheria melt away as a\nresult of an injection, will be less dogmatic about the efforts of\nscience to combat disease.\n\nOf course it is much pleasanter if you can destroy the source of the\ndisease, and keep it from getting into the human body. Every few years\nthe southern part of our country used to be devastated by yellow fever\nepidemics. Every kind of weird and fantastic remedy was tried; people\nwould go around with sponges full of vinegar hung under their noses;\nthey would burn the clothing and bedding of those who died of the\ndisease; they would wear gloves when they went shopping, so as not to\ntouch the money with their hands. But at last medical experimenters\ntraced the disease to a certain kind of mosquito, and now, if we drain\nthe swamps and screen our houses and stay in doors after sundown, we do\nnot get yellow fever, nor malaria either. In the same way, if we keep\nour bodies clean with soap and hot water, we do not get bitten by lice,\nand so do not die of typhus. If we take pains with our drains and water\nsupply, so that human excrement does not get into it, and if we destroy\nthe filth-carrying housefly, we do not have epidemics of typhoid.\n\nBut under conditions of battle it is not possible for men to take these\nprecautions, and so when they go into the army they get a dose of\ntyphoid serum. And this illustrates the difference between a true or\nhygienic remedy for disease, and a temporary or emergency remedy. If you\nsay that you want to abolish war, and with it the need for typhoid\nvaccination, I cheerfully agree with you in this. All that I am trying\nto do is to point out the folly of flying to extremes, and rejecting any\nremedy which may help. What is the use of making the flat statement that\nvaccinations and serums never aid in the cure of disease, when any man\ncan see with his own eyes the proof that they do? In the Spanish war,\nbefore typhoid vaccination, many times more soldiers died of this\ndisease than died of bullets; but in the late war there was practically\nno typhoid at all in the army camps. On the other hand, it was noticed\nthat the men who had just come in, and who therefore had just been\nvaccinated, were considerably more susceptible to influenza; which shows\nthat vaccination does reduce the body condition for a time. The reader\nmay say that in this case I am trying to sit on both sides of the fence;\nbut the truth is that I am trying to keep an open mind, and to consider\nall the facts, and to avoid making rash statements.\n\nOne of the statements you hear most frequently is that drugs can never\nremedy disease, or help in remedying it. Now, I abhor the drugging\nsystem of the orthodox medical men; I have talked with them, and heard\nthem talk with one another, and I know that they will mix up half a\ndozen different substances, in the vague hope that some one of them will\nhave some effect. Even when they know definitely the effects they are\nproducing, they are in many cases merely suppressing symptoms. On the\nother hand, however, it is a fact that medical science has had for a\ngeneration or two a specific which destroys the germs of one disease in\nthe blood, without at the same time injuring the blood itself. That\ndisease is malaria, and the drug is quinine. Of course, the way to avoid\nmalaria is to drain the swamps; but you cannot do that all at once, nor\ncan you always screen your house and stay in at sundown. When you first\ngo into a country, you have no house to screen, and some emergency will\ncertainly arise that exposes you to mosquito bites. So you will need\nquinine, and will be foolish not to use it, and know how to use it.\n\nRecently medical chemists discovered another remedy, this time for\nsyphilis. It is called salvarsan, and while it does not always cure, it\nfrequently does. In laboratories today men are working over the problem\nof constructing a combination of molecules which will destroy the germ\nof sleeping sickness, without at the same time injuring the blood. If\nthey find it, they will save hundreds of millions of lives. I do not see\nwhy we cannot recognize such a possibility, while at the same time\nmaking use of physical culture, of diet and fasting.\n\nWhen the manuscript of this book was sent to the printer, there appeared\nin this place a paragraph telling of the work of Dr. Albert Abrams of\nSan Francisco, in the diagnosis and cure of disease by means of\nradio-active vibrations. As the book is going to press, the writer finds\nhimself in San Francisco, attending Dr. Abrams' clinics; and so he finds\nit possible to give a more extended account of some fascinating\ndiscoveries, which seem destined to revolutionize medical science. If I\nwere to tell all that I have seen with my own eyes in the last twelve\ndays, I fear the reader would find his powers of credulity\noverstretched, so I shall content myself with trying to tell, in very\nsober and cautious language, the theory upon which Abrams is working,\nand the technic which he has evolved.\n\nModern science has demonstrated that all matter is simply the activity\nof electrons, minute particles of electric force. This is a statement\nwhich no present-day physicist would dispute. The best evidence appears\nto indicate that a molecule of matter is a minute reproduction of the\nuniverse, a system of electrons whirling about a central nucleus. No eye\nhas ever beheld an electron, for it is billions of times smaller than\nanything the microscope makes visible; but we can see the effects of\nelectronic activity, and all modern books of physics give photographs of\nsuch. It is possible to determine the vibration rates of electrons, and\nto Dr. Abrams occurred the idea of determining the vibration rates of\ndiseased tissue and disease germs. He discovered that it was invariably\nthe same; not merely does all cancerous material, for example, yield the\nsame rate, but the blood of a person suffering from cancer yields that\nrate, at all times and under all circumstances. The vibration of cancer,\nof tuberculosis, of syphilis--each is different, uniform and invariable.\nLikewise in the blood are other vibrations, uniform and dependable,\nwhich reveal the sex and age of the patient, the virulence of the\ndisease and the period of its duration--yes, and even the location in\nthe body, if there be some definite infected area. So here is a modern\nmiracle, an infallible device for the diagnosis of disease. Dr. Abrams\ndoes not have to see the patient; all he has to have is a drop of blood\non a piece of white blotting paper, and he sits in his laboratory and\ntells all about it, and somewhere several thousand miles away--in\nToronto or Boston or New Orleans--a surgeon operates and finds what he\nhas been told is there!\n\nAnd that is only the beginning of the wonder; because, says Abrams, if\nyou know the vibration rate of the electrons of germs, you can destroy\nthose germs. It used to be a favorite trick of Caruso to tap a glass and\ndetermine its musical note, and then sing that note at the glass and\nshatter it to bits. It is well known that horses, trotting swiftly on a\nbridge, have sometimes coincided in their step with the vibration of the\nbridge and thus have broken it down. On that same principle this wizard\nof the electron introduces into your body radio-activity of a certain\nrate--and shall I say that he cures cancer and syphilis and tuberculosis\nof many years standing in a few treatments? I will not say that, because\nyou would not and could not believe me. I will content myself with\ntelling what my wife and I have been watching, twice a day for the past\ntwelve days.\n\nThe scene is a laboratory, with rows of raised seats at one side for the\nphysicians who attend the clinic. There is a table, with the instruments\nof measurement, and Dr. Abrams sits beside it, and before him stands a\nyoung man stripped to the waist. The doctor is tapping upon the abdomen\nof this man, and listening to the sounds. You will find this the\nweirdest part of the whole procedure, for you will naturally assume that\nthis young man is being examined, and will be dazed when some one\nexplains that the patient is in Toronto or Boston or New Orleans, and\nthat this young man's body is the instrument which the doctor uses in\nthe determining of the vibration rates of the patient's blood. Dr.\nAbrams tried numerous instruments, but has been able to find nothing so\nsensitive to electronic activity as a human body. He explains to his\nclasses that the spinal cord is composed of millions of nerve fibres of\ndifferent vibration rates; hence a certain rate communicated to the\nbody, is automatically sorted out, and appears on a certain precise spot\nof the body in the form of increased activity, increased blood pressure\nin the cells, and hence what all physicians know as a \"dull area,\" which\ncan be discovered by what is known as \"percussion,\" a tapping with a\nfinger. To map out these areas is merely a matter of long and patient\nexperiment; and Abrams has been studying this subject for some twenty\nyears--he is author of a text-book on what is known as the \"reactions\nof Abrams.\" So now he provides the world with a series of maps of the\nhuman body; and he sits in front of his \"subject,\" and his assistant\nplaces a specimen of blood in a little electrically connected box, and\nsets the rheostat at some vibration number--say fifty--and Dr. Abrams\ntaps on a certain square inch of the abdomen of his \"subject,\" and\nannounces the dread word \"cancer.\" Then he places the electrode on\nanother part of the \"subject's\" body, and taps some more, and announces\nthat it is cancer of the small intestine, left side; some more tapping,\nand he announces that its intensity is twelve ohms, which is severe; and\npretty soon there is speeding a telegram to the physician who has sent\nthis blood specimen, telling him these facts, and prescribing a certain\nvibration rate upon the \"oscilloclast,\" the instrument of radio-activity\nwhich Dr. Abrams has devised.\n\nNow, you watch this thing for an hour or two, and you say to yourself:\n\"Here is either the greatest magician in the history of mankind, or else\nthe greatest maniac.\" You may have come prepared for some kind of fraud,\nbut you soon dismiss that, for you realize that this man is desperately\nin earnest about what he is doing, and so are all the physicians who\nwatch him. So you seek refuge in the thought that he must be deluding\nhimself and them, perhaps unconsciously. But you talk with these men,\nand discover that they have come from all over the country, and always\nfor one reason--they had sent blood specimens to Abrams, and had found\nthat he never made a mistake; he told them more from a few drops of the\npatient's blood than they themselves had been able to find out from the\nwhole patient. And then into the clinic come the doctor's own\npatients--I must have heard sixty or eighty of them tell their story and\nmany of them have been lifted from the grave. People ten years blind\nfrom syphilis who can see; people operated on several times for cancer\nand given up for dying; people with tumors on the brain, or with one\nlung gone from tuberculosis. It is literally a fact that when you have\nsat in Abrams' clinic for a week, all disease loses its terrors.\n\nThis, you see, is really the mastery of life. If we can measure and\ncontrol the minute universe of the electron and the atom, we have\ntouched the ultimate source of our bodily life. I might take chapters of\nthis book to tell you of the strange experiments I have seen in this\nclinic--showing you, for instance, how these vibrations respond to\nthought, how by denying to himself the disease the patient can for a\nfew moments cancel in his body the activity of the harmful germs;\nshowing how the reactions differ in the different sexes and at different\nages, and how they respond to different colors and different drugs.\nAbrams' method has revealed the secret of such efficacy as drugs\npossess--their work is done by their radio-activity, and not by their\nchemical properties. Also the problem of vaccination has been\nsolved--for Abrams has discovered a dread new disease, which is bovine\nsyphilis, originally caused in cattle by human inoculation, and now\nreintroduced in the human being by vaccination, and becoming the agent\nwhich prepares the soil of the body for such disorders as tuberculosis\nand cancer. And it appears that we can all be rendered immune to these\ndiseases, by a few electronic vibrations, introduced into our bodies in\nchildhood; so is opened up to our eyes a wonderful vision of a new race,\npurified and made fit for life. So here at last is science justified of\nher optimism, and our faith in human destiny forever vindicated. Take my\nadvice, whoever you may be that are suffering, and find out about this\nnew work and help to make it known to the world.\n\nThere are many romances of medical science, some of them fascinating as\nmurder mysteries and big game hunting. Turn to McMasters' \"History of\nthe People of the United States\" and read his account of the terrible\nepidemic of yellow fever in Philadelphia a hundred years ago; I have\nalready referred to the weird and incredible things the people did in\ntheir effort to ward off this plague--sponges of vinegar under their\nnoses and \"fever fires\" burning in the streets; and then a mosquito\nwould fly up and bite them, and in a few hours they would be dead! Or\nwhat could be stranger than the tracing of the bubonic plague, which has\ncost literally billions of human lives, to a parasite in the blood of\nfleas which live on the bodies of rats! Or what could be more unexpected\nthan the tracing of our rheumatic aches and twinges to the root canals\nof the teeth!\n\nOne of the common ailments which afflict poor humanity is rheumatism, a\ncause of endless suffering. It was supposed to be due to damp climate\nand exposure, and this is true to a certain extent, in the same way that\ncolds are due to exposure. But the investigators realized that there\nmust be some bodily condition rendering one susceptible, and they set to\nwork to trace this condition down. The pains of rheumatism are caused by\nuric acid settling in the joints of the body. What causes the uric\nacid? Well, there is uric acid in red meat, so let us forbid rheumatic\npeople to eat it! But this is overlooking the fact that the human body\nitself is a uric acid factory; and also the fact that uric acid taken\ninto the stomach may not remain uric acid by the time it gets to the\nblood-stream. We know that you may eat a great deal of fruit acid\nwithout necessarily making acid blood. On the other hand, you can make\nacid blood by eating a lot of sugar! So you see it isn't as simple as it\nsounds.\n\nRheumatism has been traced to its lair, which is found to be the roots\nof the teeth. Here is a part of the body difficult to get at, and as a\nconsequence of bad diet and unwholesome ways of living, infections will\nstart there, and pus sacs be formed, and the poisons absorbed into the\nblood-stream and distributed through the body. The first thought is to\ndraw the infected teeth; but that is a serious matter, because you need\nyour teeth to chew your food. So the dentist has to go through a\ncomplicated process of opening up the tooth and cleaning out the root\ncanals, and treating the infected spots at the roots. Then he has to\nfill the tooth all the way down to the roots, leaving no place for\ninfection to gather. This, of course, takes time and costs money, and is\none more illustration of the fact that there is one health law for the\nrich and another health law for the poor.\n\nAll the time that I write these chapters about health I feel guilty. I\nknow that the wholesome food I recommend costs money, and I know that\nsurgery and dentistry cost money--yes, even sunlight and fresh air and\nrecreation; even a fast, because you have to rest while you take it, and\nyou have to have a roof over your head, and warmth in winter time, and\nsomebody to wait upon you when you are weak. I know that for a great\nmany of the people who read what I write, all these things are\nimpossible of attainment; I know that for the great majority of the\ncommon people the benefits of science do not exist. Science discovers\nhow to prevent disease, but the discoveries are not applied, because the\nprofit system controls the world, and the profit system wants the labor\nof the poor, regardless of what happens to their health. If the people\nfall ill, they are thrown upon the scrap heap, and the profit system\nfinds others to take their place.\n\nTake, for example, tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is a germ infection, but\nit practically never gets hold upon a human body except when the body is\nreduced by undernourishment and lack of fresh air. Tuberculosis,\ntherefore, is a disease of slums and jails. It is definitely and\nindisputably a disease of poverty. It could be wiped off the face of the\nearth in a single generation; and the same is true of typhus and\ntyphoid. There is another whole host of ailments which could be wiped\nout by measures of public hygiene, plus education. This includes all the\ninfant diseases, and the deadly venereal diseases. But the profit system\nstands in the way; and so, in these closing paragraphs of this Book of\nthe Body, I say that there is one disease which is the deadliest of all,\nand the source of all others, and that disease is poverty.\n\nI know a certain physician to the rich, who is an honest and\nconscientious man. He said, \"I loath my work. I am wasting my time. I am\ncalled in by these fat, over-fed rich people in their leisure class\nhotels, and what am I to say to them? Shall I say to them, 'You are\nliving an abnormal life, and you can never be well until you cut out\nroot and branch all your habits of self indulgence which are destroying\nyou?' But no, I can't say that--not one time in a thousand. I am\nexpected to be polite and serious, and to listen to them while they tell\nthe long tiresome story of their symptoms, and I have to encourage them,\nand give them some temporary device that will remove some of the\nsymptoms of their trouble.\"\n\nAnd what should one say to this honest physician? Should one tell him to\ngo and be a physician to the poor? Would he be any happier there? He\ncould tell the poor the causes of their diseases, and they would listen\npatiently--they are trained to listen, and to accept what they are told.\nHere is a girl living in an inside bedroom in a tenement, and working\nten or eleven hours a day in an unventilated factory, and she is ill\nwith tuberculosis. The physician tells her that she needs plenty of\nfresh air and rest, and a lot of eggs and milk in her diet. He tells her\nthat, and he knows that she has as much chance of carrying out his\norders as of flying to the moon. Or maybe he comes upon a typhoid\nepidemic, and discovers, as happened to a friend of mine in Chicago,\nthat there is defective plumbing in some houses owned by the political\nleader of the district. Or maybe it is a case of venereal disease, in a\nyoung man who was drafted into the army and turned loose amid the joys\nof Paris. Maybe it is just a commonplace, every-day story of a room full\nof school children, 22 per cent of them undernourished, as is the case\nin New York City, and the parents out of work a part of the time, and\nwith no possibility in their lives of ever earning enough to feed the\nchildren properly. When you confront these universal facts of our\npresent social order, you realize that the problem of disease is not\nmerely a problem of the body, but is a problem of the mind as well; a\nproblem of politics and religion and philosophy, of the whole way of\nthinking of the so-called civilized world. A book of health which did\nnot point out these facts would be, not a book of health, but a book of\nsham.\n\nBut meantime, while we are trying to change the world's ideas, we have\nto live, and we can do our work better if we keep as well as possible. I\nhave tried to point out the way; it is, as you can see, a matter in part\nof the body and in part of the mind. All the bodily regime here laid out\nhas its basis in mental habits; all wise and wholesome ways of life can,\nat the age when our minds are plastic, be made into \"second\nnature\"--things which we do automatically, without effort or temptation\nto do otherwise. This is the real secret of true happiness in the\nconduct of our personal lives; to acquire self-control, to rule our\ndesires and our passions, not harshly and spasmodically, but serenely,\nas one drives a car which he thoroughly understands. It is in vain that\nwe preach freedom to men who have not this self-mastery; as the poet\ntell us: \"The sensual and the dark rebel in vain, slaves of their own\ncompulsion.\" And of all the personal possessions which man can attain on\nthis earth, the most precious is the one of a sound mind controlling a\nsound body. I close this book by quoting some verses written by Sir\nHenry Wotton three hundred years ago, which I have all my life\nconsidered one of the noblest pieces of poetry in our heritage:\n\n     THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE\n\n    How happy is he born and taught\n      That serveth not another's will;\n    Whose armour is his honest thought\n      And simple truth his utmost skill!\n\n    Whose passions not his masters are,\n      Whose soul is still prepared for death,\n    Not tied unto the world with care\n      Of public fame, or private breath.\n\n    Who envies none that chance doth raise\n      Or vice; who never understood\n    How deepest wounds are given by praise;\n      Nor rules of state, but rules of good:\n\n    Who hath his life from rumours freed,\n      Whose conscience is his strong retreat;\n    Whose state can neither flatterers feed,\n      Nor ruin make accusers great:\n\n    Who God doth late and early pray\n      More of His grace than gifts to lend;\n    And entertains the harmless day\n      With a well-chosen book or friend;\n\n    --This man is freed from servile bands\n      Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;\n    Lord of himself, though not of lands;\n      And having nothing, yet hath all.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\nAbrams, Dr., 190\n\nAdultery, 33\n\nAdventist, 99\n\nAgriculture, 25\n\nAlcohol, 151\n\nAnti-bodies, 188\n\nAntinomies, 58\n\nAppendix, 186\n\nArnold, 42\n\nArrhenius, 101\n\nAutomatic writing, 67\n\n\nBairnsfather, 29\n\nBathing, 162\n\nBattle Creek Sanitarium, 118\n\nBeauchamp, 70, 85, 89\n\nBeethoven, 47\n\nBergson, 17\n\nBeri-beri, 128\n\nBible, 77\n\nBio-chemist, 59\n\nBlack bread, 128\n\nBlood, 106\n\nBody, 53, 105\n\nBooth, 58\n\nBourne, 69\n\nBruce, 71\n\nBury, 15\n\n\nCaffein, 150\n\nCalories, 135\n\nCandy, 137\n\nCapitalist, 100\n\nCarbohydrates, 124\n\nCarbon monoxide, 157\n\nChildren, 140, 180\n\nChiropractors, 174, 184\n\nChittenden, 136\n\nChristian Scientists, 5, 65, 105\n\nClothing, 160\n\nCoffee, 151\n\nColds, 183\n\nCommandments, 32\n\nCommunist, 99\n\nComplete fast, 172\n\nComstock, 25\n\nConduct, 42\n\nConsciousness, 56\n\nConstipation, 185\n\nCooking, 129, 142\n\nCrawford, 88\n\nCyrus, 164\n\n\nDandruff, 109\n\nDante, 77\n\nDarwin, 17, 46\n\nDentistry, 126, 190\n\nDeterminists, 57\n\nDiet, 131\n\nDiet Standards, 135\n\nDigestion, 145\n\nDiphtheria, 188\n\nDiseases, 107, 117\n\nDogs, 17\n\nDraft, 182\n\nDrugs, 118, 150, 185, 189\n\nDubb, 63\n\nDuncan, 102\n\nDyspepsia, 117\n\n\nEddy, 65\n\nEdison, 45, 86\n\nEinstein, 101\n\nElberfeld horses, 68\n\nEvolution, 8, 17\n\nExercise, 163\n\n\nFaith, 9\n\nFaith curists, 65\n\nFast cure, 171\n\nFatness, 139\n\nFats, 124\n\nFever, 108\n\nFireless cooker, 142\n\nFireplace, 157\n\nFisher, 136\n\nFletcher, 119, 145\n\nFood filter, 145\n\nFourth dimension, 5\n\nFree thinker, 15\n\nFreud, 71\n\nFruit fast, 175\n\nFrugality, 38\n\nFrying-pan, 129\n\nFurnace, 157\n\n\nGargles, 184\n\nGastronomic art, 148\n\nGenius, 49, 60\n\nGeorge, 18\n\nGerms, 183\n\nGod, 22, 50\n\nGoethe, 47\n\nGolden rule, 51\n\nGreens, 132\n\nGymnastic work, 166\n\n\nHair, 109\n\nHallucinations, 75\n\nHamlet, 48\n\nHappiness, 9\n\nHarrison, 6\n\nHats, 110\n\nHeadache, 122, 150, 184\n\nHealth cranks, 182\n\nHeart, 108\n\nHoudin, 93\n\nHugo, 48\n\nHuxley, 17, 62\n\nHyslop, 82\n\n\nIceberg, 61\n\nInfanticide, 28\n\nInstincts, 134\n\nIntelligence, 22\n\nImmortality, 79\n\nIrwin, Will, 86\n\n\nJames, 30, 59, 60\n\nJesus, 47, 48, 50, 51, 76\n\nJohn Barleycorn, 152\n\nJohnson, 58\n\nJonson, 44\n\n\nKant, Immanuel, 4, 47, 51, 58\n\nKellogg, Doctor, 118, 164, 186\n\nKilmer, Joyce, 44\n\nKnowledge, 94\n\nKropotkin, 18, 26\n\n\nLangley, 74\n\nLankester, Prof. E. Ray, 23\n\nLaxatives, 175, 185\n\nLeanness, 139\n\nLeonardo, 47\n\nLiebault, 64\n\nLife, 3\n\nLily Dale, 86, 90\n\nLincoln, 47\n\nLocomotor ataxia, 180\n\nLodge, Sir Oliver, 83\n\nLodge, Raymond, 87\n\nLondon, Jack, 152\n\n\nMacaulay, 39\n\nMacDowell, Edward, 56\n\nMacFadden, 178, 186\n\nMacSwiney, 170\n\nMaeterlinck, Maurice, 68\n\nMalaria, 189\n\nMalthusian law, 25\n\nMarquesans, 113\n\nMaterializations, 88\n\nMatter, 3\n\nMeal-hour, 147\n\nMeasurement of Intelligence, Terman's, 95\n\nMeat, 121\n\nMedical science, 105\n\nMesmer, 63\n\nMessina earthquake, 170\n\nMetaphysics, 4\n\nMetchnikoff, 138\n\nMilk diet, 128\n\nModeration, 39\n\nMonism, 3\n\nMorality, 21, 31, 34, 50\n\nMorgan, 45\n\nMormon, 99\n\nMozart, 68\n\nMultiple personality, 69\n\nMutation, 17\n\nMyers, 49\n\n\nNature, 21, 24, 29\n\nNature cure, 160\n\nNature Woman, 176\n\nNeighbor, 50\n\nNewcomb, Simon, 101\n\nNewton, 47\n\nNew York Times, 169\n\nNicotine, 154\n\nNietzsche, 17\n\nNovels, 164\n\nNutrition of Man, 136\n\n\nOil stoves, 158\n\nOpsonins, 112\n\nOptimism, 42\n\nOsteopaths, 184\n\nOuija, 67\n\nOvereating, 134\n\nOxygen, 156\n\n\nPatrick, Dr., 167\n\nPavlov, 148\n\nPhantasms, 75\n\nPhillips, David Graham, 180\n\nPiper, Mrs., 68\n\nPlay, 165\n\nPoisons, 146\n\nPork, 142\n\nPorter, Dr., 178\n\nPositivists, 6\n\nPoverty, 194\n\nPrices of food, 141\n\nPrince, Dr. Morton, 70, 89\n\nProfits of Religion, 78, 99\n\nProteins, 123\n\nPrunes, 127\n\nPsychology, 96\n\nPsychotherapy, 64\n\nPuritans, 39\n\n\nQuackenbos, 64\n\nQuinine, 188\n\nQuixote, 48\n\n\nRaisins, 127\n\nRaw food, 119\n\nRead, Alfred Baker, 28\n\nReason, 13\n\nRefined foods, 126\n\nRelaxation, 167\n\nReligion, 32\n\nReincarnation, 76\n\nRest, 146\n\nRevelation, 12\n\nRheumatism, 193\n\nRice, 128\n\nRockefeller, 45\n\nRoosevelt, Theodore, 25, 45\n\nRugs, 159\n\nRupture, 187\n\n\nSabbath, 99\n\nSalisbury, 120\n\nSally, 70, 85\n\nSalt, 143\n\nMeats, salted, 143\n\nSalts, 124\n\nSalvarsan, 189\n\nSavages, 135\n\nSavage, Rev. Minot J., 74\n\nSchrenck-Notzing, 88\n\nScurvy, 128\n\nSeneca, 98\n\nShakespeare, 47\n\nShelley, 45, 48\n\nSleep, 162\n\nSleeping sickness, 113, 173\n\nSmokers, 153\n\nSocialism, 167\n\nSophocles, 87\n\nSore throat, 183\n\nSpencer, 8\n\nSpinoza, 79\n\nSpirits, 82\n\nSpiritualists, 86\n\nStarch, 122, 124\n\nStealing, 33\n\nSteam heat, 158\n\nStimulant, 149\n\nStock Exchange, 158\n\nStomach, 105, 138, 148\n\nStyle, 161\n\nSubconscious mind, 61\n\nSunday code, 40\n\nSugar, 126\n\nSurgery, 186\n\nSurvival, 81\n\nSurvival of the fittest, 22\n\nSyndicalism, 15\n\nSyphilis, 189\n\n\nTanner, Dr., 169\n\nTariff, 37\n\nTea, 151\n\nTeeth, 127, 193\n\nTelepathy, 67, 75\n\nTheosophists, 76\n\nTight shoes, 161\n\nTobacco, 153\n\nTolstoi, 49\n\nTonsilitis, 107\n\nTrance, 63\n\nTropism, 54\n\nTuberculosis, 112, 120, 179, 194, 195\n\nTwain, Mark, 93\n\nTyphoid, 112, 188, 192\n\n\nUranus, 92\n\nUric acid, 193\n\n\nVaccination, 187, 189\n\nVaccines, 188\n\nVegetarian, 121\n\nVitamines, 127, 142\n\n\nWallace, 46\n\nWells, H. G., 22\n\nWilliams, Dr. Henry Smith, 102\n\nWorth, Patience, 84\n\n\nYellow fever, 188\n\nYogis, 90\n\n\n\n\nTHE BOOK OF LIFE\n\nVOLUME TWO: LOVE AND SOCIETY\n\n                _To_\n           Kate Crane Gartz\nin acknowledgment of her unceasing efforts for a\nbetter world, and her fidelity to those\n      who struggle to achieve it.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nPART THREE: THE BOOK OF LOVE\n\n                                                                    PAGE\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII.   THE REALITY OF MARRIAGE                              3\nDiscusses the sex-customs now existing in the world,\nand their relation to the ideal of monogamous love.\n\nCHAPTER XXIX.   THE DEVELOPMENT OF MARRIAGE                            8\nDeals with the sex-relationship, its meaning and its history,\nthe stages of its development in human society.\n\nCHAPTER XXX.    SEX AND YOUNG AMERICA                                 15\nDiscusses present-day sex arrangements, as they affect\nthe future generation.\n\nCHAPTER XXXI.    SEX AND THE \"SMART SET\"                              23\nPortrays the moral customs of those who set the fashion\nin our present-day world.\n\nCHAPTER XXXII.    SEX AND THE POOR                                    29\nDiscusses prostitution, the extent of its prevalence, and\nthe diseases which result from it.\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII.    SEX AND NATURE                                     33\nMaintains that our sex disorders are not the result of\nnatural or physical disharmony.\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV.   LOVE AND ECONOMICS                                   36\nMaintains that our sex disorders are of social origin, due\nto the displacing of love by money as a motive in mating.\n\nCHAPTER XXXV.   MARRIAGE AND MONEY                                    40\nDiscusses the causes of prostitution, and that higher\nform of prostitution known as the \"marriage of convenience.\"\n\nCHAPTER XXXVI.   LOVE VERSUS LUST                                     46\nDiscusses the sex impulse, its use and misuse; when it\nshould be followed and when repressed.\n\nCHAPTER XXXVII. CELIBACY VERSUS CHASTITY                              51\n\nThe ideal of the repression of the sex-impulse, as against\nthe ideal of its guidance and cultivation.\n\nCHAPTER XXXVIII. THE DEFENSE OF LOVE                                  55\n\nDiscusses passionate love, its sanction, its place in life,\nand its preservation in marriage.\n\nCHAPTER XXXIX. BIRTH CONTROL                                          60\n\nDeals with the prevention of conception as one of the\ngreatest of man's discoveries, releasing him from nature's\nenslavement, and placing the keys of life in his hands.\n\nCHAPTER XL. EARLY MARRIAGE                                            66\n\nDiscusses love marriages, how they can be made, and the\nduty of parents in respect to them.\n\nCHAPTER XLI. THE MARRIAGE CLUB                                        71\n\nDiscusses how parents and elders may help the young to\navoid unhappy marriages.\n\nCHAPTER XLII. EDUCATION FOR MARRIAGE                                  75\n\nMaintains that the art of love can be taught, and that\nwe have the right and the duty to teach it.\n\nCHAPTER XLIII. THE MONEY SIDE OF MARRIAGE                             79\n\nDeals with the practical side of the life partnership of\nmatrimony.\n\nCHAPTER XLIV. THE DEFENSE OF MONOGAMY                                 83\n\nDiscusses the permanence of love, and why we should\nendeavor to preserve it.\n\nCHAPTER XLV. THE PROBLEM OF JEALOUSY                                  89\n\nDiscusses the question, to what extent one person may\nhold another to the pledge of love.\n\nCHAPTER XLVI. THE PROBLEM OF DIVORCE                                  93\n\nDefends divorce as a protection to monogamous love, and\none of the means of preventing infidelity and prostitution.\n\nCHAPTER XLVII. THE RESTRICTION OF DIVORCE                             97\n\nDiscusses the circumstances under which society has the\nright to forbid divorce, or to impose limitations upon it.\n\n\nPART FOUR: THE BOOK OF SOCIETY\n\nCHAPTER XLVIII. THE EGO AND THE WORLD                                103\n\nDiscusses the beginning of consciousness, in the infant\nand in primitive man, and the problem of its adjustment\nto life.\n\nCHAPTER XLVIX. COMPETITION AND CO-OPERATION                          107\n\nDiscusses the relation of the adult to society, and\nthe part which selfishness and unselfishness play in the\ndevelopment of social life.\n\nCHAPTER L. ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY                                 115\n\nDiscusses the idea of superior classes and races, and\nwhether there is a natural basis for such a doctrine.\n\nCHAPTER LI. RULING CLASSES                                           119\n\nDeals with authority in human society, how it is obtained,\nand what sanction it can claim.\n\nCHAPTER LII. THE PROCESS OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION                         122\n\nDiscusses the series of changes through which human\nsociety has passed.\n\nCHAPTER LIII. INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION                                   126\n\nExamines the process of evolution in industry and the\nstage which it has so far reached.\n\nCHAPTER LIV. THE CLASS STRUGGLE                                      132\n\nDiscusses history as a battle-ground between ruling and\nsubject classes, and the method and outcome of this\nstruggle.\n\nCHAPTER LV. THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM                                    136\n\nShows how wealth is produced in modern society, and\nthe effect of this system upon the minds of the workers.\n\nCHAPTER LVI. THE CAPITALIST PROCESS                                  142\n\nHow profits are made under the present industrial\nsystem and what becomes of them.\n\nCHAPTER LVII. HARD TIMES                                             145\n\nExplains why capitalist prosperity is a spasmodic thing,\nand why abundant production brings distress instead of\nplenty.\n\nCHAPTER LVIII. THE IRON RING                                         148\nAnalyzes further the profit system, which strangles production,\nand makes true prosperity impossible.\n\nCHAPTER LIX. FOREIGN MARKETS                                         151\nConsiders the efforts of capitalism to save itself by marketing\nits surplus products abroad, and what results from\nthese efforts.\n\nCHAPTER LX. CAPITALIST WAR                                           155\nShows how the competition for foreign markets leads\nnations automatically into war.\n\nCHAPTER LXI. THE POSSIBILITIES OF PRODUCTION                         158\nShows how much wealth we could produce if we tried\nand how we proved it when we had to.\n\nCHAPTER LXII. THE COST OF COMPETITION                                162\nDiscusses the losses of friction in our productive machine,\nthose which are obvious and those which are\nhidden.\n\nCHAPTER LXIII. SOCIALISM AND SYNDICALISM                             166\nDiscusses the idea of the management of industry by the\nstate, and the idea of its management by the trade unions.\n\nCHAPTER LXIV. COMMUNISM AND ANARCHISM                                170\nConsiders the idea of goods owned in common, and the\nidea of a society without compulsion, and how these\nideas have fared in Russia.\n\nCHAPTER LXV. SOCIAL REVOLUTION                                       175\nHow the great change is coming in different industries,\nand how we may prepare to meet it.\n\nCHAPTER LXVI. CONFISCATION OR COMPENSATION                           179\nShall the workers buy out the capitalists? Can they\nafford to do it, and what will be the price?\n\nCHAPTER LXVII. EXPROPRIATING THE EXPROPRIATORS                       183\nDiscusses the dictatorship of the proletariat, and its\nchances for success in the United States.\n\nCHAPTER LXVIII. THE PROBLEM OF THE LAND                              188\nDiscusses the land values tax as a means of social readjustment,\nand compares it with other programs.\n\nCHAPTER LXIX. THE CONTROL OF CREDIT                                  192\nDeals with money, the part it plays in the restriction of\nindustry, and may play in the freeing of industry.\n\nCHAPTER LXX. THE CONTROL OF INDUSTRY                                 198\nDiscusses various programs for the change from industrial\nautocracy to industrial democracy.\n\nCHAPTER LXXI. THE NEW WORLD                                          202\nDescribes the co-operative commonwealth, beginning\nwith its money aspects; the standard wage and its variations.\n\nCHAPTER LXXII. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION                               206\nDiscusses the land in the new world, and how we foster\nco-operative farming and co-operative homes.\n\nCHAPTER LXXIII. INTELLECTUAL PRODUCTION                              210\nDiscusses scientific, artistic, and religious activities, as\na superstructure built upon the foundation of the standard\nwage.\n\nCHAPTER LXXIV. MANKIND REMADE                                        215\nDiscusses human nature and its weaknesses, and what\nhappens to these in the new world.\n\n\n\n\nPART THREE\n\nTHE BOOK OF LOVE\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII\n\nTHE REALITY OF MARRIAGE\n\n     (Discusses the sex-customs now existing in the world, and their\n     relation to the ideal of monogamous love.)\n\n\nJust as human beings through wrong religious beliefs torture one\nanother, and wreck their lives and happiness; just as through wrong\neating and other physical habits they make disease and misery for\nthemselves; just so they suffer and perish for lack of the most\nelementary knowledge concerning the sex relationship. The difference is\nthat in the field of religious ideas it is now permissible to impart the\ntruth one possesses. If I tell you there is no devil, and that believing\nthis will not cause you to suffer in an eternity of sulphur and\nbrimstone, no one will be able to burn me at the stake, even though he\nmight like to do so. If I advise you that it is not harmful to eat\nbeefsteak on Friday, or to eat thoroughly cooked pork any day of the\nweek, neither the archbishops nor the rabbis nor the vegetarians will be\nable to lock me in a dungeon. But if I should impart to you the simplest\nand most necessary bit of knowledge concerning the facts of your sex\nlife--things which every man and woman must know if we are to stop\nbreeding imbecility and degeneracy in the world--then I should be\nliable, under federal statutes, to pay a fine of $5,000, and to serve a\nterm of five years in a federal penitentiary. Scarcely a week passes\nthat I do not receive a letter from someone asking for information about\nsuch matters; but I dare not answer the letters, because I know there\nare agencies, maintained and paid by religious superstition, employing\nspies to trap people into the breaking of this law.\n\nI shall tell you here as much as I am permitted to tell, in the simplest\nlanguage and the most honest spirit. I believe that human beings are\nmeant to be happy on this earth, and to avoid misery and disease. I\nbelieve that they are given the powers of intelligence in order to seek\nthe ways of happiness, and I believe that it is a worthy work to give\nthem the knowledge they need in order to find happiness.\n\nAt the outset of this Book of Love we are going to examine the existing\nfacts of the sex relationships of men and women in present-day society.\nWe shall discover that amid all the false and dishonest thinking of\nmankind, there is nowhere more falsity and dishonesty than here. The\nwhole world is a gigantic conspiracy of \"hush,\" and the orthodox and\nrespectable of the world are like worshippers of some god, who spend\ntheir day-time burning incense before the altar, and in the night-time\nsteal the sacred jewels and devour the consecrated offerings. These\nworshippers confront you with the question, do you believe in marriage;\nand they make the assumption that the institution of marriage exists, or\nat some time has existed in the world. But if you wish to do any sound\nthinking about this subject, you must get one thing clear at the outset;\nthe institution of marriage is an ideal which has been preached and\ntaught, but which has never anywhere, in any society, at any stage of\nhuman progress, actually existed as the general practice of mankind.\nWhat has existed and still exists is a very different institution, which\nI shall here describe as marriage-plus-prostitution.\n\nBy this statement I do not mean to deny that there are many women, and a\nfew men, who have been monogamous all their lives; nor that there are\nmany couples living together happily in monogamous marriage. What I mean\nis that, considering society as a whole, wherever you find the\ninstitution of marriage, you also find, co-existent therewith and\ncomplementary thereto, the institution of prostitution. Of this double\narrangement one part is recognized, and written into the law; the other\npart is hidden, and prohibited by law; but those who have to do with\nenforcing the law all know that it exists, and practically all of them\nconsider it inevitable, and a great many derive income from it. So I\nsay: if you believe in marriage-plus-prostitution, that is your right;\nbut if marriage is what you believe in, then your task is to consider\nsuch questions as these: Is marriage a possible thing? Can it ever\nbecome the sex arrangement of any society? What are the forces which\nhave so far prevented it from prevailing, and how can these forces be\ncounteracted?\n\nIt is my belief that monogamous love is the most desirable of human sex\nrelationships, the most fruitful in happiness and spiritual development.\nThe laws and institutions of civilized society pretend to defend this\nrelationship, but the briefest study of the facts will convince anyone\nthat these laws and institutions are not really meant to protect\nmonogamous love. What they are is a device of the property-holding male\nto secure his property rights to women, and more especially to secure\nhimself as to the paternity of his heirs. In primitive society, where\nland and other sources of wealth were held in common, and sex monogamy\nwas unknown, there was no way to determine paternity, and no reason for\ndoing so. But under the system of private property and class privilege,\nit is necessary for some one man to support a child, if it is to be\nsupported; and when a man has fought hard, and robbed hard, and traded\nhard, and acquired wealth, he does not want to spend it in maintaining\nanother man's child. That he should let himself be fooled into doing so\nis one of the greatest humiliations his fellowmen can imagine. If you\nread Shakespeare's plays, and look up the meaning of old words, so as to\nunderstand old witticisms and allusions, you will discover that this was\nthe stock jest of Shakespeare's time.\n\nIn order to protect himself from such ridicule, the man maintained in\nancient times his right to kill the faithless woman with cruel tortures.\nHe maintains today the right to deprive her of her children, and of all\nshare in his property, even though she may have helped to earn it. But\nuntil quite recent times, the beginning of the revolt of women, there\nwas never any corresponding penalty for faithlessness in husbands. Under\nthe English law today, the husband may divorce his wife for infidelity,\nbut the wife must prove infidelity plus cruelty, and the courts have\nheld that the cruelty must consist in knocking her down. While I was in\nEngland, the highest court rendered a decision that a man who brought\nhis mistress to his home and compelled his wife to wait upon her was not\ncommitting \"cruelty\" in the meaning of the English law.\n\nThis is what is known as the \"double standard,\" and the double standard\nprevails everywhere under the system of marriage-plus-prostitution, and\nproves that capitalist \"monogamy\" is not a spiritual ideal, but a matter\nof class privilege. It is a breach of honor for the ruling class male to\ntamper with the wife of his friend; it is frequently dangerous for him\nto tamper with the young females of his own class; but it is in general\npractice taken for granted that the young females of lower classes are\nhis legitimate prey. In England a man may have a marriage annulled, if\nhe can prove that the woman he married had what is called a \"past\"; but\neverybody takes it for granted that the man has had a \"past\"; it is\ncovered by the polite phrase, \"sowing his wild oats.\" Wherever among the\nruling class you find men bold enough to discuss the facts of the sex\norder they have set up, you find the idea, expressed or implied, that\nthis \"wild oats\" is a necessary and inevitable part of this order, and\nthat without it the order would break down. The English philosopher,\nLecky, making an elaborate study of morals through the ages, speaks of\nthe prostitute in the following frank language:\n\n\"Herself the supreme type of vice, she is ultimately the most efficient\nguardian of virtue. But for her, the unchallenged purity of countless\nhappy homes would be polluted, and not a few who, in the pride of their\nuntempted chastity, think of her with an indignant shudder, would have\nknown the agony of remorse and despair. On that one degraded and ignoble\nform are concentrated the passions that might have filled the world with\nshame. She remains, while creeds and civilizations rise and fall, the\neternal priestess of humanity, blasted for the sins of the people.\"\n\nI invite you to study these sentences and understand them fully.\nRemember that they are the opinion of the most learned historian of sex\ncustoms who has ever written in English; a man whose authority is\nrecognized in our schools, whose books are in every college library.\nWilliam Edward Hartpole Lecky is not in any sense a revolutionist; he is\na conventional English scholar, an upholder of English law and order and\npatriotism. He is not of my school of thought, but of those who now own\nthe world and run it. I quote him, because he tells in plain language\nwhat kind of world they have made; I invite you to study his words, and\nthen judge my statement that the sex arrangement under which we live in\nmodern society is not monogamous love, but marriage-plus-prostitution.\n\nIt is my hope to point the way to a higher system. I should like to call\nit marriage; but perhaps it would be more precise to call it\nmarriage-minus-prostitution. In working it out, we shall have to think\nfor ourselves, and discard all formulas. It is obvious that our\npresent-day religious creeds, ethical ideals, legal codes, and social\nrewards and punishments have been powerless to protect marriage, or to\nmake it the rule in sex relationships. So we shall have to begin at the\nbeginning and find new reasons for monogamous love, a new basis of\nmarriage other than the protection of private property. We shall have to\ninform ourselves as to the fundamental purposes of sex; we shall have to\nask ourselves: What are the factors which determine rightness and\nwrongness in the sex relationship? What is love, and what ought it to\nbe? These questions we shall try to approach without any fixed ideas\nwhatever. We shall decide them by the same tests that we have used in\nour thinking about God and immortality, health and disease. We shall\nask, not what our ancestors believed, not what God teaches us, not what\nthe law ordains, not what is \"respectable,\" nor yet what is \"advanced,\"\naccording to the claim of modern sex revolutionists and \"free lovers.\"\nWe shall ask ourselves, what are the facts. We shall ask, what can be\nmade to work in practice, what can justify itself by the tests of reason\nand common sense.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX\n\nTHE DEVELOPMENT OF MARRIAGE\n\n     (Deals with the sex-relationship, its meaning and its history, the\n     stages of its development in human society.)\n\n\nWhat, in the most elemental form, is sex? It is a difference of function\nwhich makes it necessary for two organisms to take part in the\nreproduction of the species. The purpose, or at any rate the effect, of\nthis sex difference is the mixing of characteristics and qualities. If\nthe sex relationship were unnecessary to reproduction, variations might\nbegin, and be propagated and carried to extremes in one line of\ninheritance, without ever affecting the rest of the species. Very soon\nthere would be no species, or rather an infinity of them; each line of\ndescent would fly apart, and become a group all by itself. You have\nperhaps heard people comment on the fact that blondes so frequently\nprefer brunettes, and that tall men are apt to marry short women, and\nvice versa. This is perhaps nature's way of keeping the type uniform, of\nspreading qualities widely and testing them thoroughly. Nature is\ncontinually trying out the powers of every individual in every species,\nand by the process of sexual selection she chooses, for the reproduction\nof the species, the individuals which are best fitted for survival.\nThis, of course, refers to nature, considered apart from man. In human\nsociety, as I shall presently show, sexual selection has been distorted,\nand partly suppressed.\n\nSex differentiation and sexual selection exist almost universally\nthroughout the animal and vegetable kingdoms, everywhere save in the\nlowest forms of being. They take strange and startling forms, and like\neverything else in nature manifest amazing ingenuity. People who wish to\nprove this or that about human sex relations will advance arguments from\nnature; but as a matter of fact we can learn nothing whatever from\nnature, except her determination to preserve the products of her\nactivity and to keep them up to standard. Sometimes nature will give the\nprecedence in power, speed and beauty to the male, and sometimes to the\nfemale. She is perfectly ruthless, and willing in the accomplishment of\nher purpose to destroy the individuals of either sex. She will content\nthe most rabid feminist by causing the female spider to devour her mate\nwhen his purpose has been accomplished; or by causing the male bee to\nfall from his mating in the air, a disemboweled shell.\n\nAs for man, he has won his supremacy over nature by his greater power to\ncombine in groups; by his more intense gregarious, or herd instincts,\nwhich enabled him to fight and destroy creatures which would have\nexterminated him if he had fought them alone. So in primitive society\neverywhere, we find that the individual is subordinated to the group,\nand the \"folkways\" give but little heed to personal rights. Very\nthorough investigations have been made into the life of primitive man in\nmany parts of the world, and the anthropologists are now arguing over\nthe exact meaning of the data. We shall not here attempt to decide among\nthem, but rest content with the statement that communism and tribal\nownership is a widespread social form among primitive man, so much so as\nto suggest that it is an early stage in social evolution.\n\nAnd this communism includes, not merely property, but sex. In the very\nearliest days there was often no barrier whatever to the sex\nrelationship; not even between brothers and sisters, nor between parents\nand children. In fact, we find savages who do not know that the sex\nrelationship has anything to do with procreation. But as knowledge\nincreases, sex \"tabus\" develop, some wise, and some foolish. From causes\nnot entirely clear, but which we discuss in Chapter XLVIII, there\ngradually evolves a widespread form of sex relationship of primitive\nman, the system of the \"gens,\" as it is called. This is the Latin word\nfor family, but it does not mean family in the narrow sense of mother\nand father and children, but in the broad sense of all those who have\nblood relationship, however far removed--uncles and aunts and cousins,\nas far as memory can trace. In primitive communism a man is not\npermitted to enter into the sex relationship with a woman of the same\ngens, but with all the women of some other gens. It is difficult for us\nto imagine a society in which all the men named Jones would be married\nto all the women named Smith; but that was the way whole races of\nmankind lived for many thousands of years.\n\nIn that primitive communist society, the woman was generally the equal\nof the man. It is true that she did the drudgery of the camp, but the\nman, on the other hand, faced the hardships of battle and the chase on\nland and sea. The woman was as big as the man, and except when\nhandicapped by pregnancy, as strong as the man; she was as much\nrespected, if not more so. Her children bore her name, and were under\nher control, and she was accustomed to assert herself in all affairs of\nthe tribe. In Frederick O'Brien's \"White Shadows in the South Seas,\" you\nmay read a comical story of a journey this traveler made into the\ninterior of one of the cannibal islands. Everywhere he was treated with\ncourtesy and hospitality, but was embarrassed by continual offers from\nwould-be wives. In one case a powerful cannibal lady, whose advances he\nrejected, picked him up and proceeded to carry him off, and he was quite\nhelpless in her grasp; he might have been a cannibal husband today, if\nit had not been for the intervention of his fellow travelers.\n\nThe basis of this sex equality under primitive communism is easy to\nunderstand. All goods belonged to the tribe, and were shared alike\naccording to need. Children were the tribe's most precious possession;\ntherefore the woman suffered little handicap from having a child to bear\nand feed. Primitive woman would bear her child by the roadside, and pick\nit up in her arms, and continue her journey; and when she needed food,\nshe did not have to beg for it--if there was food for anyone, there was\nfood for her and her child. She did her share of the gathering and\npreparing of food, because that was the habit and law of her being; she\nhad energies, and had never heard of the idea of not using them.\n\nThis primitive communism generally disappears as the tribe progresses.\nWe cannot be sure of all the stages of its disappearance, or of the\ncauses, but in a general way we can say that it gives way before the\nspread of slavery. In the beginning primitive man does not have any\nslaves, he does not have sufficient foresight or self-restraint for\nthat. When he kills his enemies in battle, he builds a fire and roasts\ntheir flesh and eats them; and those whom he captures alive, he binds\nfast and takes with him, to be sacrificed to his voodoo gods. But as he\ncomes to more settled ways of living, and as the tribe grows larger, it\noccurs to the chiefs in battle that the captives would be glad to give\ntheir labor in return for their lives, and that it would be convenient\nto have some people to do the hard and dirty work. So gradually there\ncomes to be a class at the bottom of society, and another class at the\ntop. Those who capture the slaves and keep them at work lay claim to the\nproducts of their labor--at first better weapons and personal\nadornments, then separate homes for the chiefs and priests, separate\ngardens, separate flocks and herds, and--what more natural?--separate\nwomen.\n\nThis process becomes complete when the tribe settles down to\nagriculture, and the ruling classes take possession of the land. When\nonce the land is privately owned, classes are fixed, and class\ndistinctions become the most prominent fact in society. And step by step\nas this happens, we see women beaten down, from the position of the\ncannibal lady, who could ask for the man she wanted and carry him off by\nforce if necessary, to the position of the modern woman, who is\nphysically weak, emotionally unstable, economically dependent, and\nsocially repressed. You may resent such phrases, but all you have to do\nis to read the laws of civilized countries, written into the statute\nbooks by men to define the rights and duties of women; you will see that\neverywhere, before the recent feminist revolt, women were classified\nunder the law with children and imbeciles.\n\nMaternity imposes on woman a heavy burden, and before the discovery of\nbirth control, a burden that is continuous. For nine months she carries\nthe child in her body, and then for a year or two she carries it in her\narms, or on her back; and by that time there is another child, and this\ncontinues until she is broken down. Having this burden, she cannot\npossibly compete with the unburdened male for the possession of\nproperty. So wherever there is economic competition; wherever certain\nindividuals or classes in the tribe or group are allowed to seize and\nhold the land; wherever the products of labor cease to be the community\nproperty, and become private property, the objects of economic strife;\nthen inevitably and by natural process, woman comes to be placed among\nthose who cannot protect themselves--that is, among the children and the\nimbeciles and the slaves. Of course, some children are well cared for,\nand so are some imbeciles, and some slaves, and some women. But they are\ncared for as a matter of favor, not as a matter of their own power. They\nproceed no longer as the cannibal lady, but by adopting and cultivating\nthe slave virtues, by making themselves agreeable to their masters, by\nflattering their masters' vanity and sensuality--in other words by\nexercising what we are accustomed to call \"feminine charm.\"\n\nFrom early barbaric society up to the present day, we observe that there\nare classes of women, just as there are classes of men. The position of\nthese classes changes within certain limits, but in broad outline the\nconditions are fixed, and may be easily defined. There is, first of all,\nthe ruling class woman. She must have birth; she may or may not have\nwealth, according as to whether the laws of that society or tribe permit\nher to have possessions of her own, or to inherit anything from her\nparents. If she has no wealth, then she will need beauty. She is the\nwoman who is selected by the ruling class man to bear his name and his\nchildren, and to have charge of the household where these children are\nreared, and trained for the inheriting of their father's wealth and the\ncarrying on of his position. This confers upon the ruling class woman\ngreat dignity, and makes her a person of responsibility. She rules, not\nmerely over the slaves of the household, but over men of inferior social\nclasses, and in a few cases an exceptionally able woman has become a\nqueen, and ruled over men of her own class. This ruling class woman has\nbeen known through all the ages by a special name, and the ways and\ncustoms regarding her have been studied in an entertaining book, \"The\nLady,\" by Emily James Putnam.\n\nNext in privilege and position to the \"lady\" is the mistress, the woman\nwho is selected by the ruling class man, not primarily to bear his\nchildren, but to entertain and divert him. She may, of course, bear\nchildren also. In barbaric societies, and up to quite recent times, the\nimportance of the ruling class man was indicated by the number of\nconcubines he had, and the position of these women was hardly inferior\nto that of the wife or queen. In the days of the French monarchy, the\nking's mistress was frequently more important than the queen; she was a\nwoman of ability, maintaining her supremacy in the intrigues of the\ncourt. In ancient Greek society, the \"hetairae\" were a recognized class,\nand Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles, was the most brilliant and most\nconspicuous woman in Athens. In modern France, the position of the\nmistress is recognized by the phrase \"demi-monde,\" or half-world. The\nAmerican plutocracy has developed upon a superstructure of Puritanism,\nand therefore, in America, hypocrisy is necessary. But in the great\ncities of America, the vast majority of the ruling class men keep\nmistresses before marriage, and a great many keep them afterwards; and\nthese mistresses are coming to be more and more openly flaunted, and to\nacquire more and more of what is called \"social position.\" It is\npossible now in the \"smart set\" for a lady to accept the status of\nmistress, delicately veiled, without losing caste thereby, and actresses\nand other free lance women who got their start in life by taking the\nposition of mistress, are coming more and more to be recognized as\n\"ladies,\" and to be received into what are called the \"best circles.\"\n\nThere remains to be considered the position of the lower class women. In\nbarbarous society these women were very little different from slaves.\nThey had no rights of their own, except such rights as their master man\nchose to allow them for his own convenience. They were sold in marriage\nby their parents, and they went where they were sold, and obeyed their\nnew master. They became his household drudges, and reserved their\naffections for him; if they failed to do this, he stoned them to death,\nor strangled them with a cord and tied them in a sack and threw them\ninto the river.\n\nAnd, of course, the rights of the master man yielded to the rights of\nmen of higher classes. The king or nobleman could take any woman he\nwished at any time, and he made laws to this effect and enforced them.\nIn feudal society the lord of the manor claimed the right of the first\nnight with the wives of his serfs; this was one of the ruling class\nprivileges which was abolished in the French revolution. Wherever the\nFrench revolution did not succeed in affecting land tenure, the right of\nthe land owner to prey upon his tenant girls continues as a custom, even\nthough it is not written in the law, and would be denied by the\nhypocritical. It prevails in Poland, as you may discover by reading\nSienkiewicz's \"Whirlpools\"; it prevails in England, as you may discover\nfrom Hardy's \"Tess of the d'Urbervilles.\" You will find that it prevails\nin every part of the world where women have poverty and men have wealth\nand prestige, dress suits and automobiles. You will find it wherever\nthere are leisure class hotels, or colleges, or other gatherings of\nruling class young males. You will find it in the theatrical and moving\npicture worlds. It is well understood in the theatrical world of\nBroadway that the woman \"star\" in the profession gets her start in life\nby becoming the mistress of a manager or \"angel.\" In the moving picture\nworld of Southern California it is a recognized convention, known to\neveryone familiar with the business, that a young girl parts with her\nvirtue in exchange for an important job.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX\n\nSEX AND YOUNG AMERICA\n\n     (Discusses present-day sex arrangements, as they affect the future\n     generation.)\n\n\nOur first task is to consider how people actually behave in the matter\nof sex--as distinguished from the way they pretend to behave. The first\nand most necessary step in the cure of any disease is a correct\ndiagnosis, and in this case we have not merely to make the diagnosis,\nbut to prove it; because the most conspicuous fact about our present\nsex-arrangements is a mass of organized concealment. Not merely do\nteachers and preachers for the most part suppress all mention of these\nsubjects; but the defenders of our present economic disorder are\naccustomed to acclaim the private property regime as the only basis of\nfamily life. So long as people hold such an idea, there is no use trying\nto teach them anything on the subject. There is no use talking to them\nabout monogamous love, because all they understand is hypocrisy. In this\nchapter, therefore, we shall proceed to hold up the mirror in front of\ncapitalist morality.\n\nI pause and consider: Where shall I begin? At the top of society, or at\nthe bottom? With the city or the country? With the old or the young? I\nthink you care most of all about your boys and girls, so I am going to\ntell you what is happening to the youth of America in these days of\ntriumphant reaction.\n\nI have a son, about whom naturally I think a great deal; just now he is\na student at one of our state universities, and he wrote me the other\nday: \"I went to a dance, and believe me, father, if you knew what these\nmodern dances mean, you would write something about them.\" I know what\nthey mean. They have come to us straight from the brothels of the\nArgentine, among the vilest haunts of vice in the world. Others have\ncome from the jungle, where they were natural. The poor creature of the\njungle has his sex-desire and nothing else; he is not troubled with\nbrains, he does not have a complicated social organism to build up and\nprotect, consequently he does not need what are called \"morals.\" But we\ncivilized people need morals, and we are losing them, and our society is\ndisintegrating, going back to the howling and fighting and cannibalism\nof the jungle.\n\nProf. William James, America's greatest psychologist, tells us that\ngoing through the motions appropriate to an emotion automatically causes\nthat emotion to be felt. If you watch an actor preparing to rush on the\nstage in an emotional scene, you will see him walking about, clenching\nhis fists, stamping his feet, making ferocious faces, \"working himself\nup.\" And now, what do you think is going on in the minds of young men\nand women, while with their bodies they are going through procedures\nwhich are nothing and can be nothing but imitations of sexual contact?\n\nThe parents, it appears, are ignorant and unsophisticated, and have left\nit for the children to find out what these dances mean. In Rhode Island,\none of our oldest states, is Brown College, chosen by New England's\naristocracy for the education of its sons; and these boys go to social\naffairs in the best homes in Providence, and they call them\n\"petting-parties.\" And here is what they write in their college paper:\n\n\"The modern social bud drinks, not too much, often, but enough. She\nsmokes unguardedly, swears considerably, and tells 'dirty' stories. All\nin all, she is a most frivolous, passionate, sensation-seeking little\nthing.\"\n\nThis statement, published in a college paper, causes a scandal, and a\nnewspaper reporter goes to interview the college boy who edits the\npaper, and this boy talks. He tells how he met a lovely girl at a dance,\nand his heart was thrilled with the rapture of young love. \"Frankly,\nbetween you and me, I was pretty smitten with this particular little\nlady. Felt about her, don't you know, like a real guy feels about the\ngirl he could imagine himself married to. Thought she was too nice to\ntouch, almost; you know the grave sort of love affair a man always has\nonce in a lifetime. Well, we walked a bit, and I guess I didn't say\nmuch, for a while. I felt plenty--respectfully--just the same. And as we\nturned the corner of one of the buildings here, she grasped my hand.\nHers was trembling. 'Love and let love is my motto, dearie,' said this\nseraph of my dreams; 'come, we're losing a lot of time getting started.'\nThat girl thought I was dead slow. She didn't know that just then I\nimagined the great love of my life was just entering the door. It was\ncruel the way she got down from the pedestal I had built for her.\"\n\nSuppose I should ask you to name the influence that is having most to do\nwith shaping the thoughts of young America--what would you answer?\nUndoubtedly, the moving pictures. It is from the \"movies\" that your\nchildren learn what life is; if I can show you that a certain thing is\nin the \"movies,\" you can surely not deny that it is passing every day\nand night into the hearts and minds of millions of our boys and girls.\nTake a vote among the girls, what would they consider the most\ndelightful destiny in life; surely nine out of ten would answer, to\nbecome a screen star, and pose before a world of admirers, and be paid a\nmillion dollars a year. Make a test and see; and put that fact together\nwith the one I have already stated, that in order to get an important\njob in the \"movies,\" a girl must regularly and as a matter of course\npart with her virtue.\n\nYou will be told, no doubt, that this is a slanderous statement, so let\nme give you a little evidence. I happened within the past year to be in\nthe private office of a well known moving picture producer, a man who is\nmarried, and takes care to tell you that he loves his wife. He was\nproducing a play, the heroine of which was supposed to be a daughter of\nPuritan New England. To play this part he had engaged a chaste girl, and\nas a result was in the midst of a queer trouble, which he poured out to\nme. His \"leading man\" had refused to act with this girl, insisting that\nno girl could act a part of love unless she had had passionate\nexperience; no such thing had ever been heard of in moving pictures\nbefore. Likewise, the director agreed that no girl who is chaste could\nact for the screen, and the producer asked my advice about it. Mr.\nWilliam Allen White, of Kansas, was present in the office, and\nauthorizes me to state that he substantiates this anecdote. We both\nadvised the producer to stand by the girl, and he did so; and the\npicture went out, and proved to be what in trade parlance is termed a\n\"frost\"; that is to say, your children didn't care for it, and it cost\nthe producer something like a hundred thousand dollars to make this\nattempt to defy the conventions of the moving picture world.\n\nI will tell you another story. I have a friend, a prominent man in Los\nAngeles, who was appealed to by a young lady who wished to act in the\n\"movies.\" My friend introduced this young lady to a very prominent\nscreen actor, who in turn introduced her to one of the biggest producers\nin America, one of the men whose \"million dollar feature pictures\" are\nregularly exploited. The producer examined the young lady's figure, and\ntold her that she would \"do\"; he added, quite casually, and as a matter\nof course, that she would be expected to \"pay the price.\" The young lady\ntook exception to this proposition, and gave up the chance. She told my\nfriend about it, and he, being a man of the world, accustomed to dealing\nwith the foibles of his fellowmen, wrote a note to the actor, explaining\nthat inasmuch as this young lady had been socially introduced to him,\nand by him socially introduced to the manager, she should not have been\nexpected to \"pay the price.\" To this the actor answered that my friend\nwas correct, and he would see the manager about it. The manager conceded\nthe point, and the young lady got her chance in the \"movies\" and made\ngood without \"paying the price.\" This story tells you all you need to\nknow about the difference in sex ethics that society applies to the\n\"lady\" and to the daughter of the common people.\n\nYou know, of course, what is the stock theme of all moving pictures--the\nvirtuous daughter of the people, who resists all temptations, and is\nfinally rescued from her would-be seducer by the strong and sturdy arm\nof a male doll. Could one ask a more perfect illustration of capitalist\nhypocrisy than the fact that the girl who plays this role is required to\npay with her virtue for the privilege of playing it! And if you know\nanything about young girls, you can watch her playing it on the screen,\nand see from her every gesture that what I am telling you is true. My\nwife knows young girls, and I took her, the other day, to see a moving\npicture. She said: \"I have solved a problem. When I come home on the\nstreet-cars, it happens that I ride with a lot of young girls from the\nhigh school. I have been watching them, and I couldn't imagine what was\nthe matter with them. All simple, girlish straightforwardness is gone\nout of them; they are making eyes, in the strangest manner--and at\nnobody; just practicing, apparently. They wear yearning facial\nexpressions; when they start to walk, they do not walk, but writhe and\nwiggle. I thought there must be some nervous eye and lip disease got\nabroad in the school. But now, when I go to a moving picture, I discover\nwhat it means. They are imitating the 'stars' on the screen!\"\n\nIn these pictures, you know, there are \"ingenues,\" young girls engaged\nin making a happy ending to the story by capturing a rich lover; and\nthen there are \"vamps,\" engaged in seducing young men, or breaking up\nsome happy home. In old-style melodrama it was possible to tell the\n\"ingenue\" from the \"vamps\"; the former would trip lightly, and glance\ncoyly out of the corners of her eyes, while the \"vamp\" moved with slow,\nlanguished writhing, blinking heavy-lidded, sinister eyes. But\nnow-a-days the \"vamps\" have learned to pose as \"ingenues,\" and the\n\"ingenues\" are as vicious as the \"vamps\"; they both make the same\nglances, and culminate in the same sensual swoon. It is all sex, and\nnothing else--except revolvers and fighting, and wild rushing about.\n\nAnd then, too, there are the musical comedies, made wholly out of sex,\nbeing known as \"girl shows,\" or more frankly still, \"leg shows.\" A row\nof half naked women, prancing and gyrating on the stage, and in front of\nthem rows of bald-headed old men, gazing at them greedily; also college\nboys, or boys too imbecile to get through college, sending in their\ncards with boxes of costly flowers. You will be shocked as you read my\nplain statements of fact, but if you are the average American, you will\ntake your family to a musical show which has come straight from the\nbrothels of Paris, every allusion of which is obscene. I remember once\nbeing in a small town in the South, when one of these \"road shows\"\narrived from New York, and I realized that this institution was simply a\ntraveling house of ill fame; the whole male portion of the town was\na-quiver with excitement, a mixture of lust and fear.\n\nI live in Southern California, one of many places in America where the\nidle rich gather for their diversion. The country is dotted with\npalatial hotels, and a golden flood of pleasure-seekers come in every\nwinter. I have talked with some of the college boys in this part of the\ncountry, and also with teachers who try to save the boys; they report\nthese \"swell\" hotels as hot-beds of vice, haunted by married women with\nautomobiles, and nothing to do, who wish to go into the canyons for\nsexual riots. Even elderly women, white-haired women, old enough to be\nyour grandmother! I have had them pointed out to me in these hotels,\ntheir cheeks and lips covered with rouge, with pink silk tights on their\ncalves, and nothing else almost up to their knees and nothing at all\nhalf way down their backs. These old women seek to prey on boys, wanting\ntheir youth, and being willing to lavish money upon them. They are\npreying on your boys--you prosperous business men, who have preached the\ngospel of \"each for himself,\" and are proud of your skill to prey upon\nsociety. You heap up your fortunes, and call it success, and are secure\nand happy. You have made your children safe against want, you think; but\nhow are you going to make them safe against the \"vamps\" who prey upon\nthe overwhelming excitements of youth, and betray your sons before your\nvery eyes--teaching them lust in their youth, so that love may never be\nborn in their stunted hearts? All the haunts of \"gilded vice\" are\nthriving, and somebody's boy is paying the interest on the capital, to\nsay nothing of paying the police.\n\nMany years ago I paid a call upon Anthony Comstock, head of the Society\nfor the Prevention of Vice. Comstock was an old-style Puritan, and many\ninsist that he was likewise an old-style grafter. However that may be,\nhe had a collection of the literature of pornography which would cause\nany man to hesitate in condemning his activities. There is a vast\ntraffic in this kind of thing; it is sold by pack-peddlers all over the\ncountry, and it is sold in little shops in the neighborhood of public\nschools. You may be sure that in your school there are some boys who\nknow where to get it, even though they will not tell what they know. I\nwill describe just one piece that a school boy brought to me, a\ncatalogue of obscene literature, for sale in Spain, and to be ordered\nwholesale. You know how men with wares to sell will expend their\nimaginations and exhaust their vocabulary in describing to you the\ncharms of each particular article for sale. Here was a catalogue of one\nor two hundred pages, listing thousands of items, pictures, pamphlets\nand books, and various implements of vice, all set forth in that\nimitation ecstasy of department stores and seed catalogues: here was\n\"something neat,\" here was a \"fancy one,\" this one was \"a peach,\" and\nthat one was \"a winner.\"\n\nWhen I was a lad, I was tramping in the Adirondack mountains and was\npicked up by an itinerant photographer. We rode all day together, and he\nbecame friendly, and showed me some obscene pictures. Presently he\ndiscovered that he was dealing with a young moralist, and apparently it\nwas the first time he had ever had that experience; he talked honestly,\nand we became friends on a different basis. This man had a wife and\nchildren at home, but he traveled all over the mountains, and was like\nthe sailor with a girl in every port. Also he was thoroughly familiar\nwith all forms of unnatural vice, and took this also as a matter of\ncourse, and spread it on his journeys.\n\nThe other day I read a statement by a prominent physician in New York;\nhe had been talking with a police captain, and had asked him to state\nwhat in his opinion was the most significant development in the social\nlife of New York. The answer was, \"The spread of male prostitution.\"\nHere is a subject to which I have to admit my courage is unequal. I\ncannot repeat the jokes which I have heard young men tell about these\nmatters, and about the attitude of the police to them. Suffice it to say\nthat these hideous forms of vice are now the commonplace of the\nunder-world of all our great cities. The other day a friend of mine was\ntalking with a prostitute who had left a high-class resort, where the\nprice charged was ten dollars, and gone to live in a \"fifty-cent house,\"\nfrequented by sailors. She was asked the reason, and her explanation\nwas, \"The sailors are natural.\" Dr. William J. Robinson has written in\nhis magazine an account of the haunts in Berlin which are frequented by\nthe victims of unnatural vice, there allowed to meet openly and to\nsolicit. Frank Harris, in his \"Life of Oscar Wilde,\" tells how when that\nscandal was at its height, and further exposure threatened, swarms of\nthe most prominent men in England suddenly discovered that it was\nadvisable for them to travel on the Continent. The great public schools\nof England are rotten with these practices; the younger boys learn them\nfrom the older ones, and are victims all the rest of their lives. And\nthe corruption is creeping through our own social body--and you think\nthat all you have to do is not to know about it!\n\nMy friend Floyd Dell, reading this manuscript, insists that this chapter\nand the one following are too severe. In case others should agree with\nhim, I quote two newspaper items which appear while I am reading the\nproofs. The first is from an interview with H. Gordon Selfridge, the\nLondon merchant, telling his impressions of America. He tells about the\n\"flappers,\" and then about the \"shifters.\"\n\n\"The other is the newly exploited 'shifters.' The 'shifters' are an\norganization of mushroom growth among high school girls and boys which\nis spreading through the eastern States and winning converts among\nyoungsters. It is described as the 'flapper Ku Klux,' and its emblem, if\nworn by a girl, according to high school teachers and children's society\nleaders who oppose it, to be nothing more nor less than an invitation to\nbe kissed.\n\n\"To call it an organization even is exaggeration, for the 'shifters' are\nbetter described as a secret understanding without any responsible head.\n\n\"From being a seemingly harmless group whose emblem was originally a\nbrass paper clip fastened in the coat lapel it has developed by rapid\nstrides. Manufacturers of emblems are coining money by the sale of\nhands, palm outstretched. The significance is take what you want or, as\nthe motto of the order says, 'be a good fellow; get something for\nnothing.' One of the principles is to 'do' one's parents, referred to as\n'they.'\"\n\nThe second item is an Associated Press despatch:\n\n\"ST. LOUIS, March 10.--In reiterating his statement that a girls' and a\nboys' secret organization requiring that all applicants must have\nviolated the moral code before admission was granted, existed in a local\nhigh school, Victor J. Miller, president of the Board of Police\nCommissioners, tonight named the Soldan High School as the one in which\nthe alleged immoral conditions exist. The school is attended largely by\nchildren of the wealthy West End citizens.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI\n\nSEX AND THE \"SMART SET\"\n\n     (Portrays the moral customs of those who set the fashion in our\n     present-day world.)\n\n\nWe have discussed what is happening to our young people; let us next\nconsider what our mature people are doing. Having mentioned conditions\nin England, I will give a glimpse of London \"high life\" two years before\nthe war.\n\nAs a visiting writer, I was invited to luncheon at the home of a woman\nnovelist, whose books at that time were widely read both in her country\nand here. Present at the luncheon was a prominent publisher, who I\nafterwards learned was the lady's lover; also the lady's grown and\nmarried son. The publisher looked like a buxom hunting squire, but the\nlady told me that he was very unhappy, because his wife would not\ndivorce him. The lady had just come from a week-end party at the home of\nan earl, who at this moment occupies one of the highest posts in the\ngift of the British Empire. Things had gone comically wrong at this\ncountry house party, she said, because the hostess had failed to\nremember that Lord So-and-so was at present living with Lady\nSomebody-else. One of the duties of hostesses at house parties, it\nappears, is to know who is living with whom, in order that they may be\nput in connecting rooms. In this case his Lordship had been grouchy, and\neverybody's pleasure had been spoiled.\n\nThis produced a discussion of the subject of marriage, and the son\nremarked that marriage was like an old slipper; you wore it, because you\nhad got used to it, but you did not talk about it, because it was\nunimportant and stupid. I went away, and happened to mention these\nmatters to a friend, who had met this woman novelist in Nice. The\nnovelist had there, in a group of people, been introduced to a young\ngirl who was suffering from neurasthenia. \"My dear,\" said the novelist,\naffectionately, \"what you need is to have an illegitimate baby.\"\n\nThis, you will say, is the \"old world,\" and you always knew that it was\ncorrupt. If so, let me tell you a few things that I have seen among the\n\"upper circles\" of our own great and virtuous democracy. My first\nacquaintance with New York \"society\" came after the publication of \"The\nJungle.\" As the author of that book I was a sensation, almost as much so\nas if I had won the heavy-weight championship of the world. Out of\ncuriosity I accepted an invitation for a weekend amid what is called the\n\"hunting set\" of Long Island. Here was a gorgeous palace with many\ntapestries, and soft-footed servants, and decanters and cocktails at\nevery stage of one's journey about the place, like coaling stations on\nthe trade routes of the British Empire. One of the first sights that\ncaught my young eye was a large and stately lady in semi-undress,\nsmoking a big black cigar. If I were to mention her name, every\nnewspaper reader in America would know her; and before I had been\nintroduced to her, I heard two young men in evening dress make an\nobscene remark about her, and what she was waiting for that evening.\n\nI discovered quickly that, while there was a great deal of sex among\nthese people, there was very little love. There was principally a wish\nto score cleverly and subtly at the expense of another person's\nfeelings. It is called the \"smart set,\" you understand, and I will give\nyou an idea of how \"smart\" it is. I was walking down a passage with a\nlady, and on a couch sat another lady, side by side with a certain very\nfamous lawyer, whose golden eloquence you have probably listened to from\nplatforms, and whom for the purpose of this anecdote I will name Jones.\nMr. Jones and the lady on the sofa were sitting very close together, and\nmy companion, with a bright smile over her shoulder, called out: \"Be\ncareful, Mary; you'll be scattering a lot of little Joneses around here\nif you don't watch out!\" Quite \"continental,\" you perceive; and a long\nway from the Puritanism of our ancestors!\n\nFrom there I went to the billiard-room, and observed a young man of\nfashion trying to play billiards when he was half drunk. It was a funny\nspectacle, and they took away his cigarette by force, for fear he would\ndrop it on the cloth of the billiard table. Pretty soon he was telling\nabout a racing meet, and an orgy with negro women in a stable. Therefore\nI returned to where the ladies were gathered, and one middle-aged\nmatron, who had read widely, including some of my books, engaged me in\nserious conversation. I came later on to know her rather well, and she\ntold me her views of love; the source of all the sex troubles of\nhumanity was that they took the relationship seriously. Modern\ndiscoveries made it unnecessary to attach importance to it. She herself,\nacting upon this theory, probably had had relations with--my friends,\nreading the proofs of this book, beg me to omit the number of men,\nbecause you would not believe me!\n\nYou may argue that this is not typical; say that I fell into the\nclutches of some particular group of degenerates. All I can tell you is\nthat these people are as \"socially prominent\" as any in New York City. I\nwill say furthermore that I have sat in the home of the best known\ncorporation lawyer in America, who was paid a million dollars to\norganize the steel trust--the late James B. Dill, at that time a member\nof the Court of Appeals of New Jersey--and have heard him \"muck-rake\"\nhis business friends by the hour with stories of that sort. I have heard\nhim tell of the \"steel crowd\" hiring a trolley car and a load of\nprostitutes and champagne, and taking an all-night trip from one city to\nanother, smashing up both the car and the prostitutes. I have heard him\ntell of sitting on the deck of a Sound steamer, and overhearing two of\nhis Wall Street associates and their wives arranging to trade partners\nfor the night.\n\nI have mentioned a lady who had a great many lovers. Once in the\ndining-room of a club on Fifth Avenue, commonly known as \"the\nMillionaires',\" a companion pointed out various people, many of whom I\nhad read about in the newspapers, and told me funny stories about them.\n\"See that old boy with a note-book,\" said my host. \"That is Jacob\nSo-and-so, and he is entering up the cost of his lunch. He keeps\naccounts of everything, even of his women. He told me he had had over a\nthousand, and they had cost him over a million.\"\n\nIt is impossible to say what is the most terrible thing in capitalist\nsociety, but among the most terrible are assuredly the old men. The\nrichest and most powerful banker in America was in his sex habits the\nmerry jest of New York society. He took toward women the same attitude\nas King Edward VII; if he wanted one, he went up and asked for her, and\nit made no difference who she was, or where she was. This man's personal\nliving expenses were five thousand dollars a day, and all women\nunderstood that they might have anything within reason.\n\nWhen I was a boy, living in New York, there was a certain aged\nmoney-lender about whom one read something in the newspapers almost\nevery day. He was a prominent figure, because he was worth eighty\nmillions, yet wore an old, rusty black suit, and saved every penny.\nEvery now and then you would read in the paper how some woman had been\narrested for attempting to blackmail him in his office. It seemed\npuzzling, because you wouldn't think of him as a likely subject for\nblackmail. Some years later I met Dorothy Richardson, author of \"The\nLong Day,\" a very fine book which has been undeservedly forgotten. Miss\nRichardson had been a reporter for the New York _Herald_, and had been\nsent to interview this old money-lender. She was ushered into his\nprivate office, and as soon as the attendant had gone out and closed the\ndoor, the old man came up, and without a word of preliminaries grabbed\nher in his arms like a gorilla. She fought and scratched, and got out,\nand was wise enough to say nothing about it; therefore there was nothing\npublished about another attempt to blackmail the aged money-lender!\n\nWhat this means is that men of unlimited means live lives of unbridled\nlust, and then in their old age they are helpless victims of their own\nimpulses. There was a certain enormously wealthy United States Senator\nfrom West Virginia, who came very near being Vice President of the\nUnited States. This doddering old man would go about the streets of\nWashington with a couple of very decorous and carefully trained\nattendants; and whenever an attractive young woman would pass on the\nstreet, or when one would approach the Senator, these two attendants\nwould quietly slip their arms into his and hold him fast. They would do\nthis so that the ordinary person would not suspect what was going on,\nbut would think the old man was being supported.\n\nYou do not have to take these things on my word; the newspapers are full\nof them all the time, and they are proven in court. Just now as I write,\nthe president of the most powerful bank in America is claiming in court\nthat his children are not his own, but that their father is an Indian\nguide. His wife, on the other hand, is accusing the banker of having\nplayed the role of husband to several other women. He would take these\nwomen traveling on his yacht, which, quaintly enough, was termed the\n\"Modesty.\"\n\nAlso the papers have been full of the \"Hamon case.\" Here is a wealthy\nman, Republican National Committeeman from Oklahoma, who is about to go\nto Washington to advise our new President whom to appoint to office from\nthat state. Before he goes, he casts off his mistress, and she shoots\nhim. She was his secretary, it appears, and helped him to make his\nfortune; she has made many friends, and a million dollars is spent to\nsave her life. The prosecuting attorney calls her a \"painted snake,\" and\naccuses her of having sat week after week \"displaying to the jury\ntwenty-four inches of silk stockinged shin-bone.\" The jury, apparently\nunable to withstand this allurement, acquits the woman, and she\nannounces that she intends to bring suit under the man's will to get his\nmoney! Also, she is going into the \"movies,\" and tells us that it is to\nbe \"for educational purposes.\" Everything in our capitalist society must\nbe \"educational,\" you understand. It was P. T. Barnum who discovered\nthat the American people would flock to look at a five-legged calf, if\nit was presented as \"educational.\"\n\nThe moving pictures and the theatres are the honey-pots which gather the\nfeminine beauty and youthful charm of our country for the convenience of\nrich men's lust. These girls swarm in the theatrical agencies, and in\nthe artists' studios; they starve for a while, and finally they yield.\nIn every great city there are thousands of men of wealth, whose only\noccupation is to prey upon such girls. I know a certain theatrical\nmanager, the most famous in the United States, a sensual, stout little\nJew. He is a man of culture and subtle insight, and in the course of his\nconversation he described to me, quite casually and as a matter of\ncourse, the charm of deflowering a virgin. Nothing could equal that\nsensation; the first time was the last.\n\nMany years ago there was a horrible scandal in New York. The most famous\narchitect in America was murdered, and the newspapers probed into his\nlife, and it was revealed to us that many of the most famous artists and\nmen about town in New York maintained elaborate studios, equipped with\nevery luxury, all the paraphernalia of all the vices of the ages; and\nthrough these places there flowed an endless stream of beautiful young\ngirls. In every large city in America you will find an \"athletic club,\"\nand if you go there and listen to the gossip, you discover that there\nare scores of idle rich men with automobiles and private apartments, and\na staff of procurers used in preying, not merely upon young girls, but\nalso upon young boys. And these are not merely the children of the poor,\nthey are the children of all but the rich and powerful. In the \"movies\"\nyou see pictures of girls lured into automobiles, and carried out into\nthe country, or seduced by means of \"knock-out drops,\" and you think\nthis is just \"melodrama\"; but it is happening all the time. In every big\ncity of our country the police know that hundreds of young girls\ndisappear every year. At a recent convention of police chiefs in\nWashington, it was stated, from police records, that sixty thousand\ngirls disappear every year in the United States, leaving no trace.\nUnless the parents happen to be in position to make a fuss, not even the\nnames of the girls are published in the newspapers. I do not ask you to\nbelieve such things on my word; believe District Attorney Sims of\nChicago, who made the most thorough study of this subject ever made in\nAmerica, and wrote:\n\n\"When a white slave is sold and landed in a house or dive she becomes a\nprisoner.... In each of these places is a room having but one door, to\nwhich the keeper holds the key. Here are locked all the street clothes,\nshoes and ordinary apparel.... The finery provided for the girls is of a\nnature to make their appearance on the street impossible. Then in\naddition to this handicap, the girl is placed at once in debt to the\nkeeper for a wardrobe.... She cannot escape while she is in debt, and\nshe can never get out of debt. Not many of the women in this class\nexpect to live more than ten years--perhaps the average is less. Many\ndie painful deaths by disease, many by consumption, but it is hardly\nbeyond the truth to say that suicide is their general expectation.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII\n\nSEX AND THE POOR\n\n     (Discusses prostitution, the extent of its prevalence, and the\n     diseases which result from it.)\n\n\nIt is manifest that the rich cannot indulge in vices, without drawing\nthe poor after them; and in addition to this, the poor have their own\nevil instincts, which fester in neglect. There were several hundred\nthousand dark rooms, that is rooms without light or ventilation, in New\nYork City before the war. Now the country is reported to be short a\nmillion homes, and in New York City working girls are sleeping six or\neight in a room. In the homes of the poor in the slums, parents and\nchildren and boarders all sleep in one room indiscriminately, and the\nworld moves back to that primitive communism, in which incest is an\neveryday affair, and little children learn all the vices there are. I\nhave in my hand a pamphlet by a physician, in charge of a hospital in\nNew York, who in fifteen years has examined nine hundred children who\nhave been raped, and the age of the youngest was eight months! I have\nanother pamphlet by a settlement worker, who discusses the problem of\nthe thousands of deserted wives, most of them with children, many with\nchildren yet unborn. As I write, there are millions of men out of work\nin our country, and these men are desperate, and they quit and take to\nthe road. They join the army of the casual workers, the \"blanket\nstiffs\"; and, of course, the more there are of these men, the more\nprostitutes there have to be, and the more homosexuality there will\ninevitably be.\n\nAlso the girls are out of work, and are on the streets. Many years ago I\nvisited the mill towns of New England, \"she-towns\" they are called, and\none of the young fellows said to me that you could buy a girl there for\nthe price of a sandwich. Read \"The Long Day,\" to which I have previously\nreferred, and see how our working girls live. Dorothy Richardson\ndescribes her room-mate, who read cheap novels which she found in the\ngutter weeklies. She read them over and over; when she had got to the\nbottom of the pile, she began again, because her mind was so weak that\nshe had forgotten everything. And then one day Miss Richardson happened\nto be groping in a corner of a closet, and came upon a great pile of\nbottles, and examined them, and was made sick with horror--abortion\nmixtures.\n\nDr. William J. Robinson, an authority on the subject, estimates that\nthere are one million abortions in the United States every year. Some of\nthese are accidental, caused by venereal disease, but the vast majority\nare deliberate acts, crimes under the law, murder of human life. Dr.\nRobinson also estimates, from the many thousands of cases which come to\nhim, that ninety-five per cent of all men have at some time practiced\nself-abuse. He is a strenuous opponent of what he calls \"hysteria\" on\nthe subject of venereal disease, and insists that its prevalence is\nexaggerated; that instead of one person in ten being syphilitic, as is\ncommonly stated, the proportion is only one in twenty. He insists that\nthe percentage of persons having had gonorrhea is only twenty-five per\ncent, instead of seventy-five or eighty-five. I find that other\nauthorities generally agree in the statement that fifty per cent of\nyoung men become infected with some venereal disease before they reach\nthe age of thirty. The Committee of Seven in New York estimated in 1903\nthat there were two hundred thousand cases of syphilis in the city, and\neight hundred thousand of gonorrhea. There were villages in France\nbefore the war in which twenty-five per cent of the inhabitants were\nsyphilitic, and in Russia there were towns in which it was said that\nevery person was syphilitic. We may safely say that these latter are the\nonly towns in Europe in which there was not an enormous increase of this\ndisease during and since the war.\n\nWhat are the consequences of these diseases? The consequences are\nfrightful suffering, not merely to persons guilty of immorality, but to\ninnocent persons. Dr. Morrow, generally recognized as the leading\nauthority on this subject, estimates that ten per cent of all wives are\ninfected with venereal disease by their husbands; he estimates that\nthirty per cent of all the infected women in New York were wives who had\ngot the disease from their husbands. It is estimated that thirty per\ncent of all the births, where either parent has syphilis, result in\nabortions. It is estimated that fifty per cent of childlessness in\nmarriage is caused by gonorrhea, and twenty-five per cent of all\nexisting blindness. In Germany, before the war, there were thirty\nthousand persons born blind from this cause. It is estimated that\nninety-five per cent of all abdominal operations performed upon women\nare due to gonorrhea. And any of these horrors may fall upon persons who\nlead lives of the strictest chastity. There was a case reported in\nGermany of 236 children who contracted venereal disease from swimming in\na public bath.\n\nAll these things are products of our system of\nmarriage-plus-prostitution. They are all part of that system, and no\nstudy of the system is complete without them. Everywhere throughout\nmodern civilization prostitution is an enormous and lucrative industry.\nIn New York it is estimated to give employment to two hundred thousand\nwomen, to say nothing of the managers, and the runners, and the men who\nlive off the women. There are thousands of resorts, large and small,\nhigh-priced and cheap, and the police know all about it, and derive a\nhandsome income from it. And you find it the same in every great city of\nthe world; in every port where sailors land, or every place where crowds\nof men are expected. If there is to be a football game, or a political\nconvention, the managers of the industry know about it, and while they\nmay never have heard the libel that Socialism preaches sexual license,\nthey all know that capitalism practices it, and they provide the\nnecessary means. In the United States there are estimated to be a half a\nmillion prostitutes, counting the inmates of houses alone.\n\nDuring the late war, at the army bases in France, the British government\nmaintained official brothels; but if you published anything about this\nin England, you ran a chance of having your paper suppressed. During the\noccupation of the Rhine country, the French sent in negro troops,\nsavages from the heart of Africa, whose custom it is to cut off the ears\nof their enemies in battle; and the French army compelled the German\npopulation to supply white women for these troops. I have quoted in \"The\nBrass Check\" a pious editorial from the Los Angeles _Times_, bidding the\nmothers of America be happy, because \"our boys in France\" were safe in\nthe protecting arms of the Y. M. C. A. and the Knights of Columbus. I\ndared not publish at this time a passage which I had clipped from the\nLondon _Clarion_, in which A. M. Thompson told how he watched the\n\"doughboys\" in the cafes of Paris, with a girl on each knee, and a\nglass of wine in each hand.\n\nI will add one little anecdote, giving you a glimpse of the sex\nconventions of war. The American army made desperate efforts to keep\ndown venereal disease, and required all men to report to their\nregimental surgeon immediately after having had sex relations. Our army\nmoved into Coblentz, and the regulations strictly forbade any\nfraternizing with the inhabitants. But immediately it was discovered\nthat there was an increase of disease, and investigation was made, and\nrevealed that men had been ceasing to report to the surgeons, because\nthey were afraid of being punished for having \"fraternized with the\nenemy.\" So a new order was issued, providing that having sexual\nintercourse would not be considered as \"fraternizing.\" I do not know any\nbetter way to distinguish my ideal of morality from the military ideal,\nthan to say that according to my understanding of it, the sex\nrelationship should always and everywhere imply and include\n\"fraternizing.\"\n\nFinally, in concluding this picture of our present-day sex arrangements,\nthere is a brief word to be said about divorce. In the year 1916, the\nlast statistics available as I write, there were just over a million\nmarriages in the United States, and there were over one hundred and\ntwelve thousand divorces. This would indicate that one marriage in every\nnine resulted in shipwreck. But as a matter of fact the proportion is\ngreater, because the marriages necessarily precede the divorces, and the\nproportion of divorces in 1916 should be calculated upon the number of\nmarriages which took place some five or ten years previously. Of the one\nmillion marriages in 1916, we may say that one in seven or one in eight\nwill end in the divorce courts. Let this suffice for a glimpse of the\nsystem of marriage-plus-prostitution--a field of weeds which we have\nsomehow to plow up and prepare for a harvest of rational and honest\nlove!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII\n\nSEX AND NATURE\n\n     (Maintains that our sex disorders are not the result of natural or\n     physical disharmony.)\n\n\nElie Metchnikoff, one of the greatest of scientists, wrote a book\nentitled \"The Nature of Man,\" in which he studied the human organism\nfrom the point of view of biology, demonstrating that in our bodies are\na number of relics of past stages of evolution, no longer useful, but\nrather a source of danger and harm. We have, for example, in the inner\ncorner of the eye a relic of that third eyelid whereby the eagle is\nenabled to look at the sun. This is a harmless relic. But we have also\nan appendix, a degenerate organ of digestion, or gland of secretion,\nwhich now serves as a center of infection and source of danger. We have\nlikewise a lower bowel, a survival of our hay-eating days, and a cause\nof autointoxication and premature death. Among the sources of trouble,\nMetchnikoff names the fact that the human male possesses a far greater\nquantity of sexual energy than is required for purposes of procreation.\nThis becomes a cause of disharmony and excess, it causes man to wreck\nhis health and destroy himself.\n\nManifestly, this is a serious matter; for if it is true, our efforts to\nfind health and happiness in love are doomed to failure, and Lecky is\nright when he describes the prostitute as the \"guardian of virtue,\" the\neternal and necessary scapegoat of humanity. But I do not believe it is\ntrue; I think that here is one more case of the endless blundering of\nscientists and philosophers who attempt to teach physiology, politics,\nreligion and law, without having made a study of economics. I do not\nbelieve that the sex troubles of mankind are physiological in their\nnature, but have their origin in our present system of class privilege.\nI believe they are caused, not by the blunders of nature, but by the\nblunders of man as a social animal.\n\nLet us take a glimpse at primitive man. I choose the Marquesas Islands,\nbecause we have complete reports about them from numerous observers.\nHere was a race of people, not interfered with by civilization, who\nmanifested all that overplus of sexual energy to which Metchnikoff calls\nattention. They placed no restraint whatever upon sex activity, they had\nno conception of such an idea. Their games and dances were sex play, and\nso also, in great part, was their religion. Yet we do not find that they\nwrecked themselves. Physically speaking, they were one of the most\nperfect races of which we have record. Both the men and women were\nbeautiful; they were active and strong from childhood to old age,\nand--here is the significant thing--they were happy. They were a\nlaughing, dancing, singing race. They hardly knew grief or fear at all.\nThey knew how to live, and they enjoyed every process and aspect of\ntheir lives, just as children do, naively and simply. This included\ntheir sex life; and I think it assures us that there can be no such\nfundamental physical disharmony in the human organism as the great\nRussian scientist thought he had discovered.\n\nIs it not a fact that throughout nature a superfluity of any kind of\nenergy or product may be a source of happiness, rather than of distress?\nConsider the singing of the birds! Or consider nature's impulse to cover\na field with useless plants, and how by a little cunning, we are able to\nturn it into a harvest for our own use! In the life of our bodies one\nmay show the same thing again and again. We have within us the\npossibility of and the impulse toward more muscular activity than our\nsurvival makes necessary; but we do not regard this additional energy as\na curse of nature, and a peril to our lives--we turn out and play\nbaseball. We have an impulse to see more than is necessary, so we climb\nmountains, or go traveling. We have an impulse to hear more, so we go to\na concert. We have an impulse to think more, so we play chess, or whist,\nor write books and accumulate libraries. Never do we think of these\nactivities as signs of an irrevocable blunder on the part of nature.\n\nBut about the activities of love we feel differently; and why is this?\nIf I say that it is because we have an unwholesome and degraded attitude\ntoward love, because, as a result of religious superstition we fear it,\nand dare not deal with it honestly, the reader may suspect that I am\npreparing to hint at some self-indulgence, some form of sex orgy such as\nthe \"turkey trot\" and the \"bunny hug\" and the \"grizzly bear,\" the\n\"shimmy\" and the \"toddle\" and the \"cuddle.\" I hasten to explain that I\ndo not mean any of the abnormalities and monstrosities of present-day\nfashionable life. Neither do I mean that we should set out to emulate\nthe happy cannibals in the South Seas. In the Book of the Mind I set\nforth as carefully as I knew how, the difference between nature and man,\nthe life of instinct and the life of reason. It is my conviction that if\ncivilized life is to go on, there must be a far wider extension of\njudgment and self-control in human affairs; our lost happiness will be\nfound, not by going \"back to nature,\" but by going forward to a new and\nhigher state, planned by reason and impelled by moral idealism.\n\nBut we find ourselves face to face with horrible sex disorders, and a\ngreat scientist tells us they are nature's tragic blunder, of which we\nare the helpless victims. Manifestly, the way to decide this question is\nto go to nature, and see if primitive people, having the same physical\norganism as ours, had the same troubles and spent their lives in the\nsame misery. If they did, then it may be that we are doomed; but if they\ndid not, then we can say with certainty that it is not nature, but\nourselves, who have blundered. Our task then becomes to apply reason to\nthe problem; to take our present sex arrangements, our field of\nbad-smelling weeds, and plow it thoroughly, and sow it with good seed,\nand raise a harvest of happiness in love. It is my belief that,\nadmitting true love--honest and dignified and rational love--it is\npossible to pour into it any amount of sex energy, to invent a whole new\nsystem of beautiful and happy love play.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV\n\nLOVE AND ECONOMICS\n\n     (Maintains that our sex disorders are of social origin, due to the\n     displacing of love by money as a motive in mating.)\n\n\nIf the cause of our sex disorders is not physiological, what is it?\nEverything in nature must have a cause, and this includes human nature,\nthe actions and feelings of men, both as individuals and as groups. We\nhear the saying: \"You can't change human nature\"; but the fact is that\nhuman nature is one of the most changeable things in the world. We can\nwatch it changing from age to age, for better or for worse, and if we\nhad the intelligence to use the forces now at our command, we could mold\nhuman nature, as precisely as a brewer converts a carload of hops into a\ncertain brand of beer. Voltaire was author of the saying, \"Vice and\nvirtue are products like vinegar.\"\n\nOur civilization is based upon industrial exploitation and class\nprivilege, the monopoly of the means of production and the natural\nsources of wealth by a group. This enables the privileged group to live\nin idleness upon the labor of the rest of society; it confers unlimited\npower with practically no responsibility--a strain which not one human\nbeing in a thousand has the moral strength to endure. History for the\npast five thousand years is one demonstration after another that the\nconferring upon a class of power without responsibility means the\ncollapse of that class and the downfall of its civilization.\n\nSo far as concerns the ruling class male, what the system of privilege\ndoes is to give him unlimited ability to indulge his sex desires. What\nit does for the female is to submit her to the male desires, and to\nabolish that mutuality in sex, that interaction between male and female\ninfluence, which is the very essence of its purpose. Woman, in a\npredatory society, is subject to a double enslavement, that of class as\nwell as of sex, and the result is the perverting of sexual selection,\nand a constantly increasing tendency towards the survival of the unfit.\n\nIn a state of nature the males compete among themselves for the favor of\nthe female. The female is not raped, nor is she kidnapped; on the\ncontrary, she exercises her prerogative, she inspects the various male\ncharms which are set before her, and selects those which please her,\naccording to her deeply planted instincts. The result is that the weak\nand unfit males seldom have a chance to reproduce themselves, and the\nprocreating is done by the highest specimens of the type.\n\nBut now we have a world which is ruled by money, in which opportunity,\nand indeed survival, depend upon money, and the whole tendency of\nsociety is to make money standards supreme. We do not like to admit\nthis, of course; our instincts revolt against it, and our higher\nfaculties reinforce the revolt, so we carefully veil our money motives,\nand invent polite phrases to conceal them. You will hear people deny it\nis money which determines admission into what is called \"society,\" the\nintimate life of the ruling class. They will tell you that it is not\nmoney, it is \"good taste,\" \"refinement,\" \"charm of personality,\" and so\non. But if you analyze all these things, you speedily discover that they\nare made out of money; they are symbols of the possession of money,\ndevised by those who possess it, as a means of keeping themselves apart\nfrom those who do not possess it. I would safely defy a member of the\nruling class to name a single element in what he calls \"refinement,\" or\n\"good taste,\" that is not in its ultimate analysis a symbol of the\npossession of money. Let it be the pronunciation of a word, or the cut\nof a coat, or the method of handling a fork--whatever it may be, it is\npart of a code, revealing that the person, or more important yet, the\nancestors of the person, have belonged to the leisure class, and have\nhad time and opportunity to learn to do things in a certain precise\nconventional way. I say \"conventional,\" for very frequently these tests\nhave no relationship whatever to reality. Considered as a matter of\ncommon sense and convenience, it is a great deal better to eat peas with\na spoon than with a fork, and to use both a knife and fork in eating\nlettuce; but if you eat peas with a spoon, or use a knife on lettuce,\nevery member of the ruling class will instantly know that you are an\ninterloper, as much so as if you took to throwing the china at your\nhostess.\n\nOur culture is a money culture, our standards are money standards, and\nour sex decisions are based upon money, not upon love. Any man can have\nmoney in our society, provided the accident of birth favors him, and it\nis everywhere known that any man who has money can get a wife. It is\ncertainly not true that any man with _no_ money can get a wife, and it\nis true that most men who have little money have to take wives who have\nless--that is, who belong to a lower class, according to the world's\nstandards. The average young girl of the propertied classes is trained\nfor marriage as for any other business. She is taught to be sexually\ncold, but to imitate sexual excitement deliberately, so as to arouse it\nin the male, and to keep herself surrounded with a swarm of males; this\nbeing the basis of her prestige, the factor which will cause the\n\"eligible\" man, the \"catch,\" to desire her. In polite society this\nproceeding is known as \"coquetry,\" or \"charm,\" and it would be no\nexaggeration to say that seventy-five per cent of all the novels so far\nwritten in the world are expositions of this activity; also that when we\ngo to the theater, we go in order to watch and sympathize with these\nmanifestations of pecuniary sexuality.\n\nAs a rule the young girl knows what she is doing, but she is taught to\ncamouflage it, to preserve her \"innocence.\" She would not dream of\nmarrying for money; she wants to marry something \"distinguished\"--that\nis to say, something which has received the stamp of approval from a\nworld which approves money. She wants to marry somebody who is\n\"elegant,\" who is in \"good form\"; she wants to marry without having to\nthink about the horrid subject of money at all, and so she is carefully\nchaperoned, and confined to a world where nothing but money is to be\nmet. In Tennyson's poem, \"The Northern Farmer,\" the old fellow is\ncoaching his son on the subject of marriage, and they are driving along\na road, and the farmer listens to his horses' hoofs, and they are\nsaying, \"Proputty, proputty, proputty!\" The farmer sums up in one\nsentence the doctrine of pecuniary marriage as it is taught to the\nruling class virgin: \"Doaen't thee marry for money, but goae wheer money\nis.\"\n\nIn this process, of course, the ruling class virgin must spend a great\ndeal of money in order to keep up her own prestige; and when she is\nmarried, she must spend it to keep up the prestige of her unmarried\nsisters, and then of her children. As a result of this, the only ruling\nclass males who can afford to marry are the rich ones. There are always\nsome who are richer, and these are the most desirable; so the tendency\nwith each generation is to put the period of marriage further off; the\nman has to wait until he has accumulated enough \"proputty\" to satisfy\nthe girl of his desires--a girl whom he admires because of her pecuniary\nprestige. He delays, and meantime he satisfies his passions with the\ndaughters of the poor. As a result of this, when he does finally come to\nmarry, he is apt to be unlovely and unlovable. The woman frequently does\nnot love him at all, but takes him cold-bloodedly because he is\n\"eligible\"; in that case she is a cold and \"sexless\" wife. Or else,\nafter she has married him she discovers his unloveliness, and either\ndecides that all men are selfish brutes, and reconciles herself to a\ncelibate life, or else she goes out and preys upon the domestic\nhappiness of other women.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXV\n\nMARRIAGE AND MONEY\n\n     (Discusses the causes of prostitution, and that higher form of\n     prostitution known as the \"marriage of convenience.\")\n\n\nI realize that all these sex problems are complicated. Every case is\nindividual, and in no two cases can you give exactly the same\nexplanation. But it is my thesis that whatever the cause, if you trace\ndown the causes of the cause, you will find economic inequality and\nclass privilege. It is evident in the lives of the rich, and it is even\nmore evident in the lives of the poor, who are not permitted the luxury\nof pretense. The poor live in a world dominated by forces which they\nseldom understand, subjected to enormous pressure which crushes and\ndestroys them, without their being able to see it or touch it. In the\nworld of the poor there is first of all poverty; there is insecurity of\nemployment and insufficiency of wage, and the daily and hourly terror of\nstarvation and ruin. Above this is a world of power and luxury, a\nwonderland of marvels and thrills, seen through a colored mist of\nromance. The working-class girl, born to drudgery and perpetual\nchild-bearing, has a brief hour in which her cheeks are red and her\nbeauty is ripe; and out of the heaven above her steps a male creature\npanoplied in the armor of ruling class prestige--that is to say, a dress\nsuit--and scattering about him a shower of automobile rides, jewelry and\ncandy and flowers. She opens her arms to him; and then, when her brief\nhour of rapture is past, she becomes the domestic drudge of some\nworkingman, or else the inmate of a brothel.\n\nIt is a custom of social workers and church people, seeking data about\nthese painful subjects, to interview numbers of prostitutes, and\nquestion them as to the causes of their \"fall\"; so you read statistics\nto the effect that seventeen per cent of prostitution has an economic\ncause, that twenty-six per cent is caused by love of finery, etc. These\npious people, employed by the ruling class to maintain ruling class\nprestige by demonstrating that wage slavery has nothing to do with\nwhite slavery, attain their purpose by restricting the word \"economic\"\nto food and shelter; forgetting that young girls do not live by bread\nalone, but also by ribbons, and silk stockings, and moving picture\nshows, and trips to Coney Island, and everything else that gives a\nmomentary escape from drudgery into joy. We all understand, of course,\nthat the daughters of the rich are entitled to joy, and we provide them\nwith it as a matter of course; but the daughters of the poor are\nsupposed to work in a cotton mill ten or eleven hours a day from\nearliest childhood, and the joy we provide for them is vicarious. As a\nwoman poet sets it forth:\n\n    \"The golf links lie so near the mill\n       That almost every day\n     The laboring children can look out\n       And see the men at play.\"\n\nSome years ago my wife and I were invited to meet Mrs. Mary J. Goode, a\nkeeper of brothels in the \"Tenderloin,\" who had revolted against the\nsystem of police graft, and had exposed it in the newspapers. My wife\nquestioned her closely as to the psychology of people in her business,\nand she insisted that the majority of prostitutes were not oversexed,\nnor were they feeble minded; they were women who had loved and trusted,\nand had been \"thrown down.\" As Mrs. Goode phrased it, they said to\nthemselves: \"Never again! After this, they'll pay!\"\n\nAs a matter of fact, the causes of prostitution are so largely economic\nthat the other factors are hardly worth mentioning. The sale of sex is\nunknown in savage society, and would be unknown in a Socialist society.\nIf here and there some degenerate individual would rather sell her sex\nthan do her share of honest labor in a free and just world, such an\nindividual would become a patient in the psychopathic ward of a public\nhospital. Economic forces drive women to prostitution, first, by direct\nstarvation, and second, by teaching them money standards of prestige,\nthe ideal of living without working, which is the heaven achieved by the\nrich and longed for by the poor. Contributory to the process are\npolicemen, politicians, and judges who protect the property of the rich,\nand prey upon the disinherited; also newspaper editors, college\nprofessors, priests of God and preachers of Jesus, who attribute the\nsocial evil to \"original sin,\" or the \"weakness of human nature.\"\n\nSo far as men are concerned, economic forces operate by three main\nchannels; late marriage, loveless marriage, and drudgery in wives. You\nwill find patronizing and maintaining the brothels the following kinds\nof males; first, young boys who have been taught that it is \"manly\" to\ngratify their sex impulses; second, young men who take it for granted\nthat they cannot afford to marry; third, old bachelors who have looked\nat marriage and decided that it is not a paying proposition; fourth,\nmarried men who have been picked out for their money, and have come to\nthe conclusion that \"good women\" are necessarily sexless; and finally,\nmarried men whose wives have lost the power to charm them by continuous\nchildbearing, and the physical and nervous strain of domestic slavery.\n\nThis latter applies not merely to the wives of the poor. It applies to\nmembers of the middle classes, and even of the richer classes, because\nthe job of managing many servants is often as trying as the doing of\none's own work. To explain how domestic drudgery is caused by economic\npressure would require a little essay in itself. The home is the place\nwhere the man keeps his sex property apart under lock and key, and it\nis, therefore, the portion of our civilization least influenced by\nmodern ideas. Women still drudge in separate kitchens and nurseries, as\nthey have drudged for thousands of years. They cook their dinners over\nseparate fires, and have each their own little group of children,\ngenerally ill cared for, because the work is done by an untrained\namateur. Moreover, the prestige of this home has to be kept up, because\nthe social position and future prosperity of the man depend upon it. The\nchildren must be dressed in frilled and starched clothing, which makes\nthem miserable, and wears out the tempers and pocketbooks of the\nmothers. Costly entertainments must be given, and twice a day a meal\nmust be prepared for the father of the family--all good wives have\nlearned the ancient formula for the retention of masculine affections:\n\"Feed the brute!\" Living in a world of pecuniary prestige, every\nparticle of the woman's surplus energy must go into some form of\nostentation, into buying or making things which are futile and\nmeaningless. In such a blind world, dazed by such a struggle, women\nbecome irritable, they lose their sex charm, they forget all about\nlove; so the husband gives up hoping for the impossible, accepts the\ncommon idea that love and marriage are incompatible, and adopts the\nformula that what his wife doesn't know will not hurt her.\n\nAnd step by step, as economic evolution progresses, as vested wealth\nbecomes more firmly established and claims for itself a larger and\nlarger share of the total product of society--so step by step you find\nthe pecuniary ideals becoming more firmly established, you find marriage\nbecoming more and more a matter of property, and less and less a matter\nof love. In European countries there may still be some love marriages\namong the poor, but in the upper classes there is no longer any pretense\nof such a thing, and if you spoke of it you would be considered absurd.\nIn countries of fresh and naive commercialism, like America, the women\nselect the men because of their money prestige; but in Germany, the\nprocess has gone a step further--the men are so firmly established in\ntheir class positions that they insist upon being bought with a fortune.\nThe same is true when titled foreigners condescend to visit our \"land of\nthe dollar.\" They will stoop to a vulgar American wife only in case her\nparents will make a direct settlement of a fortune upon the husband, and\nthen they take her back home, and find their escape from boredom in the\nhighly cultivated mistresses of their own land.\n\nEverywhere on the Continent, and in Great Britain also, it is accepted\nthat marriages are matters of business, and only incidentally and very\nslightly of affection. The initiative is commonly taken, not by the\nyoung people, but by the heads of the families. Preliminary protocols\nare exchanged, and then the family solicitors sit down and bargain over\nthe matter. If they were making a deal for a carload of hams, they would\nbe governed by the market price of hams at the moment, also by the\nreputation of that particular brand of ham; and similarly, in the case\nof marriage, they are governed by the prestige of the family names, and\nthe market price of husbands prevailing. Always the man exacts a cash\nsettlement, and in Catholic countries he becomes the outright owner of\nall the property of his wife, thus reducing her completely to the status\nof a chattel. If any young couple dares to break through these laws of\ntheir class, the whole class unites to trample them down. One of the\ngreatest of English novelists, George Meredith, wrote his greatest\nnovel, \"The Ordeal of Richard Feverel,\" to show how, under the most\nfavorable circumstances, the union of a ruling class youth with a\nfarmer's daughter could result in nothing but shipwreck.\n\nThe country in which the property marriage is most firmly established is\nprobably France; and in France the rights of nature are recognized in a\nkind of supplementary union, which constitutes what is known as the\n\"domestic triangle,\" or in the French language, \"_la vie trois_.\" The\nyoung girl of the French ruling classes is guarded every moment of her\nlife like a prisoner in jail. She is sold in marriage, and is expected\nto bear her husband an heir, possibly two or three children. After that,\nshe is considered, not under the law or by the church, but by the\ngeneral common sense of the community, to be free to seek satisfaction\nof her love needs. Her husband has mistresses, and she has a lover, and\nto that lover she is faithful, and in her dealings with him she is\nguided by an elaborate and subtle code. Practically all French fiction\nand drama deal with this \"life in threes,\" and the complications and\ntragedies which result from it. I name one novel, simply because it\nhappens to be the last that I myself have read, \"The Red Lily,\" by\nAnatole France.\n\nOf course, every human being knows in his heart that this is a monstrous\narrangement, and there are periods of revolt when real feeling surges up\nin the hearts of men, and we have stories of true love, young and\nunselfish love, such for example as Goethe's \"Hermann and Dorothea,\" or\nSt. Pierre's \"Paul and Virginia,\" or Halevy's \"L'Abbe Constantin.\"\nEverybody reads these stories and weeps over them, but everybody knows\nthat they are like the romantic shepherds and shepherdesses of the\nancient regime; they never had any existence in reality, and are not\nmeant to be taken seriously. If anybody attempts to carry them into\naction, or to preach them seriously to the young, then we know that we\nare dealing with a disturber of the foundations of the social order, a\ndangerous and incendiary villain, and we give him a name which sends a\nshudder down the spine of every friend of law and order--we call him a\n\"free-lover.\"\n\nI see before my eyes the wretch cowering upon the witness stand, and the\nvirtuous district attorney, who has perhaps spent the previous night in\na brothel, pointing a finger of accusing wrath into his face, and\nthundering, \"Do you believe in free love?\" The wretch, if he is wise,\nwill not hesitate or parley; he will not ask what the district attorney\nmeans by love, or what he means by freedom. Here in very truth is a case\nwhere \"he who hesitates is lost!\" Let the wretch instantly answer, No,\nhe does not believe in free love, he believes in love that pays cash as\nit goes; he believes in love that investigates carefully the prevailing\nmarket conditions, decides upon a reasonable price, has the contract in\nwriting, and lives up to the bargain--\"till death do us part.\" If the\nwitness be a woman, let the answer be that she believes in slave love;\nthat she expects to be sold for the benefit of her parents, the prestige\nof her family and the social position of her future offspring. Let her\nsay that she will be a loyal and devoted servant, and will never do\nanything at any time to invalidate the contract which is signed for her\nby her parents or guardians.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVI\n\nLOVE VERSUS LUST\n\n     (Discusses the sex impulse, its use and misuse; when it should be\n     followed and when repressed.)\n\n\nWe have considered the sex disorders of our age and their causes. We\nhave now to grope our way towards a basis of sanity and health in these\nvital matters.\n\nConsider man, as Metchnikoff describes him, with his overplus of sex\nenergy. From early youth he is besieged by impulses and desires, and as\na rule is left entirely uninstructed on the subject, having to pick up\nhis ideas from the conversation of older lads, who have nothing but\nmisinformation and perversions to give him. Nearly all these older lads\ndeclare and believe that it is necessary to gratify the sex impulse,\nthat physically it is harmful not to do so. I have even heard physicians\nand trainers maintain that idea. Opposed to them are the official\nmoralists and preachers of religion, who declare that to follow the sex\nimpulse, except when officially sanctioned by the church, is to commit\nsin.\n\nAt different times in my life I have talked with all kinds of people,\nyoung and old, men and women, doctors and clergymen, teachers and\ntrainers of athletes, and a few wise and loving mothers who have talked\nwith their own boys and other boys. As a result I have come to agree\nwith neither side in the debate. I believe that there is a distinction\nwhich must be drawn, and I ask you to consider it carefully, and bear it\nin mind in all that I say on the problem of happiness and health in sex.\n\nI believe that a normal man is one being, manifesting himself in various\naspects, physical, emotional, intellectual. I believe that all these\naspects of human activity go normally together, and cannot normally be\nseparated, and that the separation of them is a perversion and source of\nharm. I believe that the sex impulse, as it normally manifests itself,\nand would manifest itself in a man if he were living a normal life, is\nan impulse which includes every aspect of the man's being. It is not\nmerely physical desire and emotional excitement; it is intellectual\ncuriosity, a deep and intense interest, not merely in the body, but in\nthe mind and heart and personality of the woman.\n\nI appreciate that there is opportunity for controversy here. As a matter\nof psychology, it is not easy to separate instinct from experience, to\nstate whether a certain impulse is innate or acquired. Some may argue\nthat savages know nothing about idealism in sex, neither do those modern\nsavages whom we breed in city slums; some may make the same assertion\nconcerning a great mass of loutish and sensual youths. We have got so\nfar from health and soundness that it is hard to be sure what is\n\"normal\" and what is \"ideal.\" But without going into metaphysics, I\nthink we can reasonably make the following statement concerning the sex\nimpulse at its first appearance in the average healthy youth in\ncivilized societies; that this impulse, going to the roots of the being,\naffecting every atom of energy and every faculty, is accompanied, not\nmerely by happiness, but by sympathetic delight in the happiness of the\nwoman, by interest in the woman, by desire to be with her, to stay with\nher and share her life and protect her from harm. In what I have to say\nabout the subject from now on, I shall describe this condition of being\nand feeling by the word \"love.\"\n\nBut now suppose that men should, for some reason or other, evolve a set\nof religious ideas which denied love, and repudiated love, and called it\na sin and a humiliation; or suppose there should be an economic\ncondition which made love a peril, so that the young couple which\nyielded to love would be in danger of starvation, or of seeing their\nchildren starve. Suppose there should be evolved classes of men and\nwomen, held by society in a condition of permanent semi-starvation;\nthen, under such conditions, the impulse to love would become a trap and\na source of terror. Then the energies of a great many men would be\ndevoted to suppressing love and strangling it in themselves; then the\nintellectual and spiritual sanctions of love would be withdrawn, the\nbeauty and charm and joy would go out of it, and it would become a\nstarving beggar at the gates, or a thief skulking in the night-time, or\nan assassin with a dagger and club. In other words, sex would become all\nthe horror that it is today, in the form of purchased vice, and more\nhighly purchased marriage, and secret shame, and obscure innuendo. So we\nshould have what is, in a civilized man, a perversion, the possibility\nof love which is physical alone; a purely animal thing in a being who is\nnot purely animal, but is body, mind and spirit all together. So it\nwould be possible for pitiful, unhappy man, driven by the blind urge of\nnature, to conceive of desiring a woman only in the body, and with no\ncare about what she felt, or what she thought, or what became of her\nafterwards.\n\nThat purely physical sex desire I will indicate in our future\ndiscussions by the only convenient word that I can find, which is lust.\nThe word has religious implications, so I explain that I use it in my\nown meaning, as above. There is a great deal of what the churches call\nlust, which I call true and honest love; on the other hand, in Christian\nchurches today, there are celebrated innumerable marriages between\ninnocent young girls and mature men of property, which I describe as\nlegalized and consecrated lust.\n\nWe are now in position to make a fundamental distinction. I assert the\nproposition that there does not exist, in any man, at any time of his\nlife, or in any condition of his health, a necessity for yielding to the\nimpulses of lust; and I say that no man can yield to them without\ndegrading his nature and injuring himself, not merely morally, but\nmentally, and in the long run physically. I assert that it is the duty\nof every man, at all times and under all circumstances, to resist the\nimpulses of lust, to suppress and destroy them in his nature, by\nwhatever expenditure of will power and moral effort may be required.\n\nI know physicians who maintain the unpopular thesis that serious damage\nmay be done to the physical organism of both man and woman by the long\ncontinued suppression of the sex-life. Let me make plain that I am not\ndisagreeing with such men. I do not deny that repression of the sex-life\nmay do harm. What I do deny is that it does any harm to repress a\nphysical desire which is unaccompanied by the higher elements of sex;\nthat is to say, by affection, admiration, and unselfish concern for the\nsex-partner and her welfare. When I advise a man to resist and suppress\nand destroy the impulse toward lust in his nature, I am not telling him\nto live a sexless life. I am telling him that if he represses lust, then\nlove will come; whereas, if he yields to lust, then love may never come,\nhe may make himself incapable of love, incapable of feeling it or of\ntrusting it, or of inspiring it in a woman. And I say that if, on the\nother hand, he resists lust, he will pour all the energies of his being\ninto the channels of affection and idealism. Instead of having his\nthoughts diverted by every passing female form, his energies will become\nconcentrated upon the search for one woman who appeals to him in\npermanent and useful ways. We may be sure that nature has not made men\nand women incompatible, but on the contrary, has provided for\nfulfillment of the desires of both. The man will find some woman who is\nlooking for the thing which he has to offer--that is, love.\n\nAnd now, what about the suppression of love? Here I am willing to go as\nfar as any physician could desire, and possibly farther. Speaking\ngenerally, and concerning normal adult human beings, I say that the\nsuppression of love is a crime against nature and life. I say that long\ncontinued and systematic suppression of love exercises a devastating\neffect, not merely upon the body, but upon the mind and all the energies\nof the being. I say that the doctrine of the suppression of love, no\nmatter by whom it is preached, is an affront to nature and to life, and\nan insult to the creator of life. I say that it is the duty of all men\nand women, not merely to assert their own right to love, but to devote\ntheir energies to a war upon whatever ideas and conventions and laws in\nsociety deny the love-right.\n\nThe belief that long continued suppression of love does grave harm has\nbeen strongly reinforced in the last few years by the discovery of\npsycho-analysis, a science which enables us to explore our unconscious\nminds, and lay bare the secrets of nature's psychic workshop. These\nrevelations have made plain that sex plays an even more important part\nin our mental lives than we realized. Sex feeling manifests itself, not\nmerely in grown people, but in the tiniest infants; in these latter it\nhas of course no object in the opposite sex, but the physical sensations\nare there, and some of their outward manifestations; and as the infant\ngrows, and realizes the outside world, the feelings come to center upon\nothers, the parents first of all. These manifestations must be guided,\nand sometimes repressed; but if this is done violently, by means of\nterror, the consequences may be very harmful--the wrong impulses or the\nterrors may survive as a \"complex\" in the unconscious mind, and cause a\nlong chain of nervous disorders and physical weaknesses in the adult.\nThese things are no matter of guesswork, they have been proven as\nthoroughly as any scientific discovery, and are used in a new technic of\nhealing. Of course, as with every new theory, there are unbalanced\npeople who carry it to extremes. There are fanatics of Freudianism who\ntalk as if everything in the human unconsciousness were sex; but that\nneed not blind us to the importance of these new discoveries, and the\nconfirmation they bring to the thesis that sane and normal love, wisely\nguided by common sense and reasoned knowledge, is at a certain period of\nlife a vital necessity to every sound human being.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVII\n\nCELIBACY VERSUS CHASTITY\n\n     (The ideal of the repression of the sex impulse, as against the\n     ideal of its guidance and cultivation.)\n\n\nThere are two words which we need in this discussion, and as they are\ngenerally used loosely, they must now be defined precisely. The two\nwords are celibacy and chastity. We define celibacy as the permanent and\nsystematic suppression of love. We define chastity, on the other hand,\nas the permanent and systematic suppression of lust. Chastity, as the\nword is here used, is not a denial of love, but a preparing for it; it\nis the practice and the ideal, necessary especially in the young, of\nconsecrating their beings to the search for love, and to becoming worthy\nfor love. In that sense we regard chastity as one of the most essential\nof virtues in the young. It is widely taught today, but ineffectively,\nbecause unintelligently and without discrimination; because, in other\nwords, it is confused with celibacy, which is a perversion of life, and\none of humanity's intellectual and moral diseases.\n\nThe origin of the ideal of celibacy is easy to understand. At a certain\nstage in human development the eyes of the mind are opened, and to some\nman comes a revelation of the life of altruism and sympathetic\nimagination. To use the common phrase, the man discovers his spiritual\nnature. But under the conditions then prevailing, all the world outside\nhim is in a conspiracy to strangle that nature, to drag it down and\ntrample it into the mire. One of the most powerful of these destructive\nagencies, as it seems to the man, is sex. By means of sex he is laid\nhold upon by strange and terrible creatures who do not understand his\nhigher vision, but seek only to prey upon him, and use him for their\nconvenience. At the worst they rob him of everything, money, health,\ntime and reputation; at best, they saddle him and bridle him, they put\nhim in harness and set him to dragging a heavy load. In the words of a\nwise old man of the world, Francis Bacon, \"He who marries and has\nchildren gives hostages to fortune.\" In a world wherein war, pestilence,\nand famine held sway, the man of family had but slight chance of\nsurviving as a philosopher or prophet or saint. Discovering in himself a\ndeep-rooted and overwhelming impulse to fall into this snare, he\nimagined a devil working in his heart; so he fled away to the desert,\nand hid in a cave, and starved himself, and lashed himself with whips,\nand allowed worms and lice to devour his body, in the effort to destroy\nin himself the impulse of sex.\n\nSo the world had monasteries, and a religious culture, not of much use,\nbut better than nothing; and so we still have in the world celibate\npriesthoods, and what is more dangerous to our social health, we have\nthe old, degraded notions of the essential vileness of the sex\nrelationship--notions permeating all our thought, our literature, our\nsocial conventions and laws, making it impossible for us to attain true\nwisdom and health and happiness in love.\n\nI say the ideal of celibacy is an intellectual and moral disease; it is\na violation of nature, and nature devotes all her energies to breaking\nit down, and she always succeeds. There never has been a celibate\nreligious order, no matter how noble its origin and how strict its\ndiscipline, which has not sooner or later become a breeding place of\nloathsome unnatural vices. And sooner or later the ideal begins to\nweaken, and common sense to take its place, and so we read in history\nabout popes who had sons, and we see about us priests who have \"nieces\"\nand attractive servant girls. Make the acquaintance of any police\nsergeant in any big city of America, and get him to chatting on friendly\nterms, and you will discover that it is a common experience for the\npolice in their raids upon brothels to catch the representatives of\ncelibate religious orders. As one old-timer in the \"Tenderloin\" of New\nYork said to me, \"Of course, we don't make any trouble for the good\nfathers.\" Nor was this merely because the old sergeant was an Irishman\nand a Catholic; it was because deep down in his heart he knew, as every\nman knows, that the craving of a man for the society and companionship\nof a woman is an overwhelming craving, which will break down every\nbarrier that society may set against it.\n\nThere is another form of celibacy which is not based upon religious\nideas, but is economic in its origin, and purely selfish in its nature.\nIt is unorganized and unreasoned, and is known as \"bachelorhood\"; it has\nas its complements the institutions of old maidenhood and of\nprostitution. Both forms of celibacy, the religious and the economic,\nare entirely incompatible with chastity, which is only possible where\nlove is recognized and honored. Chastity is a preparation for love; and\nif you forbid love, whether by law, or by social convention, or by\neconomic strangling, you at once make chastity a Utopian dream. You may\npreach it from your pulpits until you are black in the face; you may\ncall out your Billy Sundays to rave, and dance, and go into convulsions;\nyou may threaten hell-fire and brimstone until you throw whole audiences\ninto spasms--but you will never make them chaste. On the contrary,\nstrange and horrible as it may seem, those very excitements will turn\ninto sexual excitements before your eyes! So subtle is our ancient\nmother nature, and so determined to have her own way!\n\nThe abominable old ideal of celibacy, with its hatred of womanhood, its\ndistrust of happiness, its terror of devils, is not yet dead in the\nworld. It is in our very bones, and is forever appearing in new and\nsupposed to be modern forms. Take a man like Tolstoi, who gained\nenormous influence, not merely in Russia, but throughout the world among\npeople who think themselves liberal--humanitarians, pacifists,\nphilosophic anarchists. Tolstoi's notions about sex, his teachings and\nwritings and likewise his behavior toward it, were one continuous\nmanifestation of disease. All through his youth and middle years, as an\narmy officer, popular novelist, and darling of the aristocracy, his life\nwas one of license, and the attitude toward women he thus acquired, he\nnever got out of his thoughts to his last day. Gorky, meeting him in his\nold age, reports his conversation as unpleasantly obscene, and his whole\nattitude toward women one of furtive and unwholesome slyness.\n\nBut Tolstoi was in other ways a great soul, one of the great moral\nconsciences of humanity. He looked about him at a world gone mad with\ngreed and hate, and he made convulsive efforts to reform his own spirit\nand escape the power of evil. As regards sex, his thought took the form\nof ancient Christian celibacy. Man must repudiate the physical side of\nsex, he must learn to feel toward women a \"pure\" affection, the\nrelationship of brother and sister. In his novel, \"Resurrection,\"\nTolstoi portrays a young aristocrat who meets a beautiful peasant girl\nand conceives for her such a noble and generous emotion; but gradually\nthe poison of physical sex-desire steals into his mind, he seduces her,\nand she becomes a prostitute. Later in life, when he discovers the crime\nhe has committed, he humbles himself and follows her into exile, and\nwins her to God and goodness by the unselfish and unsexual love which he\nshould have maintained from the beginning.\n\nIt was Tolstoi's teaching that all men should aspire toward this kind of\nlove, and when it was pointed out to him that if this doctrine were to\nbe applied universally, the human race would become extinct, his answer\nwas that there was no reason to fear that, because only a few people\nwould be good enough and strong enough to follow the right ideal! Here\nyou see the reincarnation of the old Christian notion that we are\n\"conceived in sin and born in iniquity.\" We may be pure and good, and\ncease to exist; or we may sin, and let life continue. Some choose to\nsin, and these sinners hand down their sinful qualities to the future;\nand so virtue and goodness remain what they have always been, a futile\ncrying out in the wilderness by a few religious prophets, whom God has\nsent to call down destruction upon a world which He had made--through\nsome mistake never satisfactorily explained!\n\nIt is easy nowadays to persuade intelligent people to laugh at such a\nperverted view of life; but the truth is that this attitude toward sex\nis written, not merely into our religious creeds and formulas, but into\nmost of our laws and social conventions. It is this, which for\nconvenience I will call the \"monkish\" view of love, which prevents our\ndealing frankly and honestly with its problems, distinguishing between\nwhat is wrong and what is right, and doing anything effective to remedy\nthe evils of marriage-plus-prostitution. That is why I have tried so\ncarefully to draw the distinction between what I call love and what I\ncall lust; between the ideal of celibacy, which is a perversion, and the\nidea of chastity, which must form an essential part of any regimen of\ntrue and enduring love.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVIII\n\nTHE DEFENSE OF LOVE\n\n     (Discusses passionate love, its sanction, its place in life, and\n     its preservation in marriage.)\n\n\nI have before me as I write a newspaper article by Robert Blatchford, a\ngreat writer and great man. He is dealing with the subject of \"Love and\nMarriage,\" and his doctrine is summed up in the following sentences:\n\"There is a difference between loving a woman and falling in love with\nher. The love one falls into is a sweet illusion. But that fragrant\ndream does not last. In marriage there are no fairies.\"\n\nThis expresses one of the commonest ideas in the world. Passionate love\nis one thing, and marriage is another and different thing, and it is no\nmore possible to reconcile them than to mix oil and water. Our notions\nof \"romantic\" love took their rise in the Middle Ages, from the songs\nand narratives of the troubadours, and this whole tradition was based\nupon the glorification of illegitimate and extra-marital love. That\ntradition has ruled the world of art ever since, and rules it today. I\ndo not exaggerate when I say that it is the conventional view of grand\nopera and the drama, of moving pictures and novels, that impassioned and\nthrilling love is found before marriage, and is found in adultery and in\ntemptations to adultery, but is never found in marriage. I have a pretty\nvaried acquaintance with the literature of the world, and I have sat and\nthought for quite a while, without being able to recall a single\nportrait of life which contradicts this thesis; and certainly anyone\nfamiliar with literature could name ten thousand novels and dramas and\ngrand operas which support the thesis.\n\nEnglish and American Puritanism have beaten the tradition down to this\nextent: the novelist portrays the glories and thrills of young love, and\ncarries it as far as the altar and the orange blossoms and white ribbons\nand showers of rice--and stops. He leaves you to assume that this\ndelightful rapture continues forever after; but he does not attempt to\nshow it to you--he would not dare attempt to show it, because the\ngeneral experience of men and women in marriage would make him\nridiculous. So he runs away from the issue; if he tells you a story of\nmarried life, it is a story of a \"triangle\"--the thrills of love\nimperiling marriage, and either crushed out, or else wrecking the lives\nof the victims. Such is the unanimous testimony of all our arts today,\nand I submit it as evidence of the fact that there must be something\nvitally wrong with our marriage system.\n\nPersonally, I am prepared to go as far as the extreme sex-radical in the\ndefense of love and the right to love. I believe that love is the most\nprecious of all the gifts of life. I accept its sanctions and its\nauthority. I believe that it is to be cherished and obeyed, and not to\nbe run away from or strangled in the heart. I believe that it is the\nvoice of nature speaking in the depths of us, and speaking from a wisdom\ndeeper than we have yet attained, or may attain for many centuries to\ncome. And when I say love, I do not mean merely affection. I do not mean\nmerely the habit of living in the same home, which is the basis of\nmarriage as Blatchford describes it. What I mean is the love of the\npoets and the dreamers, the \"young love\" which is thrill and ecstasy, a\nglorification and a transfiguration of the whole of life. I say that,\nfar from giving up this love for marriage, it is the true purpose of\nmarriage to preserve this love and perpetuate it.\n\nTo save repetition and waste of words, let us agree that from now on\nwhen I use the word love, I mean the passionate love of those who are\n\"in love.\" I believe that it is the right of men and women to be \"in\nlove,\" and that there is no true marriage unless they are \"in love,\" and\nstay \"in love.\" I believe that it is possible to apply reason to love,\nto learn to understand love and the ways of love, to protect it and keep\nit alive in marriage. Blatchford writes the sentence, \"Matrimony cannot\nbe all honeymoon.\" I answer that assuredly it can be, and if you ask me\nhow I know, I tell you that I know in the only way we really know\nanything--because I have proven it in my own life. I say that if men and\nwomen would recognize the perpetuation of the honeymoon as the purpose\nof marriage, and would devote to that end one-hundredth part of the\nintelligence and energy they now devote to the killing of their fellow\nhuman beings in war, we might have an end to the wretched \"romantic\ntradition\" which makes the most sacred emotion of the human heart into\na sneak-thief skulking in the darkness, entering our lives by back\nalleys and secret stairways--while greed and worldly pomp, dullness and\nboredom, parade in by the front entrance.\n\nIn the first place, what is love--young love, passionate love, the love\nof those who \"fall in\"? I know a certain lady, well versed in worldly\naffairs, who says that it is at once the greatest nonsense and the\ndeadliest snare in the world. This lady was trained as a \"coquette\";\nshe, and all the young ladies she knew, made it their business to cause\nmen to fall in love with them, and their prestige was based upon their\nskill in that art. So to them \"love\" was a joke, and men \"in love\" were\nvictims, whether ridiculous or pitiable. To this I answer that I know\nnothing in life that cannot be \"faked\"; but an imitation has value only\nas it resembles something that is real, and that has real value.\n\nI am aware that it is possible for a society to be so corrupted, so\ngiven up to the admiration of imitations, of the paint and powder and\nsilk-stocking-clad-ankle kind of love, that true and genuine love\ninterest, with its impulse to self-sacrifice and self-consecration, is\nno longer felt or understood. I am aware that in such a society it is\npossible for even the very young to be so sophisticated that what they\ntake to be love is merely vanity, the worship of money, and the grace\nand charm which the possession of money confers. I have known girls who\nwere \"head over heels\" in love, and thought it was with a man, when\nquite clearly they were in love with a dress suit or a social position.\nIn such a society it is hard to talk about natural emotions, and deep\nand abiding and disinterested affections.\n\nNevertheless, amid all the false conventions, the sham glories and\ncowardices of our civilization, there abides in the heart the craving\nfor true love, and the idea of it leaps continually into flame in the\nyoung. In spite of the ridicule of the elders, in spite of blunders and\ntragic failures, in spite of dishonesties and deceptions--nevertheless,\nit continues to happen that out of a thousand maidens the youth finds\none whose presence thrills him with a new and terrible emotion, whose\nlightest touch makes him shiver, almost makes his knees give way.\n\nIf you will recall what I have written about instinct and reason, you\nwill know that I am not a blind worshipper of our ancient mother\nnature. I am not humble in my attitude toward her, but perfectly willing\nto say when I know more than she does. On the other hand, when I know\nnothing or next to nothing, I am shy of contradicting my ancient mother,\nand disposed to give respectful heed to her promptings. One of the\nthings about which we know almost nothing at present is the subject of\neugenics. We are only at the beginning of trying to find out what\nmatings produce the best offspring. Meantime, we ought to consider those\nindications which nature gives us, just as we consider her advice about\nwhat food to eat and what rest to take.\n\nIt is not my idea that science will ever take men and women and marry\nthem in cold blood, as today we breed our cattle. What I think will\nhappen is that young men and women will meet one another, as they do at\npresent, and will find the love impulse awakening; they will then submit\ntheir love to investigation, as to whether they should follow that\nimpulse, or should wait. In other words, I do not believe that science\nwill ever do away with the raptures of love, but will make itself the\nservant of these raptures, finding out what they mean, and how their\nprecious essence may be preserved.\n\nI perfectly understand that the begetting of children is not the only\npurpose of love. The children have to be reared and trained, which means\nthat a home has to be founded, and the parents have to learn to\nco-operate. They have to have common aims in life, and temperaments\nsufficiently harmonious so that they can live in the house together\nwithout tearing each other's eyes out. This means that in any civilized\nsociety all impulses of love have to be subjected to severe criticism. I\nintend, before long, to show just how I think parents and guardians\nshould co-operate with young people in love; to help them to understand\nin advance what they are doing, and how it may be possible for them to\nmake their love permanent and successful. For the moment I merely state,\nto avoid any possible misunderstanding, that I am the last person in the\nworld to favor what is called \"blind\" love, the unthinking abandonment\nto an impulse of sex passion. What I am trying to show is that the\npassionate impulse, the passionate excitement of the young couple, is\nthe material out of which love and marriage are made. Passion is a part\nof us, and a fundamental part. If we do not find a place for it in\nmarriage, it will seek satisfaction outside of marriage, and that means\nlying, or the wrecking of the marriage, or both.\n\nPassion is what gives to love and marriage its vitality, its energy, its\ndrive; in fact, it gives these qualities to the whole character. It is a\nvivifying force, transfiguring the personality, and if it is crushed and\nrepressed, the whole life of that person is distorted. Yet it is a fact\nwhich every physician knows, that millions of women marry and live their\nwhole lives without ever knowing what passionate gratification is. As a\nconsequence of this, millions of men take it for granted that there are\n\"good\" women and \"bad\" women, and that only the latter are interesting.\nThis, of course, is simply one of the abnormalities caused by the\nsupplanting of love by money as a motive in marriage. Love becomes a\nsuperfluity and a danger, and all the forces of society, including\ninstitutionalized religion, combine to outlaw it and drive it\nunderground. Or we might say that they lock it in a dungeon--and that\nthe supreme delight of all the painters, poets, musicians, dramatists\nand novelists of all climes and all periods of history, is to portray\nthe escape of the \"young god\" from these imprisonments. The story is\ntold in six words of an old English ballad: \"Love will find out the\nway!\"\n\nIs it not obvious that there must be something vitally wrong with our\ninstitutions and conventions in matters of sex, when here exists this\neternal war between our moralists and our artists? Why not make up our\nminds what we really believe; whether it is true that poets are, as\nShelley said, \"the unacknowledged legislators of mankind,\" or whether\nthey are, as Plato declared, false teachers and seducers of the young.\nIf they are the latter, let us have done with them, let us drive them\nfrom the state, together with lovers and all other impassioned persons.\nBut if, on the other hand, it is truth the poets tell about life, then\nlet us take the young god out of his dungeon, and bring him into our\nhomes by the front door, and cast out the false gods of vanity and greed\nand worldly prestige which now sit in his place.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIX\n\nBIRTH CONTROL\n\n     (Deals with the prevention of conception as one of the greatest of\n     man's discoveries, releasing him from nature's enslavement, and\n     placing the keys of life in his hands.)\n\n\nI assume that you have followed my argument, and are prepared to\nconsider seriously whether it may be possible to establish love in\nmarriage as the sex institution of civilized society. If you really wish\nto bring such an institution into existence, the first thing you have to\ndo is to accomplish the social revolution; that is, you must wipe out\nclass control of society, and prestige based upon money exploitation.\nBut that is a vast change, and will take time, and meanwhile we have to\nlive, and wish to live with as little misery as possible. So the\npractical question becomes this: Suppose that you, as an individual,\nwish to find as much happiness in love as may now be possible, what\ncounsel have I to offer? If you are young, you wish this advice for\nyourself; while if you are mature, you wish it for your children. I will\nput my advice under four heads: First, marriage for love; second, birth\ncontrol; third, early marriage; fourth, education for marriage.\n\nThe first of these we have considered at some length. A part of the\nprocess of social revolution is personal conversion; the giving up by\nevery individual of the worldly ideal, the surrender of luxury and\nself-indulgence, the consecrating of one's life to self education and\nthe cause of social justice. And do not think that that is an easy\nthing, or an unimportant thing, a thing to be taken for granted. On the\ncontrary, it is something that most of us have to struggle with at every\nhour of our lives, because respect for property and worldly conventions\nhas become one of our deepest instincts; our whole society is poisoned\nwith it, and I can count on the fingers of one hand the people I have\nknown in my life who have completely escaped from it. It is not merely a\nquestion of refusing to marry except for love, it is a question of\nrefusing to love except for honest and worthy qualities. It is a\nquestion of saving our children from the damnable forces of snobbery,\nwhich lay siege to their young minds and destroy the best impulses of\ntheir hearts, while we in our blindness are still thinking of them as\nbabies.\n\nOf the other three topics that I have suggested, I begin with birth\ncontrol, because it is the most fundamental and most important. Without\nbirth control there can be no freedom, no happiness, no permanence in\nlove, and there can be no mastery of life. Birth control is one of the\ngreat fundamental achievements of the human reason, as important to the\nlife of mankind as the discovery of fire or the invention of printing.\nBirth control is the deliverance of womankind, and therefore of mankind\nalso, from the blind and insane fecundity of nature, which created us\nanimals, and would keep us animals forever if we did not rebel.\n\nEver since the dawn of history, and probably for long ages before that,\nour race has been struggling against this blind insanity of nature.\nPoor, bewildered Theodore Roosevelt stormed at what he called \"race\nsuicide,\" thinking it was some brand new and terrible modern corruption;\nbut nowhere do we find a primitive tribe, nowhere in history do we find\na race which did not seek to save itself from overgrowth and consequent\nstarvation. They did not know enough to prevent conception, but they did\nthe best they could by means of abortion and infanticide. And because\ntoday superstition keeps the priceless knowledge of contraception from\nthe vast majority of women, these crude, savage methods still prevail,\nand we have our million abortions a year in the United States. Assuming\nthat something near one-fourth our population consists of women capable\nof bearing children, we have one woman in twenty-five going through this\nagonizing and health-wrecking experience every year. They go through\nwith it, you understand, regardless of everything--all the moralists and\npreachers and priests with their hell fire and brimstone. They go\nthrough with it because we have both marriage without love, and love\nwithout marriage; also because we permit some ten or twenty per cent of\nour total population to suffer the pangs of perpetual starvation,\nbecause more than half our farms are mortgaged or occupied by tenants,\nand some ten or twenty per cent of our workers are out of jobs all the\ntime.\n\nSome of our women know about birth control. They are the rich women, who\nget what they want in this world. They object to the humiliations and\ninconveniences of child bearing, and some of them raise one or two\nchildren, and others of them raise poodle dogs. Also, our middle classes\nhave found out; our doctors and lawyers and college professors, and\npeople of that sort. But we deliberately keep the knowledge from our\nforeign populations, by the terrors which the church has at its command.\nAnd what is the practical consequence of this procedure? It is that\nwhile all our Anglo-Saxon stock, those who founded our country and\nestablished its institutions, are gradually removing themselves from the\nface of the earth, our ignorant and helpless populations, whether in\ncity slums or on tenant farms, are multiplying like rabbits. Read Jack\nLondon's \"The Valley of the Moon\" and see what is happening in\nCalifornia. You will find the same thing happening in any portion of the\nUnited States where you take the trouble to use your own eyes.\n\nNow, I try to repress such impulses toward race prejudice as I find in\nmyself. I am willing to admit for the sake of this argument that in the\ncourse of time all the races that are now swarming in America,\nPortuguese and Japanese and Mexican and French-Canadian and Polish and\nHungarian and Slovakian, are capable of just as high intellectual\ndevelopment as our ancestors who wrote the Declaration of Independence.\nBut no one who sees the conditions under which they now live can deny\nthat it will take a good deal of labor, teaching them and training them,\nas well as scrubbing them, to accomplish that result. And what a waste\nof energy, what a farce it makes of culture, to take the people who have\nalready been scrubbed and taught and trained for self-government, and\nexterminate them, and raise up others in their place! It seems time that\nwe gave thought to the fundamental question, whether or not there is\nsomething self-destroying in the very process of culture. Unless we can\nanswer this we might as well give up our visions and our efforts to lift\nthe race.\n\nTheodore Roosevelt stormed at birth control for something like ten\nyears, and it would be interesting if we could know how many Anglo-Saxon\nbabies he succeeded in bringing into the world by his preachments. If\nwhat he wanted was to correct the balance between native and foreign\nbirths, how much more sensible to have taught birth control to those\npoor, pathetic, half-starved and overworked foreign mothers of our slums\nand tenant farms! I can wager that for every Anglo-Saxon baby that\nTheodore Roosevelt brought into the world by his preachings, he could\nhave kept out ten thousand foreign slum babies, if only he had lent his\naid to Margaret Sanger!\n\nAh, but he wanted all the babies to be born, you say! I see before me\nthe face of a certain devout old Christian lady, known to me, who\nsettles the question by the Bible quotation, \"Be fruitful and multiply.\"\nBut what avails it to follow this biblical advice, if we allow one out\nof five of the new-born infants to perish from lack of scientific care\nbefore they are two years old? What avails it if we send them to school\nhungry, as we do twenty-two per cent of the public school children of\nNew York City? What avails it if we allow venereal disease to spread, so\nthat a large percentage of the babies are deformed and miserable? What\navails it if, when they are fully grown, we can think of nothing better\nto do with them than to take them by millions at a time and dress them\nup in uniforms and send them out to be destroyed by poison gases? Would\nit not be the part of common sense to establish universal birth control\nfor at least a year or two--until we have learned to take care of our\nnewly born babies, and to feed our school children, and to protect our\nyouths from vice, and to abolish poverty and war from the earth?\n\nThese are the social aspects of birth control. There are also to be\nconsidered what I might call the personal aspects of it. Because young\npeople do not know about it, and have no way to find out about it, they\ndare not marry, and so the amount of vice in the world is increased.\nBecause married women do not know about it, love is turned to terror,\nand marital happiness is wrecked. Because the harmless and proper\nmethods are not sensibly taught, people use harmful methods, which cause\nnervous disorders, and wreck marital happiness, and break up homes.\nThorough and sound knowledge about birth control is just as essential to\nhappiness in marriage as knowledge of diet is necessary to health, or as\nknowledge of economics is necessary to intelligent action as a voter and\ncitizen. The suppression by law of knowledge of birth control is just as\ngrave a crime against human life as ever was committed by religious\nbigotry in the blackest days of the Spanish Inquisition.\n\nNow this law stands on the statute books of our country, and if I should\nso much as hint to you in this book what you need to know, or even where\nyou can find out about it, I should be liable to five years in jail and\na fine of $5,000, and every person who mailed a copy of this book, or\nany advertisement of this book, would be in the same plight. But there\nis not yet a law to prohibit agitation against the law, so the first\nthing I say to every reader of this book is that they should obtain a\ncopy of the _Birth Control Review_, published at 104 Fifth Avenue, New\nYork, and also should join the Voluntary Parenthood League, 206\nBroadway, New York. Get the literature of these organizations and\ncirculate them and help spread the light!\n\nAs to the knowledge which you need, the only advice I am allowed to give\nis that you should seek it. Seek it, and persist in seeking, until you\nfind it. Ask everyone you know; and ask particularly among enlightened\npeople, those who are willing to face the facts of human life and trust\nin reason and common sense. I do not know if I am violating the law in\nthus telling you how to find out about birth control. One of the\ncharming features of this law, and others against the spreading of\nknowledge, is that they will never tell you in advance what you may say,\nbut leave you to say it and take your chances! I believe that I am not\nviolating any law when I tell you that there are half a dozen simple,\ninexpensive, and entirely harmless methods of preventing undesired\nparenthood without the destruction of the marital relationship.\n\nI am one of those who for many years believed that the destruction of\nthe marital relationship was the only proper and moral method. I was\nbrought up to take the monkish view of love. I thought it was an animal\nthing which required some outside justification. I had been taught\nnothing else; but now I have had personal experience of other\njustifications of love, and I believe that love is a beautiful and\njoyful relationship, which not merely requires no other justification,\nbut confers justification upon many other things in life.\n\nI used to believe in that old ideal of celibacy, thinking it a fine\nspiritual exercise. But since then I have looked out on life, and have\nfound so many interesting things to do, so much important work calling\nfor attention, that I do not have to invent any artificial exercises for\nmy spirit. I have looked at humanity, and brought myself to recognize\nthe plain common sense fact--that whatever superfluous energy I may have\nto waste upon artificial spirituality, the great mass of the people have\nno such energy to spare. They need all their energies to get a living\nfor themselves and for their wives and little ones. They have their sex\nimpulses, and will follow them, and the only question is, shall they\nfollow them wisely or unwisely? The religious people decide that sexual\nindulgence is wrong, and they impose a penalty--and what is that\npenalty? A poor, unwanted little waif of a soul, which never sinned, and\nhad nothing to do with the matter, is brought into a hostile world, to\nsuffer neglect, and perhaps starvation--in order to punish parents who\ndid not happen to be sufficiently strong willed to practice continence\nin marriage!\n\nI used to believe that there was benefit to health and increase of\npower, whether physical or mental, in the celibate life. I have tried\nboth ways of life, and as a result I know that that old idea is\nnonsense. I know now that love is a natural function. Of course, like\nany other function it can be abused; just as hunger may become gluttony,\nsleeping may become sluggishness, getting the money to pay one's way\nthrough life may become ferocious avarice. But we do not on this account\nrefuse ever to eat or sleep or get money to pay our debts. I do not say\nthat I believe, I say I know, that free and happy love, guided by wisdom\nand sound knowledge, is not merely conducive to health, but is in the\nlong run necessary to health.\n\nPeople who condemn birth control always argue as if one wished to teach\nthis knowledge indiscriminately to the young. Perhaps it is natural that\nthose who oppose the use of reason should assume that others are as\nirrational as themselves. All I can say is that I no more believe in\nteaching birth control to the young than I believe in feeding beefsteak\nto nursing infants. There is a period in life for beefsteaks--or, if my\nvegetarian friends prefer, for lentil hash and peanut butter sandwiches;\nin exactly the same way there is a time for teaching the fundamentals of\nsex, and another time for teaching the art of happiness in marriage,\nwhich includes birth control. That brings me, by a very pleasant\ntransition, to the other two subjects which I have promised to discuss:\nearly marriage and education for marriage.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XL\n\nEARLY MARRIAGE\n\n     (Discusses love marriages, how they can be made, and the duty of\n     parents in respect to them.)\n\n\nI have shown how economic forces in our society make for later and later\nmarriage; and at the present time economic forces are so overwhelming\nthat all other forces are hardly worth mentioning in comparison. You\nare, let us say, the mother of a boy of eighteen, and you have what you\ncall \"common sense\"--meaning thereby a grasp of the money facts of life.\nIf your darling boy of eighteen should come to you with a grave face and\nannounce, \"Mother dear, I have met the girl I love, and we have decided\nthat we want to get married\"--you would consider that the most absurd\nthing you had ever heard in all your born days, and you would tell the\nlad that he was a baby, and to run along and play. If he persisted in\nhis crazy notion, you and your husband and all the brothers and sisters\nand relatives and friends both of the boy and the girl would set to\nwork, by scolding and ridiculing, to make life a misery for them, and\nninety-nine times out of a hundred you would break down the young\ncouple's marital intention.\n\nBut now, let us try another supposition. Let us suppose that your\ndarling boy of eighteen should come to you again and say, \"Mother dear,\nsome of the boys are going to spend this evening in a brothel, and I\nhave decided to go along.\" Would you think that was the most absurd\nthing you had ever heard in all your born days? Or would you answer,\n\"Yes, of course, my boy; that is what I had in mind when I made you give\nup the girl you loved\"? No, you would not answer that. But here is the\nvital fact--it doesn't matter what you would answer, for you would never\nhave a chance to answer. When a mother's darling wants to get married,\nhe comes and asks his mother's blessing; but never does a mother's\ndarling ask a blessing before he goes with the other boys to a brothel.\nHe just goes. Maybe he borrows the money from some other fellow, and\nnext day tells you he went to a theater. Or maybe he picks up some poor\nman's daughter on the street, and takes her into the park, or up on the\nroof of a tenement. Some such thing he does, to find satisfaction for an\ninstinct which you in your worldly wisdom or your heavenly piety spurn\nand ridicule.\n\nI do not wish to exaggerate. If you are an exceptionally wise and\ntactful mother, you may keep the confidence of your boy, and guide him\nday by day through his temptations and miseries, and keep him chaste.\nBut the more you try that, the more apt you will be to come to my\nconclusion, that late marriage is a crime against the race; the more\naware you will be of the danger, either that his boy friends may break\nhim down, or that some lewd woman may come to his bedroom in the\nnight-time. Never will you be able to be quite sure that he is not lying\nto you, because of his shame, and the pain he cannot bear to inflict\nupon you. Never will you be quite sure that he is not hiding some cruel\ndisease, sneaking off to some quack who takes his money and leaves him\nworse than before--until finally he shoots off his head, as happened to\na nephew of an old and dear friend of mine.\n\nSuch is the problem of the mother of a son; and now, what about the\nmother of a daughter? This seems much simpler; because your daughter is\nnot generally troubled with sex cravings, and if you teach her the\nproprieties, and see that she is carefully chaperoned, you may\nreasonably hope that she will be chaste. But some day you expect that\nshe will marry; and then comes your problem. If you are the usual\nmother, you are looking for some one who can maintain her in the state\nof life to which she is accustomed. If a fairy prince would come along,\nor a plaster saint, you would be pleased; but failing that, you will\ntake a successful business man, one who has made his way in the world\nand secured himself a position. But turn back to the figures I gave you\na while ago. If this man is thirty years of age, there is at least a\nfifty-fifty chance that he has had some venereal disease; and while the\ndoctors claim to cure these diseases absolutely, we must bear in mind\nthat doctors are human, and sometimes claim more than they perform.\nEvery doctor will admit, if you pin him down, that these diseases burrow\ndeeply into the tissues, and many times are supposed to be cured when\nthey are only hidden.\n\nHere is, in a nutshell, the problem of the mother of a daughter. If you\nmarry your daughter at seventeen to a lad of her own age, you have a\nvery good chance of marrying her to a person who is chaste. If you marry\nher to a man of twenty-five, you have perhaps one chance in a hundred.\nIf you marry her to a man of thirty-five, you have perhaps one chance in\nten thousand. You may not like these facts; I do not like them myself;\nbut I have learned that facts are none the less facts on that account.\n\nYou know the average society bud of eighteen, and her attitude to a boy\nof the same age. She regards him as a child; and you think, perhaps,\nthat it is natural for a girl to be interested in men of thirty-five and\neven forty-five. But I tell you that it is not natural, it is simply one\nof the perversions of pecuniary sex. The girl is interested in such men,\nbecause all her young life she has been carefully coached for the\nmarriage market; because she is dressed for it, and solemnly brought\nout, and introduced to other players of this exciting game of marriage\nfor money, with its incredible prizes of automobiles and jewels and\npalaces full of servants, and magic check-books that never grow empty.\nBut suppose that, instead of regarding her as a prize in a lottery, you\nlet her grow up naturally, and taught her the truth about herself, both\nbody and mind; suppose that, instead of dressing her in ways\ndeliberately contrived to emphasize her sex, you put her in a simple\nuniform, and taught her to be honest and straightforward, instead of\nmincing and coy; suppose she played athletic games with boys of her own\nage, and invited them to her home, not for \"jazz\" dancing and stuffing\ncake and candy, but for the sharing of good music and literature and\nart--don't you think that maybe this girl might become interested in a\nlad of her own age, and choose him with some understanding of his real\nself?\n\nYou take it for granted that young people should not marry until they\ncan \"afford it.\" But stop and consider, is not this a relic of old days?\nAlways it takes time, and deliberate effort of the reason, to adjust our\nconventions to new facts; so face this fact--marriage today does not\nnecessarily mean children, it may just mean love. It involves little\nmore expense, because the young people need cost no more together than\nthey cost in the separate homes of their parents. If they are children\nof the poor, they are already taking care of themselves. If they are\nchildren of the moderately well off, their parents expect to support\nthem while they are getting an education; and why can they not just as\nwell live together, and the parents of each contribute their share? Let\nthe parents of the boy give him, not merely what it costs to keep him at\nhome, but also the sums which otherwise the boy would pay to the\nbrothels. By this argument I do not mean that I favor keeping young\npeople financially dependent upon their parents. My own son is working\nhis own way through college, and I should be glad to see every young man\ndoing the same. All that I am saying is that if parents are going to\nsupport their children while they are getting an education, they might\njust as well support them married as single, instead of penalizing\nmatrimony by making all allowances cease at that point.\n\nI know a certain ardent feminist, who is all for late marriage for\nwomen, and abhors my ideas on this subject. She wants women to get a\nchance to develop their personalities; whereas I want to sacrifice them\nto the frantic exigencies of the male animal! Young things of seventeen\nand eighteen have no idea what they are, or what they want from life;\nthe mating impulse is a blind frenzy in them, and they must be taught to\ncontrol it, just as they are taught not to kill when they are angry!\n\nIn the first place, I point out that young ladies in colleges and in\nballrooms give a lot of time and thought to sex, even though they do not\ncall it by that inelegant term. I very much question whether, if we\nshould apply our wisdom to the task of getting our young people happily\nmated before we sent them off to college, we should not get a lot more\nserious study out of them than we now do, with all their \"fussing\" and\nflirting and dancing.\n\nSecond, I am willing to make heroic moral efforts, where I see any\nchance of adequate results, but I have examined the facts, and\ndefinitely made up my mind that it is not worth while, in our present\nstage of culture, to preach to the mass of men the doctrine that they\nshould abstain from sex experience until they are twenty-five or thirty\nyears of age. You may storm at them, but they only laugh at you; you may\npass laws, and try to put them in jail, but you only provide a harvest\nfor blackmailers and grafters. As to sacrificing the girl, my answer is\nsimply that I believe in love; and in this I think the girl will agree\nwith me, if you will let her! I have never heard any qualified person\nmaintain that it hurts a girl to respond to love at the age of seventeen\nor eighteen; nor do I think that it hurts a boy, provided that he is\ntaught the virtues of moderation and self-restraint. Without these, it\nwill hurt him to eat; but that is no argument for starving him. As for\nthe question of his maturity and power to judge, we are able at present\nto keep him from marrying anybody, so I think we might reasonably hope\nto keep him from marrying a wanton or a slut. Certainly we might find\nsomebody better than the peroxide blonde he now picks up in front of the\nmoving picture palace.\n\nThe question, at what ages we shall advise our young couple to have\nchildren, is a separate one, depending upon many circumstances. First,\nof course, they should not have any until they are able financially to\nmaintain them. As to the age at which it is physically advisable, that\nis a question to be settled by physicians and physiologists. I myself\nhad the idea that the proper age would be when the woman had attained\nher full stature; but my friend Dr. William J. Robinson sends me some\nstatistics from the Johns Hopkins Hospital _Bulletin_, which startle me.\nThis publication for January, 1922, gives the results in five hundred\nchildbirths, in which the mother's age was from twelve to sixteen years\ninclusive. It appears that pregnancy and labor at these ages are no more\ndangerous than in older women; but on the other hand, the duration of\nthe labor is actually shorter, and the size of the children is not\ninferior. These facts are so contrary to the general impression that I\ncontent myself with calling attention to them, and leave the commenting\nto be done by feminists and others who oppose themselves to the idea of\nearly marriage.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLI\n\nTHE MARRIAGE CLUB\n\n     (Discusses how parents and elders may help the young to avoid\n     unhappy marriages.)\n\n\nI will make the assumption that you would like to have a trial of my\ncure for prostitution. You would like to do something right here and\nnow, without waiting for the social revolution. Very well: I propose\nthat you shall find a few other parents of boys and girls who are in\nrevolt against our system of hidden vice, and that you will meet and\nform a modern marriage club. Only you won't call it that, of course; you\nwill tactfully describe it as a literary society, or a social circle, or\nan Epworth League. The parents who run it will know what it is for, just\nas they do today; the only difference being that it will exist to\npromote love matches instead of money matches. It happens that I am\nmyself a tactless sort of a person, not skillful at avoiding saying what\nI mean. So, in this chapter, I shall content myself with setting forth\nexactly what this marriage club will do, and leaving it to more clever\npeople to supply the necessary camouflage.\n\nThis club will begin by correcting the most stupid of all our\neducational blunders, the assumption of the necessary immaturity of the\nyoung. Our young people nowadays have ten times as much chance to learn\nand ten times as much stimulus to learn as we had; and it is a generally\nsafe assumption that they know much more than we think they do, and are\nready to learn every sensible and interesting thing. I am carrying on an\nepistolary acquaintance with a little miss of twelve, who has read half\na dozen of my books--among the \"worst\" of them--and writes me letters of\ngrave appreciation. I have talked on Socialism to a thousand school\nchildren, and had them question me for an hour, and heard just as worth\nwhile questions as I have heard from an audience of bankers. Never in my\nlife have I talked about real things with children that I did not find\nthem proud to be treated seriously, and eager to show that they were\nworthy of that honor. A great part of our foolishness with children is\ndue to the emptiness of our own heads.\n\nThese parents will delegate one man and one woman to make a thorough\nstudy of the sex education of the young. Of course, there is knowledge\nabout sex which has to be given to the very youngest child, and more and\nmore must be given as they grow older and ask more questions. But what I\nhave in mind here is that detailed and precise knowledge which must be\ngiven to the young when they approach the period of puberty. At this age\nof fourteen or fifteen the man will take each of the boys apart, and the\nwoman will take each of the girls, and will explain to them what they\nneed to know. This duty will not be trusted to parents, for parents have\nan imbecile fear of talking straight to their children, and try to get\nby with rubbish about bees and flowers. Let every child know that the\ndays of the hole-and-corner sex business is forever past, and that here\nis an instructed person, who talks real American, and knows what he is\ntalking about, and will deal with facts, instead of with evasions.\n\nThis club will help to educate the youngsters, and also to give them a\ngood time, developing both their minds and bodies, and learning to know\nthem thoroughly. When they are sixteen each one will have another talk,\nthis time about marriage and what it means; learning that it is not\nmerely flirtations and delicious thrills, but a business partnership,\nand the deepest and best of all friendships. So when John finds that he\nlikes Mary best of all the girls he knows, this won't be a subject for\n\"kidding\" and sly innuendo, and blushes and simpering on Mary's part,\nbut an occasion for decent and sensible talk about what each of them\nreally is, and what each thinks the other to be. If they think they are\nin love, then there will be a council of the elder statesmen, to\nconsider that case, and what are the chances of happiness in that love.\nThis may sound forbidding, but it is exactly what is done at\npresent--only it is not done honestly and frankly, and therefore does\nnot carry proper weight with the young people.\n\nI am an opponent of long engagements, but I am also an opponent of no\nengagements at all; I know no truer proverb than \"Marry in haste and\nrepent at leisure.\" It would be my idea that a very young couple should\nannounce their engagement, and then wait six months, and be consulted\nagain about the matter, and have a chance to withdraw with no hard\nfeelings, if either party thought best. If they wished to go on, they\nmight be asked to wait another six months, if their elders felt very\ncertain there were reasons to doubt the wisdom of the match.\n\nThere are, of course, people who, because of disease or physical defect,\nshould never be allowed to marry; and others who might marry, but should\nnot be allowed to have children. There should be laws providing for such\ncases, requiring physical examination before marriage, and in extreme\ncases providing for a simple and harmless surgical operation to prevent\nthe hopelessly unfit from passing on their defects to the future. But\ndealing for the moment with normal young persons, members of our modern\nmarriage club, I should say that if, after they have listened to the\nwarning of their elders, and have waited for a decent interval to think\nthings over, they still remain of the opinion that they can make a\nsuccessful marriage, then it is up to the elders to wish them luck. I\nhave known of young couples who have refused to heed warnings, and\nregretted it; but I have known of others who went ahead and had their\nown way and proved they were right. There is a form of wisdom called\nexperience and there is another form called love.\n\nI hear the worldly and cynical rail at the blindness of \"young love,\"\nand I can see the truth in what they say; but also I can see the deeper\ntruth in the magic dreams of the young soul. Here is a youth who adores\na girl, and you know the girl, and it is comical to you, because you\nknow she is not any of the things the youth imagines. But who are you\nthat claim to know the last thing about a human soul? Look into your\nown, and see how many different things you are! Look back, if you can,\nto the time when you were young, and remember the visions and the hopes.\nThey have lost all reality to you now; but who can say how many of them\nyou might have made real if there had been one other person who believed\nin them, and loved them, and would not give them up?\n\nI write this; and then I think of the other side--the fools that I have\nknown in love! The trusting women, marrying rotten men to reform them!\nThe pitiful people who think that fine phrases and sentimentality can\ntake the place of facts! I implore my young couples to sit down and\nface the realities of their own natures, to decide what they are, and\nwhat they want to be--and if there is going to be any change, let it be\nmade and tried out before marriage! I implore them to begin now to\ncontrol their desires by their reason and judgment; to begin, each of\nthem at the very outset, to carry their share of the burdens and do\ntheir share of the hard work. I implore them to value independence and\nself-reliance in the other, and never above all things to marry from\npity, which is a worthy emotion in its place, but has nothing to do with\nsex, which should be an affair between equals, a matter of partnership\nand not of parasitism. I think that, on the whole, the most dreadful\nthing in love is the use of it for preying, for the securing of favors\nand advantages of any sort, whether by men or by women.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLII\n\nEDUCATION FOR MARRIAGE\n\n     (Maintains that the art of love can be taught, and that we have the\n     right and the duty to teach it.)\n\n\nI assume now that our young couple have definitely made up their minds,\nand that the wedding day is near. They are therefore, both the man and\nthe woman, in position to receive information as to the physical aspects\nof their future experience. This information is now for the most part\npossessed only by pathologists--who impart it too late, after people\nhave blundered and wrecked their lives. The opponents of birth control\nask in horror if you would teach it to the young; I am now able to\nanswer just when I would teach it; I would teach it to these young\ncouples about to marry. I would make it by law compulsory for every\nyoung couple to attend a school of marriage, and to learn, not merely\nthe regulation of conception, but the whole art of health and happiness\nin sex.\n\nPerhaps the words, \"a school of marriage,\" strike you as funny. When I\nwas young I remember that Pulitzer founded a school of journalism, and\nall newspaper editors made merry--they knew that journalism could only\nbe learned in practice. But nowadays every city editor gives preference\nto an applicant who has taken a college course in reporting; they have\nlearned that journalism can be taught, just like engineering and\naccounting. In the same way I assert that marriage can be taught, and\nthe art of love, physical, mental, moral, and even financial; I think\nthat the day will come when enlightened parents would no more dream of\ntrusting their tender young daughter to a man who had not taken a course\nin sex, than they would go up in an aeroplane with a pilot who knew\nnothing about an engine.\n\nThe knowledge which I possess upon the art of love I would be glad to\ngive you in this book; but unfortunately, if I were to do so, my book\nwould be suppressed, and I should be sent to jail.\n\nSome ten or twelve years ago I received a pitiful letter from a man who\nwas in state's prison in Delaware, charged with having imparted\ninformation as to birth control. Under our amiable legal system, a\nperfectly innocent man may be thrown into jail, and kept there for a\nyear or two before he is tried, and if he is without money or friends,\nhe might as well be buried alive. I went to Wilmington to call on the\nUnited States attorney who had caused the indictment in this case, and\nhad an illuminating conversation with him. The official was anxious to\njustify what he had done. He assured me that he was no bigot, but on the\ncontrary an extremely liberal man, a Unitarian, a Progressive, etc. \"But\nMr. Sinclair,\" he said, \"I assure you this prisoner is not a reformer or\nhumanitarian or anything like that. He is a depraved person. Look, here\nis something we found in his trunk when we arrested him; a pamphlet,\nexplaining about sex relations. See this paragraph--it says that the\npleasure of intercourse is increased if it is prolonged.\"\n\nI looked at the pamphlet, and then I looked at the attorney. \"Do you\nthink you have stated the matter quite fairly?\" I asked. \"Apparently the\npurpose is to explain that the emotions of women are more slow to be\naroused than those of men, and that husbands failing to realize this,\noften do not gratify their wives.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the other, \"do you consider that a subject to be\ndiscussed?\"\n\n\"Pardon me if I discuss it just a moment,\" I replied. \"Do you happen to\nknow whether the statement is a fact?\"\n\n\"No, I don't. It may be, I suppose.\"\n\n\"You have never investigated the matter?\"\n\nThe legal representative of our government was evidently annoyed by my\npersistence. \"I have not,\" he answered.\n\n\"But then, suppose I were to tell you that thousands of homes have been\nbroken up for lack of just that bit of knowledge; that tens of thousands\nof marriages are miserable for lack of it.\"\n\n\"Surely, Mr. Sinclair, you exaggerate!\"\n\n\"Not at all. I could prove to you by one medical authority after\nanother, that if the desire of a woman in marriage is roused, and then\nleft ungratified, the result is nervous strain, and in the long run it\nmay be nervous breakdown.\"\n\nThe above covers only one detail of the pamphlet in question. I read\nsome pages of it, and argued them out with the attorney. It was a\nperfectly simple, straightforward exposition of facts about the\nphysiology of sex; and one of the reasons a man was to be sent to jail\nfor several years was--not that he had circulated such a pamphlet, not\nthat he had showed it to young people, but merely that he had it in his\ntrunk!\n\nThere is an honest and very useful book, written by an English\nphysician, Dr. Marie C. Stopes, entitled \"Married Love,\" published by\nDr. Wm. J. Robinson of New York, a specialist of authority and\nintegrity. The book deals with just such vital facts in a perfectly\ndignified and straightforward manner; yet Dr. Robinson has been hounded\nby the postoffice department because of it; he was convicted and forced\nto pay a fine of $250, and the book was barred from the mails!\n\nI have so much else of importance to say in this Book of Love that it\nwould not be sensible to jeopardize it by causing a controversy with our\nofficial censors of knowledge. Therefore I will merely say in general\nterms that men and women differ, not merely as a sex, but as\nindividuals, and every marriage is a separate problem. Every couple has\nto solve it in the intimacy of their love life, and for this there are\nneeded, first of all, gentleness on the part of the man, especially in\nthe first days of the honeymoon; and on the part of both at all times\nconsideration for the other's welfare and enjoyment, and above all,\nfrankness and honesty in talking out the subject. Reticence and shyness\nmay be virtues elsewhere, but they have no place in the intimacies of\nthe sex life; if men and women will only ask and answer frankly, they\ncan find out by experience what makes the other happy, and what causes\npain.\n\nWe are dealing here with the most sacred intimacy of life, and one of\nthe most vital of life's problems. It is here, in the marriage bed, that\nthe divorce problem is to be settled, and likewise the problem of\nprostitution; for it is when men and women fail to understand each\nother, and to gratify each other, that one or the other turns cold and\nindifferent, perhaps angry and hateful--and then we have passions\nunsatisfied, and ranging the world, breaking up other homes and\nspreading disease. So I would say to every young couple, seek knowledge\non this subject. Seek it without shame from others who have had a chance\nto acquire it. Seek it also from nature, our wise old mother, who knows\nso much about her children!\n\nBe natural; be simple and straightforward; and beware of fool notions\nabout sex. If you will look in the code of Hammurabi, which is over four\nthousand years old, you will see the provision that a man who has\nintercourse with a menstruating woman shall be killed. In Leviticus you\nwill read that both the man and the woman are to be cast out from their\npeople. You will find that most people still have some such notion,\nwhich is without any basis whatever in health. And this is only one\nillustration of many I might give of ignorance and superstition in the\nsex life. I would give this as one very good rule to bear in mind; your\nlove life exists for the happiness and health of yourself and your\npartner, and not for Hammurabi, nor Moses, nor Jehovah, nor your\nmother-in-law, nor anybody else on the earth or above it.\n\nGreat numbers of people believe that women are naturally less passionate\nthan men, and that marital happiness depends upon men's recognizing\nthis. Of course, there are defective individuals, both men and women;\nbut the normal woman is every bit as passionate as a man, if once she\nhas been taught; and if love is given its proper place in life, and\nmonkish notions not allowed to interfere, she will remain so all through\nlife, in spite of child-bearing or anything else. I say to married\ncouples that they should devote themselves to making and preserving\npassionate gratification in love; because this is the bright jewel in\nthe crown of marriage, and if lovers solve this problem, they will find\nother problems comparatively simple.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIII\n\nTHE MONEY SIDE OF MARRIAGE\n\n     (Deals with the practical side of the life partnership of\n     matrimony.)\n\n\nSo far we have discussed marriage as if it consisted only of love. But\nit is manifest that this is not the case. Marriage is every-day\ncompanionship, and also it is partnership in a complicated business. In\nour school of marriage therefore we shall teach the rights and duties of\nboth partners to the contract, and shall face frankly the money side of\nthe enterprise.\n\nOne of the first facts we must get clear is that the economics of\nmarriage are in most parts of the world still based upon the subjection\nof woman, and are therefore incompatible with the claims of woman as a\npartner and comrade. They will never be right until the social\nrevolution has abolished privilege, and the state has granted to every\nwoman a maternity endowment, with a mother's pension for every child\nduring the entire period of the rearing and education of that child.\nUntil this is done, the average woman must look to some man for the\nsupport of her child, and that, by the automatic operation of economic\nforce, makes her subject to the whims of the man. What women have to do\nis to agitate for a revision of the property laws of marriage; and\nmeantime to see that in every marriage there is an extra-legal\nunderstanding, which grants to the woman the equality which laws and\nconventions deny her.\n\nWhen I was a boy my mother had a woman friend who, if she wanted to go\ndowntown, would borrow a quarter from my mother. This woman's husband\nwas earning a generous salary, enough to enable him to buy the best\ncigars by the box, and to keep a supply of liquors always on hand; but\nhe gave his wife no allowance, and if she wanted pocket money she had to\nask him for it, each time a separate favor. Yet this woman was keeping a\nhome, she was doing just as hard work and just as necessary work as the\nman. Manifestly, this was a preposterous arrangement. If a woman is\ngoing to be a home-maker for a husband, it is a simple, common-sense\nproposition that the salary of the husband shall be divided into three\nparts--first, the part which goes to the home, the benefit of which is\nshared in common; second, the part which the husband has for his own\nuse; and third, the part which the wife has for hers. The second and\nthird parts should be equal, and the wife should have hers, not as a\nfavor, but as a right. If the two are making a homestead, or running a\nfarm, or building up a business, then half the proceeds should be the\nwoman's; and it should be legally in her name, and this as a matter of\ncourse, as any other business contract. If the woman does not make a\nhome, but merely displays fine clothes at tea parties, that is of course\nanother matter. Just what she is to do is something that had better be\ndetermined before marriage; and if a man wants a life-partner, to take\nan interest in his work, or to have a useful work of her own, he had\nbetter choose that kind of woman, and not merely one that has a pretty\nface and a trim ankle.\n\nThe business side of marriage is something that has to be talked out\nfrom time to time; there have to be meetings of the board of directors,\nand at these meetings there ought to be courtesy and kindness, but also\nplain facts and common sense, and no shirking of issues. Love is such a\nvery precious thing that any man or woman ought to be willing to make\nmoney sacrifices to preserve it. But on the other hand, it is a fact\nthat there are some people with whom you cannot be generous; the more\nyou give them, the more they take, and with such people the only safe\nrule is exact justice. Let married couples decide exactly what\ncontribution each makes to the family life, and what share of money and\nauthority each is entitled to.\n\nI might spend several chapters discussing the various rocks on which I\nhave seen marriages go to wreck. For example, extravagance and worldly\nshow; clothes for women. In Paris is a \"demi-monde,\" a world of brutal\nlust combined with riotous luxury. The women of this \"half-world\" are in\ntouch with the world of art and fashion, and when the rich costumers and\nwoman-decorators want what they call ideas, it is to these lust-women\nthey go. The fashions they design are always depraved, of course; always\nfor the flaunting of sex, never for the suggestion of dignity and grave\nintelligence. At several seasons of the year these lust-women are\ndecked out and paraded at the race-courses and other gathering places\nof the rich, and their pictures are published in the papers and spread\nover all the world. So forthwith it becomes necessary for your wife in\nOshkosh or Kalamazoo to throw away all the perfectly good clothes she\nowns, and get a complete new outfit--because \"they\" are wearing\nsomething different. Of course the costume-makers have seen that it is\nextremely different, so as to make it impossible for your wife and\nchildren to be happy in their last season's clothes. I have a winter\novercoat which I bought fourteen years ago, and as it is still as good\nas new I expect to use it another fourteen years, which will mean that\nit has cost me a dollar and a half per year. But think what it would\nhave cost me if I had considered it necessary each year to have an\novercoat cut as the keepers of French mistresses were cutting theirs!\n\nBut then, suppose you put it up to your wife and daughters to wear\nsensible clothes, and they do so, and then they observe that on the\nstreet your eyes turn to follow the ladies in the latest disappearing\nskirt? The point is, you perceive, that you yourself are partly to blame\nfor the fashions. They appeal to a dirty little imp you have in your own\nheart, and when the decent women discover that, it makes them blazing\nhot, and that is one of the ways you may wreck your domestic happiness\nif you want to. Unless I am greatly mistaken, when the class war is all\nover we are going to see in our world a sex war; but it is not going to\nbe between the men and the women, it is going to be between the mother\nwomen and the mistress women, and the mistress women are going to have\ntheir hides stripped off.\n\nMen wreck marriage because they are promiscuous; and women wreck it\nbecause they are parasites. Woman has been for long centuries an\neconomic inferior, and she has the vices of the subject peoples and\ntribes. Now there are some who want to keep these vices, while at the\nsame time claiming the new privileges which go with equality. Such a\nwoman picks out a man who is sensitive and chivalrous; who knows that\nwomen suffer handicaps, pains of childbirth, physical weakness, and who\ntherefore feels impelled to bear more than his share of the burdens. She\nmakes him her slave; and by and by she gets a child, and then she has\nhim, because he is bowed down with awe and worship, he thinks that such\na miracle has never happened in the world before, and he spends the rest\nof his life waiting on her whims and nursing her vanities. I note that\nat the recent convention of the Woman's Party they demanded their rights\nand agreed to surrender their privileges. There you have the final test\nby which you may know that women really want to be free, and are\nprepared to take the responsibilities of freedom.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIV\n\nTHE DEFENSE OF MONOGAMY\n\n     (Discusses the permanence of love, and why we should endeavor to\n     preserve it.)\n\n\nSo far in this discussion we have assumed that love means monogamous\nlove. We did so, for the reason that we could not consider every\nquestion at once. But we have promised to deal with all the problems of\nsex in the light of reason; and so we have now to take up the question,\nwhat are the sanctions of monogamy, and why do we refuse sanction to\nother kinds of love?\n\nFirst, let us set aside several reasons with which we have nothing to\ndo. For example, the reason of tradition. It is a fact that Anglo-Saxon\ncivilization has always refused legal recognition to non-monogamous\nmarriage. But then, Anglo-Saxon civilization has recognized war, and\nslavery, and speculation, and private property in land, and many other\nthings which we presume to describe as crimes. If tradition cannot\njustify itself to our reason, we shall choose martyrdom.\n\nSecond, the religious reason. This is the one that most people give. It\nis convenient, because it saves the need of thinking. Suffice it here to\nsay that we prefer to think. If we cannot justify monogamy by the facts\nof life, we shall declare ourselves for polygamy.\n\nWhat are the scientific and rational reasons for monogamy? First among\nthem is venereal disease. This may seem like a vulgar reason, but no one\ncan deny that it is real. There was a time, apparently, when mankind did\nnot suffer from these plagues, and we hope there may be such a time\nagain. I shall not attempt to prescribe the marital customs for the\npeople of that happy age; I suspect that they will be able to take care\nof themselves. Confining myself to my lifetime and yours, I say that the\naim of every sensible man and woman must be to confine sex relations to\nthe smallest possible limits. I know, of course, that there are\nprophylactics, and the army and navy present statistics to show that\nthey succeed in a great proportion of cases. But if you are one of\nthose persons in whose case they don't succeed, you will find the\nstatistics a cold source of comfort to you.\n\nJohn and Mary go to the altar, or to the justice of the peace, and John\nsays: \"With all my worldly goods I thee endow.\" But the formula is\nincomplete; it ought to read: \"And likewise with the fruits of my wild\noats.\" Marriage is a contract wherein each of the contracting parties\nagrees to share whatever pathogenic bacteria the other party may have or\nacquire; surely, therefore, the contract involves a right of each party\nto have a say as to how many chances of infection the other shall incur.\nJohn goes off on a business trip, and is lonesome, and meets an\nagreeable widow, and figures to himself that there is very little chance\nthat so charming a person can be dangerous. But maybe Mary wouldn't\nagree with his calculations; maybe Mary would not consider it a part of\nthe marriage bargain that she should take the diseases of the agreeable\nwidow. What commonly happens is that Mary is not consulted; John revises\nthe contract in secret, making it read that Mary shall take a chance at\nthe diseases of the widow. How can any thinking person deny that John\nhas thus committed an act of treason to Mary?\n\nI know that there are people who don't mind running such chances; that\nis one reason why there are venereal diseases. All I can say is that the\nsex-code set forth in this book is based upon the idea that to deliver\nmankind from the venereal plague, we wish to confine the sex\nrelationship within the narrowest limits consistent with health,\nhappiness and spiritual development; and that to this end we take the\nyoung and teach them chastity, and we marry them early while they are\nclean, and then we call upon them to make the utmost effort to make a\nsuccess of that union, and to make it a matter of honor to keep the\nmarital faith. We do this with some hope of effectiveness, because we\nhave made our program consistent with the requirements of nature, the\ngenuine needs of love both physical and spiritual.\n\nThe second argument for monogamy is the economic one. We have dreamed a\nsocial order where every child will be guaranteed maintenance by the\nstate, and where women will be free from dependence on men. What will be\nthe love arrangements of men and women under this new order is another\nproblem which we leave for them to decide, in the certainty that they\nwill know more about it than we do. Meantime, we are for the present\nunder the private property regime, and have to love and marry and raise\nour children accordingly. The children must have homes, and if they are\nto be normal children, they must have both the male and female influence\nin their lives; which means that their parents must be friends and\npartners, not quarreling in secret. This argument, I know, is one of\nexpediency. I have adopted it, after watching a great number of people\ntry other than monogamous sex arrangements, and seeing their chances of\nhappiness and success wrecked by the pressure of economic forces. To\nrebel against social compulsion may be heroism, and again it may be\nmerely bad judgment. For my part, the world's greatest evil is poverty,\nthe cause of crime, prostitution and war. I concentrate my energies upon\nthe abolishing of that evil, and I let other problems wait.\n\nThe third reason is that monogamy is economical of human time and\nthought. The business of finding and wooing a mate takes a lot of\nenergy, and adjustment after marriage takes more. To throw away the\nresults of this labor and do it all over again is certainly not common\nsense. Of course, if you bake a cake and burn it, you have to get more\nmaterial and make another try; but that is a different matter from\nbaking a cake with the deliberate intention of throwing it away after a\nbite or two.\n\nThe advocates of varietism in love will here declare that we are begging\nthe question. We are assuming that love and the love chase are not\nworthy in themselves, but merely means to some other end. Can it be that\nlove delights are the keenest and most intense that humans can\nexperience, and that all other purposes of life are contributory to\nthem? Certainly a great deal of art lends support to this idea, and many\npoets have backed up their words by their deeds. As Coleridge phrased\nit:\n\n    \"All thoughts, all passions, all delights,\n     Whatever stirs this mortal frame,\n     All are but ministers of Love\n     And feed his sacred flame.\"\n\nThis is a question not to be played with. Experimenting in love is\ncostly, and millions have wrecked their lives by it. The sex urge in us\nis imperious and cruel; it wants nothing less than the whole of us,\nbody, mind and spirit, and ofttimes it behaves like the genii in the\nbottle--it gets out, and not all the powers in the universe can get it\nback. I have talked with many men about sex and heard them say that it\npresents itself to them as an unmitigated torment, something they would\ngive everything they own to be free of. And these, mind you, not men\nliving in monasteries, trying to repress their natural impulses, but men\nof the world, who have lived freely, seeking pleasure and taking it as\nit came. The primrose path of dalliance did not lead them to peace, and\nthe pursuit of variety in love brought them only monotony.\n\nI stop and think of one after another of these sex-ridden people, and I\ncannot think of one whom I would envy. I know one who in a frenzy of\nunhappiness seized a razor and castrated himself. I think of another, a\ncertain classmate in college whom I once stopped in a conversation,\nremarking: \"Did you ever realize what a state you have got your mind\ninto? Everything means sex to you. Every phrase you hear, every idea\nthat is suggested--you try to make some sort of pun, to connect it\nsomehow or other with sex.\" The man thought and said, \"I guess that's\ntrue.\" The idea had never occurred to him before; he had just gone on\nletting his instincts have their way with him, without ever putting his\nreason upon the matter.\n\nThat was a crude kind of sex; but I think of another man, an idealist\nand champion of human liberty. One of the forms of liberty he maintained\nwas the right to love as many women as he pleased, and although he was a\nmarried man, one hardly ever saw him that he was not courting some young\ngirl. As a result, his mental powers declined, and he did little but\ntalk about ideas. I do not know anyone today who respects him--except a\nfew people who live the same sort of life. The thought of him brings to\nmy mind a sentence of Nietzsche--a man who surely stood for freedom of\npersonality: \"I pity the lovers who have nothing higher than their\nlove.\"\n\nA question like this can be decided only by the experience of the race.\nSome will make love the end and aim of life, and others will make it the\nmeans to other ends, and we shall see which kind of people achieve the\nbest results, which kind are the most useful, the most dignified, the\nmost original and vital. I have seen a great many young people try the\nexperiment of \"free love,\" and I have seen some get enough of it and\nquit; I could name among these half a dozen of our younger novelists. I\nknow others who are still in it--and I watch their lives and find them\nto be restless, jealous, egotistical and idle. My defense of monogamy is\nbased upon the fact that I have never known any happy or successful\n\"free lovers.\" Of course, I know some noble and sincere people who do\nnot believe in the marriage contract, and refuse to be bound by law; but\nthese people are as monogamous as I am, even more tightly bound by honor\nthan if they were duly married.\n\nIt seems to be in the very nature of true and sincere love to imagine\npermanence, to desire it and to pledge it. If you aren't that much in\nlove, you aren't really in love at all, and you had better content\nyourself with strolling together and chatting together and dining\ntogether and playing music together. So many pleasant ways there are in\nwhich men and women can enjoy each other's company without entering upon\nthe sacred intimacy of sex! You can learn to take sex lightly, of\ncourse, but if you do so, you reduce by so much the chances that true\nand deep love will ever come to you; for true and deep love requires\nsome patience, some reverence, some tending at a shrine. The animals\nmate quickly and get it over with; but the great discoveries about love,\nand the possibilities of the human soul in love, have come because men\nand women have been willing to make sacrifices for it, to take it\nseriously--and more especially to take seriously the beloved person, the\nrights and needs and virtues of that person. From the lives of such we\nlearn that love is nature's device for taking us out of ourselves, and\nmaking us truly social creatures.\n\nEarly in my life as a writer I undertook to answer Gertrude Atherton, in\nher glorification of the sex-corruptions of capitalist society. She\nindicted American literature for its \"bourgeois\" qualities--among these\nthe fact that American authors had a prejudice in favor of living with\ntheir own wives. Mrs. Atherton set forth the joys of sex promiscuity as\nthey are understood by European artists, and I ventured in replying to\nremark that \"one woman can be more to a man than a dozen can possibly\nbe.\" That sounds like a paradox, but it is really a profound truth, and\nthe person who does not understand it has missed the best there is in\nthe sex relation. There is a limit to the things of the body, but to\nthose of the mind and spirit there is no limit, and so there is no\nreason why true love should ever fall prey to boredom and satiety.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLV\n\nTHE PROBLEM OF JEALOUSY\n\n     (Discusses the question, to what extent one person may hold another\n     to the pledge of love.)\n\n\nOnce upon a time I knew an Anarchist shoemaker, the same who had me sent\nto jail for playing tennis on Sunday, as I have narrated in \"The Brass\nCheck.\" I remember arguing with him concerning his ideas of sex, which\nwere of the freest. I can hear the very tones of his voice as he put the\ngreat unanswerable question: \"What are you going to do about the problem\nof jealousy?\" And I had no response at hand; for jealousy is truly a\nmost cruel and devastating and unlovely emotion; and yet, how can you\nescape it, if you are going to preserve monogamy?\n\nThe Anarchist shoemaker's solution was to break down all the prejudices\nagainst sexual promiscuity. Free and unlimited license was every\nperson's right, and for any other person to interfere was enslavement,\nfor any other person to criticize was superstition. But the power of\nsuperstition is strong in the world, and the shoemaker found men\nresentful of his teachings, and disposed to confiscate the rights of\ntheir wives and daughters. Hence the shoemaker's disapproval of\njealousy.\n\nOther men, less purely physiological in their attitude to sex, have\nwrestled with this same problem of jealousy. H. G. Wells has a novel,\n\"In the Days of the Comet,\" in which he portrays two men, both nobly and\ntruly in love with the same woman. One in a passion of jealousy is about\nto murder the other, when a great social transformation is magically\nbrought about, and the would-be murderer wakes up to universal love, and\nthe two men nobly and lovingly share the same woman. Shelley also\ndreamed this dream, inviting two women to share him. I have known others\nwho tried it, but never permanently. I do not say that it never has\nsucceeded, or that it never can succeed. In this book I am renouncing\nthe future--I am trying to give practical advice to people, for the\nconduct of their lives here and now, and my advice on this point is\nthat polygamous and polyandrous experiments in modern capitalist society\ncost more than they are worth.\n\nI once knew a certain high school teacher, who believed religiously in\nevery kind of freedom. When she married, she and her husband, an artist,\nmade a vow against jealousy; but as it worked out, this vow meant that\nthe wife had a steady job and took care of the husband, while he loafed\nand loved other women. When finally she grew tired of it, he accused her\nof being jealous; also, she had brought it down to the matter of money!\nI know another woman, an Anarchist, widely known as a lecturer on sex\nfreedom. She laid down the general principle of unlimited personal\nfreedom for all, and she tried to live up to her faith. She entered into\na \"free union\" with a certain man, and when she discovered that he was\nmaking love to another woman, in the presence of a friend of mine she\nthrew a vase of flowers at his head. You see, her general principles had\nclashed with another general principle, to the effect that a person who\nfeels deep and strong love inevitably desires that love to endure, and\ncannot but suffer to see it preyed upon and destroyed.\n\nLet us first consider the question, just what are the true and proper\nimplications of monogamous love? The Roman Catholic church advocates\n\"monogamy,\" and understands thereby that a man and woman pledge\nthemselves \"till death do us part,\" and if either of them cancels this\narrangement it is adultery and mortal sin. I hope that none of my\nreaders understands by \"monogamy\" any such system of spiritual\nstrangulation. My own idea is rather what some churchman has\nsarcastically described by the term \"progressive polygamy.\" I believe\nthat a man and woman should pledge their faith in love, and should keep\nthat faith, and endeavor with all their best energies to make a success\nof it; they should strive each to understand the other's needs, and\nunselfishly to fulfill them, within the limits of fair play. But if,\nafter such an effort has been truly made, it becomes clear that the\nunion does not mean health and happiness for one of the parties, that\nparty has a right to withdraw from it, and for any government or church\nor other power to deny that right is both folly and cruelty.\n\nNow, on the basis of this definition of monogamy--or, if you prefer, of\nprogressive polygamy--we are in position to say what we think about\njealousy. If two people pledge their faith, and one breaks it, and the\nother complains, we do not call that jealousy, but just common decency.\nNeither do we call it jealousy if one expects the other to avoid the\nappearance of guilt; for love is a serious thing, not to be played with,\nand I think that a person who truly loves will do everything possible to\nmake clear to the beloved that he is keeping and means to keep the\nplighted faith.\n\nYou may say that I am using words arbitrarily, in endeavoring thus to\ndistinguish between justifiable and unjustifiable jealousy, and calling\nthe former by some other name. It does not make much difference about\nwords, provided I make clear my meaning. I could point out a whole\nstring of words which have good meanings and bad meanings, and cannot be\ndiscussed without preliminary explanations and distinctions; religion,\nfor example, and morality, and aristocracy, and justice, to name only a\nfew. Most people's thinking about marriage and love has been made like\nsoup in a cheap restaurant, by dumping in all kinds of scraps and\nnotions from such opposite poles of human thought as Christian monkery\nand Renaissance license, absurdly called \"romance.\" So before you can do\nany thinking about a problem like jealousy, you have to agree to use the\nword to mean something definite, whether good or bad.\n\nWe shall take jealousy as a \"bad\" word, and use it to mean the setting\nup, by a man or woman, of some claim to the love of another person,\nwhich claim cannot be justified in the court of reason and fair play.\nThis includes, in the first place, all claims based upon a courtship,\nnot ratified by marriage. It is to the interest of society and the race\nthat men and women should be free to investigate persons of the other\nsex, and to experiment with the affections before pledges of marriage\nare made. If sensible customs of love and just laws of marriage were\nmade, there would be no excuse for a woman's giving herself to a man\nbefore marriage; she should be taught not to do it, and then if she does\nit, the risk is her own, and the disgusting perversion of venality and\ngreed known as the \"breach of promise suit\" should be unknown in our\nlaw. The young should be taught that it is the other person's right to\nchange his mind and withdraw at any time before marriage; whatever pains\nand pangs this may cause must be borne in silence.\n\nThe second kind of jealousy is that which seeks to keep in the marriage\nbond a person who is not happy in it and has asked to be released. The\nlaw sanctions this kind of cowardly selfishness, which manifests itself\nevery day on the front pages of our newspapers--a spectacle of monstrous\nand loathsome passions unleashed and even glorified. Husbands set the\nbloodhounds of the law after wives who have fled with some other man,\nand send the man to a cell, and drag the woman back to a loveless home.\nWives engage private detectives, and trail their husbands to some \"love\nnest,\" and then ensue long public wrangles, with washing of filthy\nlinen, and the matter is settled by a \"separation.\" The virtuous wife,\nwho may have driven the man away by neglect or vanity or stupidity, is\ngranted a share of his earnings for the balance of her life; and two\nmore people are added to the millions who are denied sexual happiness\nunder the law, and are thereby impelled to live as law violators.\n\nFor this there is only one remedy conceivable. We have banned\ncannibalism and slavery and piracy and duelling, and we must ban one\nmore ancient and cruel form of human oppression, the effort to hold\npeople in the bonds of sex by any other power save that of love. I am\naware that the reactionaries who read this book will take this sentence\nout of its context and quote it to prove that I am a \"free lover.\" I\nshall be sorry to have that done, but even so, I was not willing to live\nin slavery myself, and I am not willing to advocate it for others. I am\naware that there are degenerate and defective individuals, and that we\nhave to make special provision for them, as I shall presently set forth;\nbut the average, normal human being must be free to decide what is love\nfor him, and what is happiness for him. Every person in the world will\nhave to deny himself the right to demand love where love is not freely\ngiven, and all lovers in the world will have to hold themselves ready to\nlet the loved one go if and when the loved one demands it. I am aware\nthat this is a hard saying, and a hard duty, but it is one that life\nlays upon us, and one that there is no escaping.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVI\n\nTHE PROBLEM OF DIVORCE\n\n     (Defends divorce as a protection to monogamous love, and one of the\n     means of preventing infidelity and prostitution.)\n\n\nYou will hear sermons and read newspaper editorials about the \"divorce\nevil,\" and you will find that to the preacher or editor this \"evil\"\nconsists of the fact that more and more people are refusing to stay\nunhappily married. It does not interest these moralizers if the\nstatistics show that it is women who are getting most of the divorces,\nand that the meaning of the phenomenon is that women are refusing to\ncontinue living with drunken and dissolute men. To the clergy, the\nbreaking of a marriage is an evil _per se_, and regardless of\ncircumstances. They know this because God has told them so, and in the\nname of God they seek to keep people tied in sex unions which have come\nto mean loathing instead of love.\n\nNow, I will assert it as a mathematical certainty that a considerable\npercentage of marriages must fail. It is essential to progress that\nhuman beings should grow, both mentally and spiritually, and manifestly\nthey cannot all grow in the same way. If they grow differently, must\nthey not sometimes lose the power to make each other happy in the\nmarital bonds? Who does not know the man who masters life and becomes a\nvital force, while his wife remains dull and empty? If such a man\nchanges wives, the world in general denounces him as a selfish beast;\nbut the world does not know nor does it care about those thousands of\nmen who, not caring to be branded as selfish beasts, fulfill the needs\nof their lives by keeping mistresses in secret.\n\nI knew a certain country school teacher, one of the most narrowly\nconventional young women imaginable, who was engaged to a middle-aged\nbusiness man. He went to New York on a business trip, and stayed a\ncouple of months, and wrote her that he had met some Anarchists, and had\ndiscovered that all he had read about them in the newspapers was false,\nand that they were the true and pure idealists to whom the rest of his\nlife must be devoted. The young lady was horrified; nor was she any\nhappier when she came to New York and met her fiance's new friends. She\nought in common sense to have broken the engagement; but she was in\nlove, and she married, as many another fool woman does, with the idea of\n\"reforming\" the man. She failed, and was utterly and unspeakably\nwretched.\n\nI know another man, a conservative capitalist of narrow and aggressive\ntemper, whose wife turned into an ardent Bolshevik. The man thinks that\nall Bolsheviks should be shut up in jail for life, while the wife is\nequally certain that all jails should be razed to the ground and all\nBolsheviks placed in control of the government. These two people have\ngot to a point where they cannot sit down to the breakfast table without\nflying into a quarrel. I know another case of a modern scientist, an\nagnostic, whose wife, a half-educated, sentimental woman, took to\ndabbling in mysticism, and drove him wild by setting up an image of\nBuddha in her bedroom, and consorting with \"swamis\" in long yellow\nrobes. I know another whose wife turned into an ultra-pious Catholic,\nand turned over the care of his domestic life to a priest. Is it not\nobvious that the only possible solution of such problems lies in\ndivorce? Unless, indeed, we are all of us going to turn over the care of\nour domestic lives to the priests!\n\nOur grandfathers and grandmothers believed one thing, and believed the\nsame thing when they were seventy as when they were twenty; so it was\npossible for them to dwell in domestic security and permanence till\ndeath did them part. But we are learning to change our minds; and\nwhether what we believe is better or worse than what our ancestors\nbelieved, at least it is different. Also we are coming to take what we\nbelieve with more seriousness; the intellectual life means more and more\nto us, and it becomes harder and harder for us to find sexual and\ndomestic happiness with a partner who does not share our convictions,\nbut, on the contrary, may be contributing to the campaign funds of the\nopposition party.\n\nI do not mean by this that people should get a divorce as soon as they\nfind they differ about some intellectual idea; on the contrary, I have\nadvocated that they should do everything possible to understand and to\ntolerate each other. But it is a fact that intellectual convictions are\nthe raw material out of which characters and lives are made, and it is\ninevitable that some characters and lives that fit quite well at twenty\nshould fit very badly at thirty or forty. When we refuse divorce under\nsuch circumstances we are not fostering marriage, as we fondly imagine;\nwe are really fostering adultery. It is a fact that not one person in\nten who is held by legal or social force in an unhappy sex union will\nrefrain from seeking satisfaction outside; and because these outside\nsatisfactions are disgraceful, and in some cases criminal, they seldom\nhave any permanence. Therefore it follows that \"strict\" divorce laws,\nsuch as the clerical propaganda urges upon us, are in reality laws for\nthe promotion of fornication and prostitution.\n\nThere is a short story by Edith Wharton, in which the \"divorce evil\" is\nexhibited to us in its naked horror; the story called \"The Other Two,\"\nin the volume \"The Descent of Man.\" A society woman has been divorced\ntwice and married three times, and by an ingenious set of circumstances\nthe woman and all three of the men are brought into the same\ndrawing-room at the same time. Just imagine, if you can, such an\nexcruciating situation: a woman, her husband, and two men who used to be\nher husbands, all compelled to meet together and think of something to\nsay! I cite this story because it is a perfect illustration of the\nextent to which the \"divorce problem\" is a problem of our lack of sense.\nMrs. Wharton will, I fear, consider me a very vulgar person if I assert\nthat there is absolutely no reason whatever why any of those four people\nin her story should have had a moment's discomfort of mind, except that\nthey thought there was. There is absolutely nothing to prevent a man and\nwoman who used to be married from meeting socially and being decent to\neach other, or to prevent two men from being decent to each other under\nsuch circumstances. I would not say that they should choose to be\nintimate friends--though even that may be possible occasionally.\n\nI know, because I have seen it happen. In Holland I met a certain\neminent novelist and poet, a great and lovable man. I visited his home,\nand met his wife and two little children, and saw a man and woman living\nin domestic happiness. The man had also two grown sons, and after a few\ndays he remarked that he would like me to meet the mother of these young\nmen. We went for a walk of a mile or so, and met a lady who lived in a\nsmall house by herself, and who received us with a friendly welcome and\ntalked with us for a couple of hours about music and books and art. This\nlady had been the writer's wife for ten years or so, and there had been\na terrible uproar when they voluntarily parted. But they had refused to\npay attention to this uproar; they understood why they did not wish to\nremain husband and wife any longer, but they did not consider it\nnecessary to quarrel about it, nor even to break off the friendship\nwhich their common interests made possible. The two women in the case\nwere not intimate, I gathered, but they frequently met at the homes of\nothers, and found no difficulty in being friendly. I suggest to Mrs.\nWharton that this story is at least as interesting as the one she has\ntold; but I fear she will not care to write it, because apparently she\nconsiders it necessary that people who are well bred and refined should\nbe the helpless victims of destructive manias.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVII\n\nTHE RESTRICTION OF DIVORCE\n\n     (Discusses the circumstances under which society has the right to\n     forbid divorce, or to impose limitations upon it.)\n\n\nWe have quoted the old maxim, \"Marry in haste and repent at leisure,\"\nand we suggested that parents and guardians should have the right to ask\nthe young to wait before marriage, and make certain of the state of\ntheir hearts. We have now the same advice to give concerning divorce;\nthe same claim to enter on behalf of society--that it has and should\nassert the right to ask people to delay and think carefully before\nbreaking up a marriage.\n\nWhat interest has society in the restriction of divorce? What affair is\nit of any other person if I choose to get a divorce and marry a new wife\nonce a month? There are many reasons, not in any way based upon\nreligious superstition or conventional prejudice. In the first place,\nthere are or may be children, and society should try to preserve for\nevery child a home with a father and a mother in it. Second, there are\nproperty rights, of which every marriage is a tangle, and the settlement\nof which the law should always oversee. Third, there is the question of\nvenereal disease, which society has an unquestionable right to keep\ndown, by every reasonable restriction upon sexual promiscuity. And\nfinally, there is the respect which all men and women owe to love. It\nseems to me that society has the same right to protect love against\nextreme outrage, as it has to forbid indecent exposure of the person on\nthe street.\n\nThere is in successful operation in Switzerland a wise and sane divorce\nlaw, based upon common sense and not upon superstition. A couple wish to\nbreak their marriage, and they go before a judge, and in private\nsession, as to a friendly adviser, they tell their troubles. He gives\nthem advice about their disagreement, and sends them away for three\nmonths to think it over. At the end of three months, if they still\ndesire a divorce, they meet with him again. If he still thinks there is\na chance of reconciliation, he has the right to require them to wait\nanother three months. But if at the end of this second period they are\nstill convinced that the case is hopeless, and that they should part,\nthe judge is required to grant the divorce. You may note that this is\nexactly what I have suggested concerning young couples who become\nengaged. In both cases, the parties directly interested have the right\nto decide their own fate, but the rest of the world requires them to\nthink carefully about it, and to listen to counsel. Except for grave\noffenses, such as adultery, insanity, crime or venereal disease, I do\nnot think that anyone should receive a divorce in less than six months,\nnor do I think that any personal right is contravened by the imposing of\nsuch a delay.\n\nNext, what are we going to say to the right, or the claim to the right,\non the part of a man or woman, to be married once a year throughout a\nlifetime? In order to illustrate this problem, I will tell you about a\ncertain man known to me. In his early life he spent a couple of years in\na lunatic asylum. He lays claim to extraordinary spiritual gifts, and\nuses the language of the highest idealism known. He is a man of culture\nand good family, and thus exerts a peculiar charm upon young women of\nrefinement and sensitiveness. To my knowledge he was three times married\nin six years, and each time he deserted the woman, and forced her to\ndivorce him, and to take care of herself, and in one case of a child. In\naddition, he had begotten one child out of marriage, and left the mother\nand child to starve. For ten years or so I used to see him about once in\nsix months, and invariably he had a new woman, a young girl of fine\ncharacter, who had been ensnared by him, and was in the agonizing\nprocess of discovering his moral and mental derangement. Yet there was\nabsolutely nothing in the law to place restraint upon this man; he could\nwander from state to state, or to the other side of the world, preying\nupon lovely young girls wherever he went.\n\nThis particular man happens to call himself a \"radical\"; but I could\ntell you of similar men in the highest social circles, or in the\npolitical world, the theatrical world, the \"sporting\" world; they are in\nevery rank of life, and are just as definitely and certainly menaces to\nhuman welfare and progress as pirates on the high seas or highwaymen on\nthe road. Nor are they confined to the males; the world is full of women\nwho use their sex charms for predatory purposes, and some of them are\nfar too clever for any law that you or I can contrive at present. But I\nthink we might begin by refusing to let any man or woman have more than\ntwo divorces in one lifetime, in any state or part of the world. If any\nman or woman tries three times to find happiness in love, and fails each\ntime, we have a right to assume that the fault must lie with that\nperson, and not with the three partners.\n\nI think we may go further yet; having made wise laws of love and\nmarriage, taking into consideration all human needs, we have a right to\nrequire that men and women shall obey the laws. At present the great\nmass of the public has sympathy for the law-breaker; just as, in old\ndays, the peasants could not help admiring the outlaw who resisted\nunjust land laws and robbed the rich, or as today, under the capitalist\nregime, we can not withhold our sympathy from political prisoners, even\nthough they have committed acts of violence which we deplore. But when\nwe have made sex laws that we know are just and sensible--then we shall\nconsider that we have the right to restrain sex criminals, and in\nextreme cases we shall avail ourselves of the skill of science to\nperform a surgical operation which will render him unable in future to\nprey upon the love needs of people who are placed at his mercy by their\nbest qualities, their unselfishness and lack of suspicion.\n\nWe clear out foul-smelling weeds from our garden, because we wish to\nraise beautiful flowers and useful herbs therein. There lives in\nCalifornia a student of plant life, who has shown us what we can do, not\nby magic or by superhuman efforts, but simply by loving plants, by\nwatching them ceaselessly, understanding their ways, and guiding their\nsex-life to our own purposes. We can perform what to our ignorant\nancestors would have seemed to be miracles; we can actually make all\nsorts of new plants, which will continue to breed their own kind, and\nsurvive forever if we give them proper care. In other words, Luther\nBurbank has shown us that we can \"change plant nature.\"\n\nThere flash back upon my memory all those dull, weary, sick human\ncreatures, who have repeated to me that dull, weary, sick old formula,\n\"You cannot change human nature.\" I do not think I am indulging either\nin religious superstition or in blind optimism, but am speaking\nprecisely, in saying that whenever human beings get ready to apply\nexperimental science to themselves, they can change human nature just as\nthey now change plant nature. By putting human bodies together in love,\nwe make new bodies of children more beautiful than any who have yet\nromped on the earth; and in the same way, by putting minds and souls\ntogether, we can make new kinds of minds and souls, different from those\nwe have previously known, and greater than either the man-soul or the\nwoman-soul alone.\n\nAlso, by that magic which is the law of mind and soul life, each new\ncreation can be multiplied to infinity, and shared by all other minds\nand souls that live in the present or may live in the future. We have\nshown elsewhere how genius multiplies to infinity the joy and power of\nlife by means of the arts; and one of the greatest of the arts is the\nart of love. Consider the great lovers, the true lovers, of history--how\nthey have enriched the lives of us all. It does not make any difference\nwhether these men and women lived in the flesh, or in the brain of a\npoet--we learn alike from Dante and Beatrice, from Abelard and Heloise,\nfrom Robert and Elizabeth Browning, from Tristan and Isolde, from Romeo\nand Juliet, what is the depth and the splendor of this passion which\nlies hidden within us, and how it may enrich and vivify and glorify all\nlife.\n\n\n\n\nPART FOUR\n\nTHE BOOK OF SOCIETY\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVIII\n\nTHE EGO AND THE WORLD\n\n     (Discusses the beginning of consciousness, in the infant and in\n     primitive man, and the problem of its adjustment to life.)\n\n\nWe have now to consider the relationship of man to his fellows, with\nwhom he lives in social groups. Upon this problem floods of light have\nbeen thrown by the new science of psycho-analysis. I will try to give,\nbriefly and in simple language, an idea of these discoveries.\n\nOne of the laws of biology is that every individual, in his development,\nreproduces the history of the race; so that impulses and mental states\nof a child reveal to us what our far-off ancestors loved and feared. The\nsame thing is discovered to be true of neurotics, people who have failed\nin adjusting themselves to civilized life, and have gone back, in some\nor all of their mental traits, to infantile states. If we analyze the\nunconscious minds of \"nervous patients,\" and compare them with what we\nfind in the minds of infants, and in savages, we discover the same\ndreams, the same longings and the same fears.\n\nThe mental life of man begins in the womb. We cannot observe that life\ndirectly, but we know that it is there, because there cannot be organic\nlife without mind to direct it, and just as there is an unconscious mind\nthat regulates the bodily processes in adults, so in the embryo there\nmust be an unconscious mind to direct the flow of blood, the building of\nbones, muscle, eyes and brain. The mental life of that unborn creature\nis of course purely egotistical; it knows nothing outside itself, and it\nfinds this universe an agreeable place--everything being supplied to it,\npromptly and perfectly, without effort of its own.\n\nBut suddenly it gets its first shock; pain begins, and severe\ndiscomfort, and the creature is shoved out into a cold world, yelling in\nprotest against the unsought change. And from that moment on, the\nnew-born infant labors to adjust itself to an entirely new set of\nconditions. Discomforts trouble it, and it cries. Quickly it learns that\nthese cries are answered, and satisfaction of its needs is furnished.\nSomehow, magically, things appear; warm and dry covering, a trickle of\ndelicious hot milk into its mouth. At first the infant mind has no idea\nhow all this happens; but gradually it comes to realize objects outside\nitself, and it forms the idea that these objects exist to serve its\nwants. Later on it learns that there are particular sounds which attach\nto particular objects, and cause them to function. The sound \"Mama,\" for\nexample, produces a goddess clothed in beauty and power, performing\nmiracles. So the infant mind arrives at the \"period of magic gestures\"\nand the \"period of magic words\"; corresponding to a certain type of myth\nand belief which we find in every race and tribe of human being that now\nexists or ever has existed on earth. All these stories about magic\nwishes and magic rings and magic spells of a thousand sorts; and nowhere\non earth a child which does not listen greedily to such fancies! The\nreason is simply that the child has passed through this stage of mental\nlife, and so recently that the feelings are close to the surface of his\nconsciousness.\n\nBut gradually the infant makes the painful discovery that not everything\nin existence can be got to serve him; there are forces which are proof\nagainst his magic spells; there are some which are hostile, and these\nthe infant learns to regard with hatred and fear. Sometimes hatred and\nfear are strangely mixed with admiration and love. For example, there is\na powerful being known as \"father,\" who is sometimes good and useful,\nbut at other times takes the attention of the supremely useful \"mother,\"\nthe source of food and warmth and life. So \"father\" is hated, and in\nfancy he is wished out of the way--which to the infant is the same thing\nas killing. Out of this grows a whole universe of fascinating mental\nlife, which Freud calls by the name \"the [OE]dipus complex\"--after the\nlegend of the Greek hero who murdered his father and committed incest\nwith his mother, and then, when he discovered what he had done, put out\nhis own eyes. There is a mass of legends, old as human thought,\nrepeating this story; we cannot be sure whether they have grown out of\nthe greeds and jealousies of this early wish-life of the infant, or\nwhether they had their base in the fact that there was a stage in human\nprogress in which the father really was killed off by the sons.\n\nThis latter idea is discussed by Freud, in his book, \"Totem and Taboo.\"\nIt appears that primitive man lived in hordes, which were dominated by\none old male, who kept all the women to himself, and either killed the\nyoung males, or drove them out to shift for themselves; so the young men\nwould combine and murder their father. The forming of human society, of\nmarriage and the family, depended upon one factor, the decision of the\nyoung victors to live and let live. The only way they could do this was\nto agree not to quarrel over the women of their own group, but to seek\nother women from other groups. This may account for what is known as\n\"exogamy,\" an almost universal marriage custom of primitive man, whereby\na man named Jones is barred by frightful taboos from the women named\nJones, but is permitted relations with all the women named Smith.\n\nTo return to our infant: he is in the midst of a painful process of\nadjusting himself to the outside world; discovering that sometimes all\nhis magic words and gestures fail, his wishes no longer come true. There\nare beings outside him, with wills of their own, and power to enforce\nthem; he has to learn to get along with these beings, and give up his\npleasures to theirs. These processes which go on in the infant soul, the\nhopes and the terrors, the griefs and the angers, are of the profoundest\nsignificance for the later adult life. For nothing gets out of the mind\nthat has once got into it; the infantile cravings which are repressed\nand forgotten stay in the unconscious, and work there, and strive still\nfor expression. The conscious mind will not tolerate them, but they\nescape in the form of fairy-tales and stories, of dreams and delusions,\nslips of the tongue, and many other mental events which it is\nfascinating to examine. Also, if we are weakened by ill health or\nnervous strain, these infantile wishes may take the form of \"neuroses,\"\nand fully grown people may take to stammering, or become impotent, or\nhysterical, or even insane, because of failures of adjustment to life\nthat happened when they were a year or two old. These things are known,\nnot merely as a matter of theory, but because, as soon as by analysis\nthese infant secrets are brought into consciousness and adjusted there,\nthe trouble instantly ceases.\n\nSo it appears that the whole process of human life, from the very hour\nof birth, consists of the correct adjustment of men and women in\nrelation to their fellows. Not merely is man a social being, but all the\nprehuman ancestors of men, for ages upon geologic ages, have been\nsocial beings; they have lived in groups, and their survival has\ndepended upon their success in fitting themselves snugly into group\nrelationships. Failure to make correct adjustments means punishment by\nthe group, or by enemies outside the group; if the failure is serious\nenough, it means death. We may assert that the task of understanding\none's fellow men, and making one's self understood by them, is the most\nimportant task that confronts every individual.\n\nAnd if we look about the world at present, the most superficial of us\ncannot fail to realize that the task is far from being correctly\nperformed. So many people unhappy, so many striving for what they cannot\nget! So many having to be locked behind bars, like savage beasts,\nbecause they demand something which the world is resolved not to let\nthem have! So many having to be killed, by rifles and machine-guns, by\nhigh explosive shells and poison gas--because they misunderstood the\nsocial facts about them, and thought they could fulfill some wishes\nwhich the rest of mankind wanted them to repress! As I read the\npsycho-analyst's picture of the newly born infant with its primitive\nego, its magic cries and magic gestures, I cannot be sure how much of it\nis sober science and how much is mordant irony--a sketch of the mental\nstates of the men and women I see about me--whole classes of men and\nwomen, yes, even whole nations!\n\nThe effort of the following chapters will be to interpret to men and\nwomen the world which they have made, and to which they are trying to\nadjust themselves. More especially we shall try to show how, by better\nadjustments, men may change both themselves and the world, and make both\ninto something less cruel and less painful, more serene and more certain\nand more free.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVIX\n\nCOMPETITION AND CO-OPERATION\n\n     (Discusses the relation of the adult to society, and the part which\n     selfishness and unselfishness play in the development of social\n     life.)\n\n\nPondering the subject of this chapter, I went for a stroll in the\ncountry, and seating myself in a lonely place, became lost in thought;\nwhen suddenly my eye was caught by something moving. On the bare, hot,\ngray sand lay a creature that I could see when it moved and could not\nsee when it was still, for it was exactly the color of the ground, and\nfitted the ground tightly, being flat, and having its edges scalloped so\nthat they mingled with the dust. It was a lizard, covered with heavy\nscales, and with sharp horns to make it unattractive eating. At the\nslightest motion from me it vanished into a heap of stones, so quickly\nthat my eye could scarcely follow it.\n\nThis creature, you perceive, is in its actions and its very form an\nexpression of terror; terror of devouring enemies, of jackals that\npounce and hawks that swoop, and also of the hot desert air that seeks\nto dry out its few precious drops of moisture. Practically all the\nenergies of this creature are concentrated upon the securing of its own\nindividual survival. To be sure, it will mate, but the process will be\nquick, and the eggs will be left for the sun to hatch out, and the baby\nlizards will shift for themselves--that is to say, they will be\nincarnations of terror from the moment they open their eyes to the\nlight.\n\nThe jackal seeks to pounce upon the lizard, and so inspires terror in\nthe lizard; but when you watch the jackal you find that it exhibits\nterror toward more powerful foes. You find that the hawk, which swoops\nupon the lizard, is equally quick to swoop away when it comes upon a man\nwith a gun. This preying and being preyed upon, this mixture of cruelty\nand terror, is a conspicuous fact of nature; if you go into any orthodox\nschool or college in America today, you will be taught that it is\nnature's most fundamental law, and governs all living things. If you\nshould take a course in political economy under a respectable\nprofessor, you would find him explaining that such cruelty-terror\napplies equally in human affairs; it is the basis of all economic\nscience, and the effort to escape from it is like the effort to lift\nyourself by your boot-straps.\n\nThe professor calls this cruelty-terror by the name \"competition\"; and\nhe creates for his own purposes an abstract being whom he names \"the\neconomic man,\" a creature who acts according to this law, and exists\nunder these conditions. One of the professor's formulas is the so-called\n\"Malthusian law,\" that population presses always upon the limits of\nsubsistence. Another is \"the law of diminishing returns of agriculture,\"\nthat you can get only so much product out of a certain piece of land, no\nmatter how much labor and capital you put into it. Another is Ricardo's\n\"iron law of wages,\" that wages cannot rise above the cost of living.\nAnother is embodied in the formula of Adam Smith, that \"Competition is\nthe life of trade.\" The professor enunciates these \"laws,\" coldly and\nimpersonally, as becomes the scientist; but if you go into the world of\nbusiness, you find them set forth cynically, in scores of maxims and\nwitticisms: \"Dog eat dog,\" \"the devil take the hindmost,\" \"business is\nbusiness,\" \"do others or they will do you.\"\n\nEvidently, however, there is something in man which rebels against these\n\"natural\" laws. In our present society man has set aside six days in the\nweek in which to live under them, and one day in the week in which to\npreach an entirely different and contradictory code--that of Christian\nethics, which bids you \"love your neighbor,\" and \"do unto others as you\nwould they should do unto you.\" Between these Sunday teachings and the\nweek-day teachings there is eternal conflict, and one who takes pleasure\nin ridiculing his fellow men can find endless opportunity here. The\nSunday preachers are forbidden to interfere with the affairs of the\nother six days; that is called \"dragging politics into the pulpit.\" On\nthe other hand, incredible as it may seem, there are professors of the\nweek-day doctrine who call themselves Christians, and believe in the\nSunday doctrine, too. They manage this by putting the Sunday doctrine\noff into a future world; that is, we are to pounce upon one another and\ndevour one another under the \"iron laws\" of economics so long as we live\non earth, but in the next world we shall play on golden harps and have\nnothing to do but love one another. If anybody is so foolish as to apply\nthe Sermon on the Mount to present-day affairs, we regard him as a\nharmless crank; if he persists, and sets out to teach others, we call\nhim a Communist or a Pacifist, and put him in jail for ten or twenty\nyears.\n\nIn the Book of the Mind, I have referred to Kropotkin's \"Mutual Aid as a\nFactor in Evolution,\" which I regard as one of the epoch-making books of\nour time. Kropotkin clearly proves that competition is not the only law\nof nature, it is everywhere modified by co-operation, and in the great\nmajority of cases co-operation plays a larger part in the relations of\nliving creatures than competition. There is no creature in existence\nwhich is entirely selfish; in the nature of the case such a creature\ncould not exist--save in the imaginations of teachers of special\nprivilege. If a species is to survive, some portion of the energies of\nthe individual must go into reproduction; and steadily, as life\nadvances, we find the amount of this sacrifice increasing. The higher\nthe type of the creature, the longer is the period of infancy, and the\ngreater the sacrifice of the parent for the young. Likewise, most\ncreatures make the discovery that by staying together in herds or\ngroups, and learning to co-operate instead of competing among\nthemselves, they increase their chances of survival. You find birds that\nlive in flocks, and other birds, like hawks and owls and eagles, that\nare solitary; and you find the co-operating birds a thousand times as\nnumerous--that is to say, a thousand times as successful in the struggle\nfor survival. You find that all man's brain power has been a social\nproduct; the supremacy he has won over nature has depended upon one\nthing and one alone--the fact that he has managed to become different\nfrom the \"economic man,\" that product of the imagination of the\ndefenders of privilege.\n\nIt is evident that both competition and co-operation are necessary to\nevery individual, and the health of the individual and of the race lies\nin the proper combination of the two. If a creature were wholly\nunselfish--if it made no effort to look after its own individual\nwelfare--it would be exterminated before it had a chance to reproduce.\nIf, on the other hand, it cannot learn to co-operate, its progeny stand\nless chance of survival against creatures which have learned this\nimportant lesson. We have a nation of a 110,000,000 people, who have\nlearned to co-operate to a certain limited extent. Some of us realize\nhow vastly the happiness of these millions might be increased by a\nfurther extension of co-operation; but we find ourselves opposed by the\nprofessors of privilege--and we wish that these gentlemen would go out\nand join the lizards of the desert sands or the sharks of the sea,\ncreatures which really practice the system of \"laissez faire\" which the\nprofessors teach.\n\nThe plain truth is that we cannot make a formula out of either\ncompetition or co-operation. We cannot settle any problem of economics,\nof business or legislation, by proclaiming, for example, that\n\"Competition is the life of trade.\" Competition may just as well turn\nout to be the death of trade; it depends entirely upon the kind of\ncompetition, and the stage of trade development to which it is applied.\nIn the early eighteenth century, when that formula of Adam Smith was\nwritten, competition was observed to keep down prices and provide\nstimulus to enterprise, and so to further abundant production. But the\ntime came when the machinery for producing goods was in excess, not\nmerely of the needs of the country, but of the available foreign\nmarkets, and then suddenly the large-scale manufacturers made the\ndiscovery that competition was the death of trade to them. They\nproceeded, as a matter of practical common sense, and without consulting\ntheir college professors, to abolish competition by forming trusts. We\npassed laws forbidding them to do this, but they simply refused to obey\nthe laws. In the United States they have made good their refusal for\nthirty-five years, and in the end have secured the blessing of the\nSupreme Court upon their course.\n\nSo now we have co-operation in large-scale production and marketing. It\nis known by various names, \"pools,\" \"syndicates,\" \"price-fixing,\"\n\"gentlemen's agreements.\" It is a blessing for those who co-operate, but\nit proves to be the death of those who labor, and also of those who\nconsume, and we see these also compelled to combine, forming labor\nunions and consumers' societies. Each side to the quarrel insists that\nthe other side is committing a crime in refusing to compete, and our\nwhole social life is rent with dissensions over this issue. Manifestly,\nwe need to clear our minds of dead doctrines; to think out clearly just\nwhat we mean by competition, and what by co-operation, and what is the\nproper balance between the two.\n\nI have been at pains in this book to provide a basis for the deciding of\nsuch questions. It is a practical problem, the fostering of human life\nand the furthering of its development. We cannot lay down any fixed\nrule; we have to study the facts of each case separately. We shall say,\nthis kind of competition is right, because it helps to protect human\nlife and to develop its powers. We shall say, this other kind of\ncompetition is wrong because it has the opposite effect. We shall say,\nperhaps, that some kind was right fifty years ago, or even ten years\nago, because it then had certain effects; but meantime some factor has\nchanged, and it is now having a different effect, and therefore ought to\nbe abolished.\n\nThere has never been any kind of human competition which men did not\njudge and modify in that way; there is no field of human activity in\nwhich ethical codes do not condemn certain practices as unfair. The\naverage Englishman considers it proper that two men who get into a\ndispute shall pull off their coats, and settle the question at issue by\npummeling each other's noses. But let one of these men strike his\nopponent in the groin, or let him kick his shins, and instantly there\nwill be a howl of execration. Likewise, an Anglo-Saxon man who fights\nwith the fists has a loathing for a Sicilian or Greek or other\nMediterranean man who will pull a knife. That kind of competition is\nbarred among our breeds; and also the kind which consists of using\npoisons, or of starting slanders against your opponent.\n\nIf you look back through history, you find many forms of competition\nwhich were once eminently respectable, but now have been outlawed. There\nwas a time, for example, when the distinction we draw between piracy and\nsea-war was wholly unknown. The ships of the Vikings would go out and\nraid the ships and seaports of other peoples, and carry off booty and\ncaptives, and the men who did that were sung as heroes of the nation.\nThe British sea-captains of the time of Queen Elizabeth--Drake,\nFrobisher, and the rest of them--are portrayed in our school books as\nvaliant and hardy men, and the British colonies were built on the basis\nof their activities; yet, according to the sea laws in force today, they\nwere pirates. We regard a cannibal race with abhorrence; yet there was a\ntime when all the vigorous races of men were cannibals, and the habit of\neating your enemies in battle may well have given an advantage to the\nraces which practiced it.\n\nOn the other hand, you find sentimental people who reject all\ncompetition on principle, and would like to abolish every trace of it\nfrom society, and especially from education. But stop and consider for a\nmoment what that would mean. Would you abolish, for example, the\ncompetition of love, the right of a man to win the girl he wants? You\ncould not do it, of course; but if you could, you would abolish one of\nthe principal methods by which our race has been improved. Of course,\nwhat you really want is, not to abolish competition in love, but to\nraise it to a higher form. There is an old saying, \"All's fair in love\nand war,\" but no one ever meant that. You would not admit that a man\nmight compete in love by threatening to kill the girl if she preferred a\nrival. You would not admit that he might compete by poisoning the other\nman. You would not admit that he might compete by telling falsehoods\nabout the other man. On the other hand, if you are sensible, you admit\nthat he has a right to compete by making his character known to the\ngirl, and if the other man is a rascal, by telling the girl that.\n\nWould you abolish the competition of art, the effort of men to produce\nwork more beautiful and inspiring than has ever been known before? Would\nyou abolish the effort of scientists to overthrow theories which have\nhitherto been accepted? Obviously not. You make these forms of\ncompetition seem better by calling them \"emulation,\" but you do not in\nthe least modify the fact that they involve the right of one person to\noutdo other persons, to supplant them and take away something from them,\nwhether it be property or position or love or fame or power. In that\nsense, competition is indeed the law of life, and you might as well\nreconcile yourself to it, and learn to play your part with spirit and\ngood humor.\n\nAlso, you might as well train your children to it. You will find you\ncannot develop their powers to the fullest without competition; in fact,\nyou will be forced to go back and utilize forms of competition which are\nnow out of date among adults. I have told in the Book of the Body how I\nmyself tried for ten years or more to live without physical competition,\nand discovered that I could not; I have had to take up some form of\nsport, and hundreds of thousands of other men have had the same\nexperience. What is sport? It is a deliberate going back, under\ncarefully devised rules, to the savage struggles of our ancestors. The\nvery essence of real sport is that the contestants shall, within the\nrules laid down, compete with each other to the limit of their powers.\nWith what contempt would a player of tennis or baseball or whist regard\nthe proposition that his opponent should be merciful to him, and let him\nwin now and then! Obviously, these things have no place in the game, and\nto be a \"good sport\" is to conform to the rules, and take with enjoyment\nwhatever issue of the struggle may come.\n\nBut then again, suppose you are competing with a child; obviously, the\nconditions are different. You no longer play the best you can, you let\nthe child win a part of the time; but you do not let the child know\nthis, or it would spoil the fun for the child. You pretend to try as\nhard as you know how, and you cry out in grief when you are beaten, and\nthe child crows with delight. And yet, that does not keep you from\nloving the child, or the child from loving you.\n\nThe purpose of this elaborate exposition is to make clear the very vital\npoint that a certain set of social acts may be right under some\nconditions, and desperately wrong under other conditions. They may be\nright in play, and not in serious things; they may be right in youth,\nand not in maturity; they may be right at one period of the world's\ndevelopment, while at another period they are destructive of social\nexistence. If, therefore, we wish to know what are right and wrong\nactions in the affairs of men, if we wish to judge any particular law or\npolitical platform or program of business readjustment, the first thing\nwe have to do is to acquire a mass of facts concerning the society to\nwhich the law or platform or program, is to be applied. We need to ask\nourselves, exactly what will be the effect of that change, applied in\nthat particular way at that particular time. In order to decide\naccurately, we need to know the previous stages through which that\nsociety has passed, the forces which have been operating in it, and the\nways in which they have worked.\n\nBut also we must realize that the lessons of history cannot ever be\naccepted blindly. The \"principles of the founders\" apply to us only in\nmodified form; for the world in which we live today is different from\nany world which has ever been before, and the world tomorrow will be\ndifferent yet. We are the makers of it, and the masters of it, and what\nit will be depends to some extent upon our choice. In fact, that is the\nmost important lesson of all for us to learn; the final purpose of all\nour thought about the world is to enable us to make it a happier and a\nbetter world for ourselves and our posterity to live in.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER L\n\nARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY\n\n     (Discusses the idea of superior classes and races, and whether\n     there is a natural basis for such a doctrine.)\n\n\nIn the letters of Thomas Jefferson is found the following passage:\n\n\"All eyes are open or opening to the rights of man. The general spread\nof the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable\ntruth that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their\nbacks, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them\nlegitimately, by the grace of God.\"\n\nThis, which Jefferson, over a hundred years ago, described as a\n\"palpable truth,\" is still a long way from prevailing in the world. We\nare trying in this book not to take anything for granted, so we do not\nassume this truth, but investigate it; and we begin by admitting that\nthere are many facts which seem to contradict it, and which make it more\ndifficult of proof than Jefferson realized. It is not enough to point\nout the lack of saddles on the backs, and of boots and spurs on the feet\nof newly born infants; for the fact is that men are not exploited\nbecause of saddles, nor is the exploiting accomplished by means of boots\nand spurs. It is done by means of gold and steel, banks and credit\nsystems, railroads, machine-guns and battleships. And while it is not\ntrue that certain races and classes are born with these things on them,\nthey are born to the possession of them, and the vast majority of\nmankind are without them all their lives, and without the ability to use\nthem even if they had them.\n\nThe doctrine that \"all men are created equal,\" or that they ought to be\nequal, we shall describe for convenience as the democratic doctrine. It\nfirst came to general attention through Christianity, which proclaimed\nthe brotherhood of all mankind in a common fatherhood of God. But even\nas taught by the Christians, the doctrine had startling limitations. It\nwas several centuries before a church council summoned the courage to\ndecide that women were human beings, and had souls; and today many\ndevout Christians are still uncertain whether Japanese and Chinese and\nFilipinos and Negroes are human beings, and have souls. I have heard old\ngentlemen in the South gravely maintain that the Negro is not a human\nbeing at all, but a different species of animal. I have heard learned\nmen in the South set forth that the sutures in the Negro skull close at\nsome very early age, and thus make moral responsibility impossible for\nthe black race. And you will find the same ideas maintained, not merely\nas to differences of race and color, but as to differences of economic\ncondition. You will find the average aristocratic Englishman quite\nconvinced that the \"lower orders\" are permanently inferior to himself,\nand this though they are of the same Anglo-Saxon stock.\n\nFor convenience I will refer to the doctrine that there is some natural\nand irremovable inferiority of certain races or classes, as the\naristocratic doctrine. I will probably startle some of my readers by\nmaking the admission that if there is any such natural or irremovable\ninferiority, then a belief in political or economic equality is a\nblunder. If there are certain classes or races which cannot think, or\ncannot learn to think as well as other classes and races, those mentally\ninferior classes and races will obey, and they will be made to obey, and\nneither you nor I, nor all the preachers and agitators in the world,\nwill ever be able to arrange it otherwise. Suppose we could do it, we\nshould be committing a crime against life; we should be holding down the\nrace and aborting its best development.\n\nIs there any such natural and irremovable inferiority in human beings?\nWhen we come to study the question we find it complicated by a different\nphenomenon, that of racial immaturity, which we have to face frankly and\nget clear in our minds. One of the most obvious facts of nature is that\nof infancy and childhood. We have just pointed out that if you are\ncompeting with a child, you do it in an entirely different way and under\nan entirely different set of rules, and if you fail to do this, you are\nunfair and even cruel to the child. And it is a fact of our world that\nthere are some races more backward in the scale of development than\nother races. You may not like this fact, but it is silly to try to evade\nit. People who live in savage huts and beat on tom-toms and fight with\nbows and arrows and cannot count beyond a dozen--such people are not\nthe mental or moral equals of our highly civilized races, and to treat\nthem as equals, and compete with them on that basis, means simply to\nexterminate them. And we should either exterminate them at once and be\ndone with it, or else make up our minds that they are in a childhood\nstage of our race, and that we have to guide them and teach them as we\ndo our children.\n\nThere is no more useful person than the wise and kind teacher. But\nsuppose we saw some one pretending to be a teacher to our children,\nwhile in reality enslaving and exploiting them, or secretly robbing and\ncorrupting them--what would we say about that kind of teacher? The name\nof that teacher is capitalist commercialism, and his profession is known\nas \"the white man's burden\"; his abuse of power is the cause of our\npresent racial wars and revolts of subject peoples. A fair-minded man,\ndesirous of facing all the facts of life, hardly knows what stand to\ntake in such a controversy; that is, hardly knows from which cause the\ncolored races suffer more--the white man's exploitation, or their own\nnative immaturity.\n\nTo say that certain races are in a childhood stage, and need instruction\nand discipline, is an entirely different thing from saying they are\npermanently inferior and incapable of self-government. Whether they are\npermanently inferior is a problem for the man of science, to be\ndetermined by psychological tests, continued possibly over more than one\ngeneration. We have not as yet made a beginning; in fact, we have not\neven acquired the scientific impartiality necessary to such an inquiry.\n\nIn the meantime, all that we can do is to look about us and pick up\nhints where we can. In places like Massachusetts, where Negroes are\nallowed to go to college and are given a chance to show what they can\ndo, they have not ousted the white man, but many of them have certainly\nwon his respect, and one finds charming and cultured men among them, who\nshow no signs of prematurely closed up skulls. And one after another we\nsee the races which have been held down as being inferior, developing\nleadership and organization and power of moral resistance. The Irish are\nshowing themselves today one of the most vigorous and high-spirited of\nall races. The Hindus are developing a movement which in the long run\nmay prove more powerful than the white man's gold and steel. The\nEgyptians, the Persians, the Filipinos, the Koreans, are all devising\nways to break the power of capitalist newspaper censorship. How sad that\nthe subject races of the world have to get their education through\nhatred of their teachers, instead of through love!\n\nOf course, these rebel leaders are men who have absorbed the white man's\nculture, at least in part; practically always they are of the younger\ngeneration, which has been to the white man's schools. But this is the\nvery answer we have been seeking--as to whether the race is permanently\ninferior, or merely immature and in need of training. It is not only\namong the brown and black and yellow races that progress depends upon\nthe young generations; that is a universal fact of life.\n\nIn the course of this argument we shall assume that the Christian or\ndemocratic theory has the weight of probability on its side, and that\nnature has not created any permanently and necessarily inferior race or\nclass. We shall assume that the heritage of culture is a common\nheritage, open to all our species. We shall not go so far as the\nstatement which Jefferson wrote into the Declaration of Independence,\nthat \"all men are created free and equal\"; but we shall assert that they\nare created \"with certain inalienable rights,\" and that among these is\nthe right to maintain their lives and to strive for liberty and\nhappiness. Also, we shall say that there will never be peace or order in\nthe world until they have found liberty, and recognition of their right\nto happiness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LI\n\nRULING CLASSES\n\n     (Deals with authority in human society, how it is obtained, and\n     what sanction it can claim.)\n\n\nIt is possible to conceive an order of nature in which all individuals\nwere born and developed exactly alike and with exactly equal powers.\nSuch is apparently the case with lower animals, for example the ants and\nthe bees. But among human beings there are great differences; some are\nborn idiots and some are born geniuses. Even supposing that we are able\nto do away with blindness and idiocy, it is not likely that we can ever\nmake a race of uniform genius. There will always be some more capable\nminds, who will discover new powers of life, and will compel the others\nto learn from them. It is to the interest of the race that this learning\nshould be done as quickly as possible. In other words, the great problem\nof society is how to recognize superior minds and put them in authority.\n\nWe look back over history, and discover a few wise men, and many rulers;\nbut very, very rarely does it happen that the ruler is a wise man, or a\nfriend of wise men. Far more often we find the ruler occupied in\nsuppressing the wise man and his wisdom. There was a ruler who allowed\nthe mob to crucify Jesus, and another who ordered Socrates to drink the\nhemlock, and another who tortured Galileo, and another who chopped off\nthe head of Sir Walter Raleigh--and so on through a long and tragic\nchronicle. And even when the accident of a wise ruler occurs he is apt\nto be surrounded by a class of parasites and corrupt officials who are\nbusy to thwart his will.\n\nThe general run of history is this: some group seizes power by force,\nand holds it by the same means, and seeks to augment and perpetuate it.\nThose who win the power are frequently men of energy and practical\nsense, and do fairly well as governors; but they are never able to hand\non their virtues, and their line becomes corrupted by sensuality and\nself-indulgence, and the subject classes are plundered and driven to\nrevolt. Often the revolt fails, but in the course of time it succeeds,\nand there is a new dynasty, or a new ruling class, sometimes a little\nbetter than the old, sometimes worse.\n\nHow shall one judge whether the new regime is better or worse?\nObviously, this is a most important question; it has to do, not merely\nwith history, but with our daily affairs, our voting. As one who has\nread some tens of thousands of pages of history, and has pondered its\nlessons with heart-sickness and despair, I lay down this general law by\nwhich revolts and changes of power may be judged: If the change results\nin the holding of power by a smaller number of people, it is a reaction;\nbut if the change results in distributing the power among a larger group\nof the community, then that community has made a step in advance.\n\nI have seen a sketch of the history of some Central American\ncountry--Guatemala, I think--which showed 130 revolutions in less than a\nhundred years. Some rascal gets together a gang, and seizes the\ngovernment and plunders its revenue. When he has plundered too much,\nsome other rascal stirs up the people, and gets together another gang.\nSuch \"revolutions\" we regard as subjects for comic opera, and for the\nRichard Harding Davis type of fiction; but we do not consider them as\nhaving any relationship to progress. We describe them as \"palace\"\nrevolutions.\n\nBut compare with this the various English revolutions. We write learned\nhistories about them, and describe England as \"the Mother of\nParliaments.\" The reason for this is that when there was political\ndiscontent in England, the protesting persons proceeded to organize\nthemselves, and to understand their trouble and to remedy it. They had\nthe brain power to do this; they maintained their right to do it, and\nwhen by violence or threats of violence they forced the ruling class to\ngive way, they brought about a wider extension of liberty, a wider\ndistribution of power. Tennyson has pictured England as a state \"where\nfreedom slowly broadens down from precedent to precedent.\" We today,\nreading its history, are inclined to put a sarcastic emphasis on the\nword \"slowly\"; but Tennyson would answer that it is better for a\ncommunity to move forward slowly than to move forward rapidly and then\nmove backward nearly as far.\n\nWe have pointed out several times the important fact of biology that\nchange does not necessarily mean progress from any rational or moral\npoint of view. Degeneration is just as real a fact as progress, and it\ndoes not at all follow that because things change they are changing for\nthe better. It is worth while to repeat this in discussing human\nsociety, for it is just as true of governments and morals as of living\nspecies. A nation may pile up wealth, and multiply a hundredfold the\nmachinery of wealth production, and only be increasing luxury and\nwantonness and graft. A nation may change its governmental forms, its\nlaws and social conventions, and boast noisily of these changes in the\nname of progress, while as a matter of fact it is following swiftly the\nroad to ruin which all the empires of history have traced. So far as I\ncan discover, there is one test, and only one, by which you can judge,\nand that is the test already indicated: Is the actual, effective power\nof the state wielded by a larger or a smaller percentage of the\npopulation than before the change took place?\n\nYou will note the words \"actual, effective power.\" Nothing is more\nfamiliar in human life than for forms to survive after the spirit which\ncreated them is dead; and nothing is more familiar than the use of these\nforms as masks to deceive the populace. There have been many times in\nhistory when people have gone on voting, long after their votes ceased\nto count for anything; there have been many times when people have gone\nthrough the motions of freedom long after they have been slaves. Mexico\nunder Diaz had one of the most perfect of constitutions, and was in\nreality one of the most perfect of despotisms; and we Americans are\nsadly familiar with political democracies which do not work.\n\nShall we, therefore, join the pessimists and say that history is a blind\nstruggle for useless power, and that the notion of progress is a\ndelusion? I do not think so; on the contrary, I think it is easily to be\ndemonstrated that there has been a steady increase in the amount of\nknowledge possessed by the race, and in the spread of this knowledge\namong the whole population. I think that through most of the period of\nwritten history we can trace a real development in human society. I\nthink we can analyze the laws of this development, and explain its\nmethods; and I think this knowledge is precious to us, because it\nenables us to accelerate the process and to make the end more certain.\nThis task, the analysis of social evolution, is the task we have next to\nundertake.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LII\n\nTHE PROCESS OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION\n\n     (Discusses the series of changes through which human society has\n     passed.)\n\n\nWe have now to consider, briefly, the history of man as a social being,\nthe groups he has formed, and the changes in his group systems.\nEverything in life grows, and human societies are no exception to the\nrule. They have undergone a long process of evolution, which we can\ntrace in detail, and which we find conforms exactly to the law laid down\nby Herbert Spencer; a process whereby a number of single and similar\nthings become different parts of one complex thing. In the case of human\nsocieties the units are men and women, and social evolution is a process\nwhereby a small and simple group, in which the individuals are\npractically alike, grows into a large and complex group, in which the\nindividuals are widely different, and their relations one to another are\ncomplicated and subtle.\n\nThere are two powerful forces pressing upon human beings, and compelling\nthem to struggle and grow. The first of these forces is fear, the need\nof protection against enemies; the second is hunger, the need of food\nand the means of producing and storing food. The first causes the\nindividual to combine with his fellows and establish some form of\ngovernment, and this is the origin of political evolution. The second\ncauses him to accumulate wealth, and to combine industrially, and this\nis the origin of economic evolution. Because the first force is a little\nmore urgent, we observe in the history of human society that evolution\nin government precedes evolution in industry.\n\nI made this statement some twenty years ago, in an article in \"Collier's\nWeekly.\" I wrote to the effect that man's first care was to secure\nhimself against his enemies, and that when he had done this he set out\nto secure his food supply. \"Collier's\" called upon the late Professor\nSumner of Yale University, a prize reactionary and Tory of the old\nschool, to answer me; and Professor Sumner made merry over my statement,\ndeclaring that man sought for food long before he was safe from his\nenemies. Some years later, when Sumner died, one of his admirers wrote\nin the New York \"Evening Post\" that he had completely overwhelmed me,\nand I had acknowledged my defeat by failing to reply--something which\nstruck me as very funny. It was, of course, possible that Sumner had\noverwhelmed me, but to say that I had considered myself overwhelmed was\nto attribute to me a degree of modesty of which I was wholly incapable.\nAs a matter of fact, I had had my usual experience with capitalist\nmagazines; \"Collier's Weekly\" had promised to publish my rejoinder to\nSumner, but failed to keep the promise, and finally, when I worried\nthem, they tucked the answer away in the back part of the paper, among\nthe advertisements of cigars and toilet soaps.\n\nProfessor Sumner is gone, but he has left behind him an army of pupils,\nand I will protect myself against them by phrasing my statement with\nextreme care. I do not mean to say that man first secures himself\ncompletely against his enemies, and then goes out to hunt for a meal. Of\ncourse he has to eat while he is countering the moves of his enemies; he\nhas to eat while he is on the march to battle, or in flight from it. But\nask yourself this question: which would you choose, if you had to\nchoose--to go a couple of days with nothing to eat, or to have your\nthroat cut by bandits and your wife and children carried away into\nslavery? Certainly you would do your fighting first, and meantime you\nwould scratch together any food you could. While you were devoting your\nenergies to putting down civil war, or to making a treaty with other\ntribes, or to preparing for a military campaign, you would continue to\nget food in the way your ancestors had got it; in other words, your\neconomic evolution would wait, while your political evolution proceeded.\nBut when you had succeeded in putting down your enemies, and had a long\nperiod of peace before you, then you would plant some fields, and\ndomesticate some animals, or perhaps discover some new way of weaving\ncloth--and so your industrial life would make progress.\n\nIt is easy to see why Professor Sumner wished to confuse this issue. He\ncould not deny political evolution, because it had happened. He despised\nand feared political democracy, but it was here, and he had to speak\npolitely to it, as to a tiger that had got into his house. But\nindustrial democracy was a thing that had not yet happened in the\nworld; it was only a hope and a prophecy, and therefore a prize old Tory\nwas free to ridicule it. I remember reading somewhere his statement--the\nnotion that democracy had anything to do with industry, or could in any\nway be applied to industry, was a piece of silliness. So, of course, he\nsought to demolish my idea that there was a process of evolution in\neconomic affairs, paralleling the process of political evolution which\nhad already culminated in democracy.\n\nLet us consider the process of political evolution, briefly and in its\nbroad outlines. Take any savage tribe; you find it composed of\nindividuals who are very much alike. Some are a little stronger than\nothers, a little more clever, more powerful in battle; but the\ndifference is slight, and when the tribe chooses someone to lead them,\nthey might as well choose one man as another. They all have a say in the\ntribe councils, both men and women; their \"rights\" in the tribe are the\nsame. They are, of course, slaves to ignorance, to degrading\nsuperstition and absurd taboos; but these things apply to everyone\nalike, there is no privileged caste, no hereditary inequality.\n\nBut little by little, as the tribe grows in numbers, and in power and\nintelligence, as it comes to capture slaves in battle, and to unite with\nother tribes, there comes to be an hereditary chieftain and a group of\nhis leading supporters, his courtiers and henchmen. When the society has\nevolved into the stage which we call barbarism, there is a permanent\nsuperior caste; there are hereditary priests, who have in their keeping\nthe favor of the gods; and there is a subject population of slaves.\n\nThe society moves on into the feudal stage, in which the various grades\nand classes are precisely marked off, each with its different functions,\nits different privileges and rights and duties. The feudal\nprincipalities and duchies war and struggle among themselves; they are\nunited by marriage or by conquest, and presently some stronger ruler\nbrings a great territory under his power, and we have what is called a\nkingdom; a society still larger, still more complex in its organization,\nand still more rigid in its class distinctions. Take France, under the\nancient regime, and compare a courtier or noble gentleman with a serf;\nthey are not only different before the law, they are different in the\nlanguage they use, in the clothes they wear, in the ideas they hold;\nthey are different even in their bodies, so that the gentleman regards\nthe serf as an inferior species of creature.\n\nThe kings warred among themselves and emperors arose. The ultimate ideal\nin Europe was a political society which should include the whole\ncontinent, and this ideal was several times almost attained. But it is\nthe rule of history that wherever a large society is built upon the\nbasis of privilege and enslavement, the ruling classes prove morally and\nintellectually unequal to the burden put upon them; they become\ncorrupted, and their rule becomes intolerable. This happened in Europe,\nand there came political revolutions--first in England, which\naccomplished it by gradual stages, and then in the French monarchy, and\nquite recently in a dozen monarchies and empires, large and small.\n\nWhat precisely is this political revolution? Let us consider the case of\nFrance, where the change was sudden, and the issues precisely drawn.\nKing Louis XIV had said, \"I am the state.\" To a person of our time that\nmight seem like boasting, but it was merely an assertion of the existing\npolitical fact. King Louis was the state by universal consent, and by\ndivine authority, as all men believed. The army was his army, the navy\nwas his navy, and wars, when he made them, were his wars. Everyone in\nthe state was his subject, and all the property of the state was his\npersonal, private property, to dispose of as he pleased. The government\nofficials carried out his will, and members of the nobility held the\nland and ruled in his name.\n\nBut now suddenly the people of France overthrew the king, and put him to\ndeath, and drove the nobles into exile; they seized the power of the\nFrench state, and proclaimed themselves equal citizens in the state,\nwith equal voices in its government and equal rights before the law. So\nwe call France a republic, and describe this form of society as\npolitical democracy. It is the completion of the process of political\nevolution, and you will see that it moves in a sort of spiral; having\ncompleted a circle and got back where it was before, but upon a higher\nplane. The citizens of a modern republic are equal before the law, just\nas were the members of the savage tribe; but the political organization\nis vastly larger, and infinitely more complicated, and every individual\nlives his life upon a higher level, because he shares in the benefits of\nthis more highly organized and more powerful state.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LIII\n\nINDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION\n\n     (Examines the process of evolution in industry and the stage which\n     it has so far reached.)\n\n\nAnd now let us consider the process of industrial evolution. We shall\nfind it to be exactly the same thing, reproducing the changes in another\nfield of activity. You may picture two gigantic waves sweeping over the\nocean. In some places the waves are far apart, and in other places they\nare closer together; for a time they may mingle, and perhaps their bases\nalways mingle. It would be easy for a critic to point out how political\naffairs play a leading part in industrial evolution, and vice versa; it\nwould be easy to argue that property rules the political state, or\nagain, that the main function of the political state is to protect\nproperty. As I have said, man has to fight his enemies, and he has to\nseek food, and often he has to do the two things at the same time; but\nnevertheless, broadly speaking, we observe two great waves, sweeping\nover human society, and most of the time these waves are clearly\nseparated and easily distinguished.\n\nIndustry in a savage tribe is, like government, simple and uniform; all\nthe members of the tribe get their living in the same way. One may be a\nlittle more expert as a fisherman, another as a gatherer of cocoanuts,\nbut the fisherman gathers cocoanuts and the cocoanut-gatherer fishes. In\nthe days of primitive communism there is little economic strife and\nlittle change; but as slavery comes in, and the private property system,\nthere begins industrial war--the members of the tribe trade with one\nanother, and argue over prices, and gradually some get the better of\nothers, they accumulate slaves and goods, and later on they appropriate\nthe land to their private use. Of course, the men who do this are often\nthe rulers of the tribe, and so politics and industry are mixed; but\neven assuming that the state never interfered, assuming that the\ngovernment allowed business affairs to work themselves out in their own\nway, the tendency of competition is always to end in monopoly. The big\nfish eat the little fish, the strong gain advantage over the weak, the\nrich grow richer, and the poor grow relatively poorer. As the amount of\ntrading increases, and men specialize in the arts of bargaining, we see\nagain and again how money concentrates in the hands of a few. It does\nthis, even when the political state tries to prevent it; as, for\nexample, when the princes and dukes of the Middle Ages would torture the\nJewish money-lenders and take away their treasure, but the Jews never\nfailed to grow rich again.\n\nIt is when political evolution has completed itself, and a republic has\nbeen set up, that a free field is given to economic forces to work\nthemselves out to their logical end. We have seen this in the United\nStates, where we all started pretty much on the same economic level, and\nwhere political tyranny has had little hold. Our civilization is a\ncivilization of the trader--the business man, as we call him; and we see\nhow big business absorbs little business, and grows constantly larger\nand more powerful. We are familiar with what we call \"graft,\" the use by\nbusiness men of the powers of government to get trade advantage for\nthemselves, and we have a school of old-time thinkers, calling\nthemselves \"Jeffersonian Democrats,\" who insist that if only there had\nnever been any government favors, economic equality and democracy would\nhave endured forever in our country. But it is my opinion that\ngovernment has done far more to prevent monopoly and special privilege\nin business than to favor it; and nevertheless, monopoly has grown.\n\nIn other words, the tendency toward concentration in business, the\nabsorption of the small business by the big business, is an irresistible\nnatural process, which neither can be nor should be hindered. The\ncondition of competition, whether in politics or in industry, is never a\npermanent one, and can never be made permanent; it is a struggle which\nautomatically brings itself to an end. Large-scale production and\ndistribution is more economical than small-scale, and big business has\nirresistible advantages of credit and permanence over little business.\nAs we shall presently show, the blind and indiscriminate production of\ngoods under the competitive system leads to the glutting of markets and\nto industrial crises. At such times the weaker concerns are weeded out\nand the strong ones take their trade; and as a result, we have the\nmodern great corporation, the most powerful machine of production yet\ndevised by man, and which corresponds in every aspect to the monarchy in\npolitical society.\n\nWe are accustomed to speak of our \"captains of industry,\" our \"coal\nkings,\" and \"beef barons\" and \"lords of steel,\" and we think we are\nusing metaphors; but the universality of these metaphors points to a\nfundamental truth in them. As a matter of fact, our modern captain of\nindustry fills in the economic world exactly the same functions as were\nfilled in ancient days by the head of a feudal state. He has won his\npower in a similar struggle, and he holds it by similar methods. He\nrules over an organization of human beings, arranged, economically\nspeaking, in grades and classes, with their authorities and privileges\nand duties precisely determined, as under the \"ancient regime.\" And just\nas King Louis said, \"I am the state,\" so Mr. Armour considers that he is\nArmour & Co., and Mr. Morgan considers that he is the house of Morgan,\nand that the business exists for him and is controlled by him under\ndivine authority.\n\nIf I am correct in my analysis of the situation, this process of\nindustrial evolution is destined to complete itself, as in the case of\nthe political state. The subject populations of industry are becoming\nmore and more discontented with their servitude, more and more resentful\nof that authority which compels them to labor while others reap the\nbenefit. They are organizing themselves, and preparing for a social\ntransformation which will parallel in every detail the revolution by\nwhich our ancestors overthrew the authority of King George III over the\nAmerican colonies, and made inhabitants of those colonies no longer\nsubjects of a king, but free and equal citizens of a republic. I expect\nto see a change throughout the world, which will take the great\ninstruments of production which we call corporations and trusts, out of\nthe hands of their present private owners, and make them the property,\neither of the entire community, or of those who do the work in them.\nThis change is the \"social revolution,\" and when it has completed\nitself, we shall have in that society an Industrial Republic, a form of\nbusiness management which constitutes economic democracy.\n\nThe history of the world's political revolutions has been written almost\nexclusively by aristocratic or bourgeois historians; that is to say, by\nmen who, whatever their attitude toward political democracy, have no\nconception of industrial democracy, and believe that industrial strife\nand enslavement are the normal conditions of life. If, however, you will\nread Kropotkin's \"Great French Revolution,\" you will be interested to\ndiscover how important a part was played in this revolution by economic\nforces. Underneath the political discontent of the merchants and middle\nclasses lay a vast mass of social discontent of the peasants and\nworkers. It was the masses of the people who made the revolution, but it\nwas the middle classes who seized it and turned it to their own ends,\nputting down attempts toward economic equality, and confining the\nchanges, so far as possible, to the political field.\n\nAnd everywhere throughout history, if you study revolutions, you find\nthat same thing happening. You find, for example, Martin Luther fighting\nfor the right to preach the word of God without consulting the Pope; but\nwhen the peasants of Germany rose and sought to set themselves free from\nfeudal landlords, Luther turned against them, and called upon the\nprinces to shoot them down. \"The ass needs to be beaten, and the\npopulace needs to be controlled with a strong hand.\" The landlords and\npropertied classes of England were willing to restrict the power of the\nking, and to give the vote to the educated and well-to-do; but from the\ntime of Jack Cade to our own they shoot down the poor.\n\nBut meantime, the industrial process continues; the modern factory\nsystem brings the workers together in larger and larger groups, and\nteaches them the lesson of class consciousness. So the time of the\nworkers draws near. The first attempt in modern times to accomplish the\nsocial revolution and set up industrial democracy was in the Paris\nCommune. When the French empire collapsed, after the war with Germany in\n1871, the workers of Paris seized control. They were massacred, some\n50,000 of them, and the propertied classes of France established the\npresent bourgeois republic, which has now become the bulwark of reaction\nthroughout the Continent of Europe.\n\nNext came the Russian revolution of 1905, and this was an interesting\nillustration of the relation between the two waves of social progress.\nRussia was a backward country industrially, and according to theory not\nat all prepared for the social revolution. But nowadays the thoughts of\nmen circulate all over the world, and the exiles from Russia had\nabsorbed Marxian ideas, and were not prepared to accept a purely\npolitical freedom. So in 1905, after the Japanese war, when the people\nrose and forced the Czar to grant a parliament, the extremists made an\neffort to accomplish the social revolution at the same time. The\npeasants began to demand the land, and the workers the factories;\nwhereupon the capitalists and middle classes, who wanted a parliament,\nbut did not want Socialism, went over to the side of reaction, and both\nthe political and social revolutions were crushed.\n\nBut then came the great war, for which Russia with her incompetent\ngovernment and her undeveloped industry was unprepared. The strain of it\nbroke her down long before the other Allies, and in the universal\nsuffering and ruin the Russian people were again forced to rise. The\npolitical revolution was accomplished, the Czar was imprisoned, and the\nDouma reigned supreme. Middle class liberalism throughout the world gave\nits blessings to this revolution, and hastened to welcome a new\npolitical democracy to the society of nations. But then occurred what to\northodox democratic opinion has been the most terrifying spectacle in\nhuman history. The Russian people had been driven too far towards\nstarvation and despair; the masses had been too embittered, and they\nrose again, overthrowing not only their Czar and their grand dukes, but\ntheir capitalists and land-owners. For the first time in history the\nsocial revolution established itself, and the workers were in control of\na great state. Ever since then we have seen exactly what we saw in\nEurope from 1789 onward, when the first political republic was\nestablished, and all the monarchies and empires of the world banded\nthemselves together to stamp it out. We have witnessed a campaign of\nwar, blockade, intrigue and propaganda against the Soviet government of\nRussia, all pretending to be carried on in the name of the Russian\npeople, and for the purpose of saving them from suffering--but all\nobviously based upon one consideration and one alone, the fear that an\neffort at industrial self-government might possibly prove to be a\nsuccess.\n\nWhether or not the Soviets will prove permanent, no one can say. But\nthis much is certain; just as the French revolution sent a thrill around\nthe world, and planted in the hearts of the common people the wonderful\ndream of freedom from kings and ruling classes, just so the Russian\nrevolution has brought to the working masses the dream of freedom from\nmasters and landlords. Everywhere in capitalist society this ferment is\nworking, and in one country after another we see the first pangs of the\nnew birth. Also we see capitalists and landlords, who once found\n\"democracy,\" \"free speech\" and \"equality before the law\" useful formulas\nto break down the power of kings and aristocrats, now repudiating their\nold-time beliefs, and going back to the frankest reaction. We see, in\nour own \"land of the free,\" the government refusing to reprint the\nDeclaration of Independence during the war, and arresting men for\nquoting from it and circulating it; we even see the Department of\nJustice refusing to allow people to reprint the Sermon on the Mount!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LIV\n\nTHE CLASS STRUGGLE\n\n     (Discusses history as a battle-ground between ruling and subject\n     classes, and the method and outcome of this struggle.)\n\n\nThere is a theory of social development, sometimes called the\nmaterialistic interpretation of history, and sometimes the economic\ninterpretation of history. It is one of the contributions to our thought\nwhich we owe to Karl Marx, and like all the rest of Marxian theory, it\nis a subject of embittered controversy, not merely between Socialists\nand orthodox economists, but between various schools of revolutionary\ndoctrine. For my part, I have never been a great hand for doctrine,\nwhether ancient or modern; I am not much more concerned with what Marx\ntaught than I am with what St. Paul taught, or what Martin Luther\ntaught. My advice is to look at life with your own eyes, and to state in\nsimple language the conclusions of your own thinking.\n\nMan is an eating animal; he has also been described as a tool-making\nanimal, and might be described as an ideal-making animal. There is a\ntendency on the part of those who specialize in the making of ideals to\nrepudiate the eating and the tool-making sides of man; which accounts\nfor the quarrel between the Marxians and the moralists. All through\nhistory you find new efforts of man to develop his emotional and\nspiritual nature, and to escape from the humiliating limitations of the\nflesh. These efforts have many of them been animated by desperate\nsincerity, but none of them have changed the fundamental fact that man\nis an eating animal, an animal insufficiently provided by nature against\ncold, and with an intense repugnance to having streams of cold water run\ndown back of his neck. The religious teachers go out with empty purse,\nand \"take no thought for the morrow\"; but the forces of nature press\ninsistently upon them, and little by little they make compromises, they\ntake to shelter while they are preaching, they consent to live in\nhouses, and even to own houses, and to keep a bank account. So they make\nterms with the powers of this world, and the powers of this world,\nwhich are subtle, and awake to their own interests, find ways to twist\nthe new doctrine to their ends.\n\nSo the new religion becomes simply another form of the old hypocrisy;\nand it comes to us as a breath of fresh air in a room full of corruption\nwhen some one says, \"Let us have done with aged shams and false\nidealisms. Let us face the facts of life, and admit that man is a\nphysical animal, and cannot do any sane and constructive thinking until\nhe has food and shelter provided. Let us look at history with unblinking\neyes, and realize that food and shelter, the material means of life, are\nwhat men have been seeking all through history, and will continue to\nseek, until we put production and distribution upon a basis of justice,\ninstead of a basis of force.\"\n\nSuch is, as simply as I can phrase it, the materialistic interpretation\nof history. Put into its dress of scientific language it reads: the\ndominant method of production and exchange in any society determines the\ninstitutions and forms of that society. I do not think I exaggerate in\nsaying that this formula, applied with judgment and discrimination, is a\nkey to the understanding of human societies.\n\nWherever man has moved into the stage of slavery and private property\nthere has been some group which has held power and sought to maintain\nand increase it. This group has set the standards of behavior and belief\nfor the community, and if you wish to understand the government and\nreligion, the manners and morals, the philosophy and literature and art\nof that community, the first thing you have to do is to understand the\ndominant group and its methods of keeping itself on top. This statement\napplies, not merely to those cultural forms which are established and\nordained by the ruling class; it applies equally well to the\nrevolutionary forms, the behavior and beliefs of those who oppose the\nruling class. For men do not revolt in a vacuum, they revolt against\ncertain conditions, and the form of their revolt is determined by the\nconditions. Take, for example, primitive Christianity, which was\ncertainly an effort to be unworldly, if ever such an effort was made by\nman. But you cannot understand anything about primitive Christianity\nunless you see it as a new form of slave revolt against Roman\nimperialism and capitalism.\n\nThe theory of the class struggle is the master key to the bewilderments\nand confusions of history. Always there is a dominant class, holding\nthe power of the state, and always there are subject classes; and sooner\nor later the subject classes begin protesting and struggling for wider\nrights. When they think they are strong enough, they attempt a revolt,\nand sometimes they succeed. If they do, they write the histories of the\nrevolt, and their leaders become heroes and statesmen. If they fail, the\nhistories are written by their oppressors, and the rebels are portrayed\nas criminals.\n\nOne of the commonest of popular assumptions is that if the rebels have\njustice on their side, they are bound to succeed in the long run; but\nthis is merely the sentimental nonsense that is made out of history. It\nis perfectly possible for a just revolt to be crushed, and to be crushed\nagain and again; just as it is possible for a child which is ready to be\nborn to fail to be born, and to perish miserably. The fact that the\nHuguenots had most of the virtue and industry and intelligence of France\ndid not keep them from being slaughtered by Catholic bigots, and\nreaction riveted upon the French people for a couple of hundred years.\nThe fact that the Moors had most of the industry of Spain did not keep\nthem from being driven into exile by the Inquisition, and the\nintellectual life of the Spanish people strangled for three hundred or\nfour hundred years.\n\nSome eight hundred years ago our ancestors in England brought a cruel\nand despotic king to battle, and conquered him, and on the field of\nRunnymede forced him to sign a grant of rights to Englishmen. That\ndocument is known as Magna Carta, or the Great Charter, and everyone who\nwrites political history today recognizes it as one of the greatest of\nman's achievements, the beginning of a process which we hope will bring\nfreedom and equality before the law to every human being on earth.\n\nAnd now we have come to the stage in our industrial affairs, when the\norganized workers seek to bring the monarchs of industry into the\ncouncil chamber, and force them to sign a similar Great Charter, which\nwill grant freedom and self-government to the workers. Just as King John\nwas forced to admit that the power to tax and spend the public revenue\nbelonged to the people of England, and not to the ruler; just so the\nworkers will establish the principle that the finances of industry are a\npublic concern, that the books are to be opened, and prices fixed and\nwages paid by the democratic vote of the citizens of industry. If that\nchange is accomplished, the historian of the future will recognize it\nas another momentous step in progress; and he will heed the protests of\nthe lords of industry, that they are being deprived of their freedom to\ndo business, and of their sacred legal rights to their profits, as\nlittle as he heeded the protests of King John against the \"treason\" and\n\"usurpation\" and infringement of \"divine right\" by the rebellious\nbarons.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LV\n\nTHE CAPITALIST SYSTEM\n\n     (Shows how wealth is produced in modern society, and the effect of\n     this system upon the minds of the workers.)\n\n\nIn the beginning man got his living by hunting and fishing. Then he took\nto keeping flocks and herds, and later by slow stages he settled down to\nagriculture. With the introduction of slavery and the ownership of the\nland by ruling classes, there came to be a subject class of workers, who\ntoiled on the land from dawn to dark, year in and year out, and got, if\nthey were fortunate, an existence for themselves and their families.\nWhether these workers were called slaves or serfs or peasants, whether\ntheir product was taken from them in the form of taxes by the king, or\nof rent by the landlord, made no difference; the workers were bound to\nthe soil, like the beasts with which they lived in intimate contact.\nThey were drafted into armies, and made to fight for their lords and\nmasters; they suffered pestilence and famine, fire and slaughter; but\nwith infinite patience they would rebuild their huts, and dig and plant\nagain, whether for the old master or for a new one.\n\nIn the early days these workers made their own crude tools and weapons;\nbut very early there must have been some who specialized in such arts,\nand with the growth of towns and communications came a new kind of\nlabor, based upon a new system. Some enterprising man would buy slaves,\nor hire labor, and obtain a supply of raw material, and manufacture\ngoods to be bartered or sold. He would pay his workers enough to draw\nthem from the land, and would sell the product for what he could get,\nand the difference would be his profit. That was capitalism, and at\nfirst it was a thing of no importance, and the men who engaged in it had\nno social standing. But princes and lords needed weapons and supplies\nfor their armies, and the men who could furnish these things became more\nand more necessary, and the states which encouraged them were the ones\nwhich rose to power. Merchants and sea-traders became the intimates of\nkings, and by the time of the Roman empire, capitalism was a great\nworld power, dominating the state, using the armies of the state for its\npurposes. It went down with the rest of Roman civilization, but in the\nMiddle Ages it began once more to revive, and by the end of the\neighteenth century the merchants and money lenders of France, with their\nretainers, the lawyers and journalists, were powerful enough to take the\ncontrol of society.\n\nThen, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, came the invention of\nmachinery and of the power process. Capitalism began to grow like a\nyoung giant among pygmies. In the course of a century it has ousted all\nother methods of production, and all other forms of social activity. A\nhundred years ago the British House of Commons was a parliament of\nlandlords; today it is a Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association. Out\nof the 707 members of the British House of Commons, 361 are members of\nthe \"Federation of British Industries,\" the labor-smashing organization\nof British \"big business.\" And the same is true of every other\nparliament and congress in the modern capitalist state. Practically all\nthe wealth of the world today is produced by the capitalist method, and\ndistributed under capitalist supervision, and therefore capitalist ideas\nprevail in our society, to the practical exclusion of all other ideas. I\nhave shown in \"The Profits of Religion\" how these ideas dominate the\nmodern church, and in \"The Brass Check\" how they dominate the modern\npress. I plan to write two books, to show how they dominate education\nand literature.\n\nA hundred years ago an industry consisted of a half a dozen or a dozen\nmen, working under the personal supervision of an owner, and using crude\nhand tools. Today it consists of a gigantic trust, owning and managing\nscores and perhaps hundreds of mills and factories, each employing\nthousands of workers. A corporation like the Steel Trust owns enough of\nthe sources of its raw material to give it practical monopoly; it owns a\nfleet of vessels especially designed for ore-carrying; it owns its\nprivate railroads, to deliver the ore to the mills. Through its system\nof dummy directorates it has practical control of the main railroads\nover which it distributes its products; also of banks and trust\ncompanies and insurance companies, to gather the money of the public to\nfinance its undertakings. It owns huge office buildings, and vast\ntracts of land upon which the homes of its workers are built. It has a\nprivate army for the defense of its property--a complete army of\ncavalry, infantry and artillery, including a large and highly efficient\nsecret service department, with a host of informers and spies. It has\nnewspapers for the purpose of propaganda, and it controls the government\nof every village, town and city in which it has important interests. If\nyou will take the trouble to visit a \"steel town,\" and make inquiries\namong public officials, newspaper men, and others who are \"on the\ninside,\" you will discover that those in authority consider it necessary\nand proper that \"steel\" should control, and are unable to conceive any\nother condition of affairs. If you go to other parts of the country,\nwhere other great industries are located, you find it taken for granted\nthat \"copper\" should control, or \"lumber,\" or \"coal,\" or \"oil,\" or\nwhatever it may be.\n\nUnder the system of large scale capitalism, labor is a commodity, bought\nand sold in the market like any other commodity. Some years ago Congress\nwas requested to pass a law contradicting this fundamental fact of world\ncapitalism. Congress passed a law, very carefully worded so that no one\ncould be sure what it meant, and a few years later the Supreme Court\nnullified the law. But all through this political and legal controversy\nthe status of labor remained exactly the same; there was a \"labor\nmarket,\" consisting of those members of the community who, in the\nformula of Marx, had nothing but their labor power to sell. These\ncompeted for recognition at the factory gates, and highly skilled\nforemen selected those who offered the largest quantity of labor power\nfor the stated wage.\n\nSo entirely impersonal is this process that there are great industries\nin America in which ninety per cent of the common labor force is hired\nand fired all over again in the course of a year. These men are put to\nwork in gangs, under a system which enables one picked man to set the\npace, and compel all the others to keep up with him, under penalty of\nbeing discharged. This process is known as \"speeding up,\" and its\npurpose is to obtain from each worker the greatest quantity of energy in\nexchange for his daily wage. In the steel industry men work twelve hours\na day for six days in the week, and then finish with a twenty-four-hour\nday. If they do not work so long in other industries, it is because\nexperience has proven that the greatest quantity of energy can be\nobtained from them in a shorter time. There are very few men who can\nstand this pace for long. Those who are not crippled or killed in\naccidents are broken down at forty, and all the great corporations\nrecognize this fact. Their foremen pick out the younger men, and\npractically all concerns have an age rule, and never hire men above\nforty or forty-five.\n\nI shall not in this book go into details concerning the fate of the\nworker under the profit system. I have written two novels, \"The Jungle\"\nand \"King Coal,\" in which the facts are portrayed in detail, and it\nseems the part of common sense to refer the reader to these text-books.\nIt will suffice here to set forth the main outlines of the situation. In\nevery capitalist country of the world the masses of the people are\nherded into industries, in whose profits they have no share, and in\nwhose welfare they have no interest. They do not know the people for\nwhom they work; they have no human relationship, either with their work\nor with their employers. They see the surplus of their product drawn off\nto maintain a class of idlers, whose activities they know only through\nthe scandals of the divorce courts and the luxury-love of the moving\npicture screen. They compete with one another for jobs, and bid down one\nanother's wages; and if they attempt to organize and end this\ncompetition, their efforts are broken by newspaper propaganda and\npolicemen's clubs. At the same time they know that monopoly, open or\nsecret, prevails in the fixing of prices, and so they find the struggle\nto \"get ahead\" a losing one. In America it used to be possible for the\nyoung and energetic to \"go West\"; but now the wave of capitalism has\nreached the Pacific coast and been thrown back, and there is no more\nfrontier.\n\nThe man who works on the land has been through all the ages a solitary\nman. He is better friends with his horse and his cow than with his\nfellow humans. He is brutalized by incessant toil, he lives amid dirt\nand the filth of animals, he is, in the words of Edwin Markham:\n\n    \"A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,\n     Stunted and stunned, a brother to the ox.\"\n\nHe is a victim of natural forces which he does not understand, and\ninevitably therefore he is superstitious. Being alone, he is helpless\nagainst his masters, and only utter desperation drives him to revolt.\n\nBut consider the capitalist system--how different the conditions of its\nworkers! Here they are gathered into city slums, and their wits are\nsharpened by continual contact with their fellows. The printing press\nmakes cheap the spread of information, and the soap-box makes it even\ncheaper. Any man with a grievance can shout aloud, and be sure of an\naudience to listen, and he can get a great deal said before the company\nwatchman or the policeman can throttle him. Moreover, the modern worker\nis not struggling with drought and tempest and hail; he does not see his\nlabors wiped out by volcanic eruption or lightning stroke; he is dealing\nwith machinery, something that he himself has made, and that he fully\nunderstands. If a machine gets out of order, he does not fall down upon\nhis knees and pray to God to fix it. All the training of his life\nteaches him the relationship of cause and effect, the adjustment of\nmeans to ends. So the modern worker, as a necessary consequence of his\ndaily work, is practical, skeptical, and unsentimental in his\npsychology. And what is more, he is making all the rest of society of\nthe same temperament. He is building roads out into the country, and\nbuilding machines to roll over them; he is running telephone lines and\nsending newspapers and magazines and moving picture shows to the peasant\nand the farmer; so the young peasants and farmers hunger for the city,\nand they learn to fix machinery instead of praying to God.\n\nSuch is the psychology of the modern working class; and the supreme\nachievement of their sharpened wits is an understanding of the\ncapitalist process. As a matter of fact they did not make this discovery\nfor themselves; it was made for them by middle-class men, lawyers and\nteachers and writers--Fourier, Owen, Marx, Lassalle. The modern doctrine\nis called by various names: Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, Bolshevism,\nSyndicalism, Collectivism. Later on I shall define these various terms,\nand point out the distinctions between them. For the moment I emphasize\nthe factor they all have in common, and which is fundamental: they wish\nto break the power of class ownership and control of the instruments and\nmeans of production; they wish to replace private capitalism by some\nsystem under which the instruments and means of production are\ncollectively owned and operated; and they look to the non-owning class,\nthe proletarian, as the motive power by which this change is to be\ncompelled. I shall in future refer to this as the \"social revolutionary\"\ndoctrine; taking pains to explain that the word \"revolutionary\" is to be\ndivested of its popular meaning of physical violence. It is perfectly\nconceivable that the change may be brought about peaceably, and I shall\ntry to show before long that in modern capitalist states the decision as\nto whether it is brought about peaceably or by violence rests with the\npresent masters of industry.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LVI\n\nTHE CAPITALIST PROCESS\n\n     (How profits are made under the present industrial system and what\n     becomes of them.)\n\n\nWe have next to examine the structure of the capitalist order, basing\nour argument on facts which are admitted by everyone, including the most\nardent defenders of the present system.\n\nAll men have to have certain material things which we describe as goods.\nAs these goods do not produce themselves, it is necessary that some\nshould work. The workers must have tools; also they must have access to\nthe land and the sources of raw materials. These means of production are\nowned by some individuals in the community, and this ownership gives\nthem power to direct the work of the rest. Those who own the land and\nthe natural sources of wealth we call capitalists, or business men, and\nthose who do not own these things, or whose share in them is\ninsignificant, are the proletariat, or working class.\n\nIf you state to the average American that there is a capitalist class\nand a proletariat in this country, he will point out that many who are\nnow members of the capitalist class were originally members of the\nproletariat; they have worked hard and saved, and accumulated property.\nBut this is merely confusing the issue. The fact that some proletarians\nturn into capitalists and some capitalists into proletarians is\nimportant to the individuals concerned, but it does not alter the fact\nthat there are two classes, capitalist and proletarian. Consider, by way\nof illustrating, a field with trees growing on it; we have earth, and we\nhave trees, and the distinction between them is unmistakable. The roots\nof the trees go down into the earth, and take up portions of the earth\nand turn it into tree. The leaves and the dead branches fall, and in the\ncourse of time are turned once more to earth. There are all sorts of\nstages between earth and tree, and between tree and earth; but you would\nnot therefore say that the word \"earth\" and the word \"tree\" are\nmisnomers.\n\nThe working men go to the business man and apply for work. The business\nman gives them work, and takes their product, and offers it in the\nmarket at a price which allows him a profit above cost. If he can sell\nat a profit, he repeats the process, and the worker has a job. If he\ncannot sell at a profit, the worker is out of a job. Here and there may\nbe a benevolent business man who, rather than turn his workers out of a\njob, will sell his goods at cost, or even for a short time at a loss;\nbut if he keeps the factory going simply for the benefit of his workers,\nand with no expectation of ever making a profit, that is a form of\ncharity, and not the common system under which our business is now\ncarried on.\n\nSo it appears that the worker is dependent for his wages upon the\nability of the business man to make a profit. The worker's life is\ninextricably bound up with the profit of the capitalist--no profit for\nthe capitalist, no life for the worker. The capitalist, going out to\nlook for markets for his goods, is seeking, not merely profit for\nhimself, but life for his workers.\n\nNow, the business man pays a certain percentage of his total receipts\nfor labor, another percentage for raw materials, another percentage for\nhis overhead charges, and the rest is profit in various forms, rent to\nthe landlord, interest to the bondholder, dividends to the stockholder.\nAll this total sum goes to human individuals, and each has thus a\ncertain amount of money to spend. They pay it over to other individuals\nfor goods or services, and so the money keeps circulating, and business\nkeeps going. That is as deep as the average mind probes into the\nprocess.\n\nBut let us probe a little deeper. It is evident that, in the course of\nall this exchanging of goods, some individuals get a larger share than\nother individuals. Our government collects an income tax, and thus we\nhave statistics representing what people are willing to admit about the\nshare they get. In 1917 it appeared that, speaking roughly, one family\nout of six had an income of over $1,000 a year, and one family out of\ntwelve had an income of over $2,000. But there were 19,000 families\nwhich admitted incomes of over $50,000 a year, and 300 with over\n$1,000,000 a year.\n\nNow the families that get less than a thousand dollars a year obviously\nhave to spend the greater part of their income upon their immediate\nliving expenses. But the families that get $50,000 a year do not need\nto spend everything, and most of them take the greater part of their\nincome and reinvest it--that is, they spend it upon the creating of new\nmachinery of production, railroads, mills, factories, office buildings,\nthe whole elaborate structure of capitalist industry.\n\nExactly what proportion of the total product of industry is thus taken\nand reinvested no one can say; but this we know, our cities are growing\nat an enormous rate, our manufacturing power is increasing by leaps and\nbounds, we are perfecting processes which enable one man to do the work\nof a hundred men, which increase the product of one man's labor a\nhundredfold. All this goes on blindly, automatically; a Niagara of goods\nof all sorts is poured out, and we call it \"prosperity.\"\n\nBut then suddenly a strange and bewildering thing happens. All at once,\nand without warning, orders fall off, values begin to drop, business\ncollapses, factories are shut down, and millions of men are thrown out\nof jobs. Merchants look at one another with blanched faces; each one has\nbeen counting on paying his bills with the profits he was going to make,\nand now his profits are gone, and he can't pay. The newspapers and\nmagazines keep insisting that it can't be true, that business is going\nto revive next week, that prosperity is just ahead. But the factories\nstay shut, and the millions of men stay idle.\n\nThis is the condition in which we find ourselves as I write this book.\nIt has been happening regularly in our history every ten years or so,\never since America started; we have had a hundred years to reflect upon\nit and to probe into the causes of it, and such is business intelligence\nin the most enlightened country in the world, you may search the pages\nof our newspapers from the first column of millionaire divorce suits to\nthe last column of \"situations wanted,\" and nowhere can you find one\nword to explain this mysterious calamity of \"hard times\"--how it comes\nto happen to our social system, or what could be done to prevent it! To\nsupply this deficiency in present day thinking is our next task.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LVII\n\nHARD TIMES\n\n     (Explains why capitalist prosperity is a spasmodic thing, and why\n     abundant production brings distress instead of plenty.)\n\n\nLet us picture a small island inhabited by six men. One of these men\nfishes, another hunts, another gathers cocoanuts, another raises goats\nfor clothing, and so on. The six men among them produce by their labor\nall the necessities of their lives, and they exchange their products\nwith one another. The island is productive, and each of the men is free,\nand makes his exchanges on equal terms; on that basis the industry of\nthe island can continue indefinitely, and there will never be any\ntrouble. There may sometimes be over-production, but it will not cause\nanyone to starve. If the fisherman is unusually lucky one day, he will\nbe able to take a vacation for a few days, living on his fish and the\nproducts he exchanges for his fish. For the sake of convenience in\nfuture reference, I will describe this happy island as a \"free\" society;\nmeaning that each of the members of this society has access on equal\nterms to the sources of wealth, and each owns the product of his own\nlabor, without paying tribute to any one else for the right to labor, or\nto exchange his products.\n\nBut now let us suppose that one of the men on the island is strong and\naggressive; he takes a club and knocks down the other five men, and\ncompels them to sign a piece of paper agreeing that hereafter he is the\npresident of the land development company of the island, the chief\nstockholder in the goat-raising company, and owner of the fishing\nconcession and the cocoanut grove; also, that hereafter goods shall not\nbe bartered in kind, but shall be exchanged for money, and that he is\nthe banker, and also the government, with the right to issue money. In\nthis society you will find that the real work, the actually productive\nwork, is done by five men, instead of by six, and these five do not get\nthe full value of their labor. The fisherman will fish, but his product\nwill no longer belong to himself; he will get part of it as wages, while\nthe \"business man\" takes charge of the balance. So when there is a\nlucky day, there will be prosperity in the fishing industry, but this\nprosperity will not benefit the fisherman; he will have only his wage,\nand when he has caught too many fish, he will not have a few days'\nvacation, but will be out of a job.\n\nAnd exactly the same thing will happen to the goat-herd. He will\nprobably have work all the year round, because goats have to be tended,\nbut he will get barely enough to keep him alive, and the surplus skins\nand milk will go to the owner of the no-longer-happy island. Perhaps it\nwill occur to the owner that the man who raises cocoanuts might also\nkeep an eye on the goats, and so the goat-herd will be permanently out\nof a job, and will turn into what is called a tramp, or vagrant.\nInasmuch as everything to eat on the island belongs to the owner, the\nex-goat-herd will be tempted to become a criminal, and so it will be\nnecessary for the owner to arm the cocoanut man with a club and make him\ninto a policeman; or perhaps he will organize the fisherman and the\nhunter into a militia for the preservation of law and order. They will\nbe glad to serve him, because, owing to the extreme productivity of the\nisland, they will be out of jobs a great part of the time, and but for\nthe generosity of the business man, would have no way of earning a\nliving.\n\nBut suppose that the cocoanut man should invent a machine for gathering\na year's supply of nuts in a week; suppose the fisherman should devise a\nscheme to fill his boat with fish in a few minutes; and suppose that as\na result of these inventions the business man got so rich that he moved\nto Paris, and no longer saw his workers, or even knew their names. Under\nthese conditions you can see that overproduction and unemployment might\nincrease on the island; and also the business man might seem less human\nand lovable to his wage slaves, and might need a larger police force. It\nmight even happen that he would discover the need of a propaganda\ndepartment, in order to keep his police force loyal, and a secret\nservice to make sure that agitators did not get into the schools.\n\nThe five islanders, having filled all the barns and storehouses, would\nbe turned out to starve; and when they asked the reason, they would be\ntold it was because they had produced a surplus of food. This may sound\ngrotesque, but it is what is being said to 5,000,000 men in America as I\nwrite. There are clothing-workers who are going about in rags, and they\nare told it is because they have produced too much clothing. There are\nshoe-workers whose shoes are falling off their feet, and they are told\nit is because they have produced too many shoes. There are carpenters\nwho have no homes, and they are told that a great many homes are needed,\nbut unfortunately it doesn't pay the builders to go ahead just now. This\nmay sound like a caricature, but it happens to be the most prominent\nsingle fact in the consciousness of 5,000,000 Americans at the close of\nthe year 1921. No wonder they are discontented with the present order.\n\nThe solution of the mystery is so simple that the 5,000,000 unemployed\ncannot be kept permanently from understanding it. The reason the five\nmen on the island are starving is because one man owns the island and\nthe others own nothing. If the island were community property, the five\nmen would each own a share of the contents of the barns and storehouses,\nand would not be starving. If the 100,000,000 people of America owned\nthe productive machinery of America, then instantly the unemployment\ncrisis would pass like an evil dream. The farm-workers who need shoes\nwould exchange their food with the starving shoe-workers, and the\nstarving shoe-workers would have jobs. They would want clothing, and so\nthe clothing-makers would start to work; and so on all the way down the\nline. There is only one thing necessary to make this possible, and that\nis the thing which we have agreed to call the social revolution.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LVIII\n\nTHE IRON RING\n\n     (Analyzes further the profit system, which strangles production,\n     and makes true prosperity impossible.)\n\n\nWe have seen that in an exploiting society there is a surplus which is\ntaken by the exploiter; and that under the modern system this surplus\nmust be sold at a profit before production can continue. The vital fact\nin such a society is that the worker has not the money to buy back all\nthat he produces; therefore it is inevitable that a surplus product\nshould accumulate. When this happens, production must be cut down, and\nduring that period the worker is without a job, and without means of\nliving. The fact that he needs the product does not help him; the point\nis that he has not the money to buy it. In such a society the productive\nmachinery is never used to the full. The machinery is controlled by a\nprofit-seeking interest, seeking an opportunity to make sales, and\nrestricting production according to the prospect of sales. So the actual\nproduct bears no relationship to the possible product, and people who\nlive in an exploiting society can form no conception of true prosperity.\n\nFor, you see, the market is limited by the competitive wage system. We\nhave seen that in our own rich, prosperous country only one family out\nof six has more than $1,000 a year income; only one family out of twelve\nhas $2,000 a year. It does not make any difference that the warehouses\nare bursting with goods; a family constitutes a market of so many\ndollars a year, and then, so far as the profit system is concerned, that\nfamily is non-existent; that family stops consuming, and the productive\nmachinery is halted to that extent.\n\nI have been accustomed to portray the profit system under the simile of\nan iron ring riveted about the body of a baby. That ring would cause the\nbaby some discomfort at the beginning, but it would not be serious, and\nthe baby would get used to it. But as the baby grew the trouble caused\nby the ring would increase, and finally there would come a time when\nthe baby would be suffering from a whole complication of troubles, and\nfor each of these troubles there would be but one remedy--break the\nring. Does the baby cry all the time? Break the ring! Is its digestion\ndefective? Break the ring! Is it threatened with convulsions or with\nblood poisoning? Break the ring!\n\nHere is our industrial society, growing at a rate never equalled by any\nhuman baby; and here is this iron ring riveted about its middle. Here is\npoverty, here is unemployment, here is graft, here is crime, here is war\nand plague and famine; and for all these evils there is but one cause,\nand but one remedy. Break the ring! Set production free from the\nstrangulation of the profit system.\n\nI will admit that there may have been a time in the history of the\nsocial infant when this ring was necessary. I admit that if the great\nindustrial machine was to be constructed, it was necessary that the mass\nof the people should consume only part of what they produced, and should\nallow the balance to be reinvested as capital. But now it has been done,\nand the process is complete. We have a machine capable of producing many\ntimes more than we can consume; shall we still go on building that\nmachine? Shall we go on starving ourselves, to save the money, to\nmultiply over and over again the products, in order that we may be\nthrown out of work, and be starved even more completely?\n\nA few generations ago we had in colonial America a society that in part\nat least was \"free.\" In that society everybody got the necessities of\nlife. They did not have the modern Sunday supplement and the moving\npicture show, but they had bread and meat and good substantial clothing,\nand furniture so well made that we still preserve it. The children in\nthose days grew up to be strong and sturdy men and women, who would have\nseen nothing to envy in the bodies or minds of the slum population of\nNew York and Chicago. In short, they had all the true necessities of\nlife; and yet their work was done by hand, the power process was unknown\nand undreamed of.\n\nNow comes modern machinery, and multiplies the productive power of the\nhand laborer by five, by ten, sometimes by a hundred. Here, for example,\nis the \"Appeal to Reason\" selling millions of cheap books for ten cents\napiece, and making a profit on it; installing a gigantic press which\ntakes paper, sheet after sheet, prints 128 pages of a book at one\nimpression, and folds and stitches and binds the books, all in one\nprocess, and turns them out complete at the rate of 10,000 copies per\nhour. Here is a factory which turns out 100,000 automobiles a month.\nHere is a mill which turns out many millions of yards of cloth a month.\nIf our colonial ancestors had been told about these marvels, they would\nhave said instantly: \"Then, of course, everybody in that society will\nhave all the books they want, and all the clothing they want, and all\nthe automobiles. Everybody in that society will have five or ten or one\nhundred times as much goods as we have.\"\n\nImagine the bewilderment of our colonial ancestor if he had been told:\n\"The majority of the people in that society will not have so much of the\nreal necessities of life as you have. They will have a few cheap\ntrinkets, designed to tickle their senses; they will have cheap\nnewspapers, carefully contrived to keep their minds vacant and to keep\nthem contented with their lot; they will have moving picture shows\nconstructed for the same purpose; but all their material things will be\nflimsy, put together for show and not for permanence; their food will be\nadulterated, their clothing will be shoddy, everything they have will be\nmade, not for their service, but for the profit of some one who lives by\nselling to them. The average wage earned by those who do the work of\nthis new machine civilization will be less than half the amount\nnecessary to purchase the necessities of a decent life, and one-tenth of\nthe total population will be living in such poverty that they are unable\nto maintain physical fitness, or to rear their children into full sized\nmen and women.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LIX\n\nFOREIGN MARKETS\n\n     (Considers the efforts of capitalism to save itself by marketing\n     its surplus products abroad, and what results from these efforts.)\n\n\nIf our analysis of present-day society is correct, we have the enormous\npopulations of the modern industrial countries, living always on the\nverge of starvation, their chance for survival depending at all times\nupon the ability of their employers to find a profitable market for a\nsurplus of goods. At first the employer seeks that market at home; but\nwhen the home markets are glutted, he goes abroad; and so develops the\nphenomenon of foreign trade and rivalry for foreign trade, as the basic\nfact of capitalism, and the fundamental cause of modern war.\n\nLet us get clear a simple distinction concerning foreign trade. There is\na kind of trade which is normal, and would thrive in a \"free\" society.\nIn the United States we can produce nearly all the necessities of life,\nbut there are a few which we cannot produce--rubber, for example, and\nbananas, and good music. These things we wish to import. We buy them\nfrom other countries, and incur a debt, which we pay with products which\nthe other countries need from us; wheat, for example, and copper, and\nmoving pictures with cowboys in them. This is equal exchange, and a\nnatural phenomenon. A \"free\" society would produce such surplus goods as\nwere necessary to procure the foreign products that it desired. When it\nhad produced that much, the workers would stop and take a vacation until\nthey wanted more foreign products.\n\nBut under capitalism we have an entirely different condition--we produce\na surplus of goods which we _have_ to sell in order to keep our\nfactories running, and to keep our working population from starving. And\nnote that it does not help us to get back an equal quantity of foreign\ngoods in exchange. We must have what we call \"a favorable balance\"; that\nis, we must have other people going into debt to us, so that we can be\ncontinually shipping out more goods than we take back; continually\npiling up credits which we can \"negotiate,\" or turn into cash, so that\nwe can go on and repeat the process of making more goods, selling them\nfor more profits, and putting the surplus into the form of more\nmachinery, to make still more goods and still more profits.\n\nAnd then, after a while, we come upon this embarrassing phenomenon;\nnations which buy and do not sell must either do it by sending us gold,\nor by our giving them credit. The sending of gold cannot go on\nindefinitely, because then we should have all the gold, and if other\nnations had none that would destroy their credit. On the other hand,\nbusiness cannot be done by credit indefinitely; for the very essence of\ncredit is a promise to pay, and payment can only be made in goods, and\nhow can we take the goods without ruining our own industry?\n\nFifteen years ago I pointed this out in a book. The argument was\nirrefutable, and the conclusion inescapable, but the few critics who\nnoted it repeated their usual formula about \"dreamers and theorists.\"\nNow, however, the business mills have ground on, and what was theory has\nbecome fact before our eyes. We have trusted the nations of Europe for\nsome $10,000,000,000 worth of goods, and they are powerless to pay, and\nif they did pay, they would bankrupt American industry. France wishes to\ncollect an enormous indemnity from Germany, but nobody can figure out\nhow this indemnity can be paid without ruining French industry. The\nFrench have demanded coal from Germany, and have got more than they can\nuse, and are \"dumping\" it in Belgium and Holland, with the result that\nthe British coal industry is ruined. The French clamor that the Germans\nmust pay for the destruction they wrought in Northern France, and the\nGermans offer to send German workmen to rebuild the ruined towns; but\nthe French denounce this as an insult--it would deprive French\nworkingmen of their jobs! So I might continue for pages, pointing out\nthe manifold absurdities which result from a system of industry for the\nprofit of a few, instead of for the use of all.\n\nEver since I first began to read the newspapers, some twenty-five or\nthirty years ago, all our political life has been nothing but the\nconvulsions of a social body tortured by the constricting ring of the\nprofit system. Everywhere one group struggling for advantage over\nanother group, and politicians engaged in playing one interest against\nanother interest! My boyhood recollections of public life consist of\ncampaign slogans having to do with the tariff: \"production and\nprosperity,\" \"reciprocity,\" \"the full dinner pail,\" \"the foreigner pays\nthe tax,\" etc.\n\nThe workingman, under the profit system, is like a man pounding away at\na pump. He can get a thin trickle of water from the spout of the pump if\nhe works hard enough, but in order to get it he has to supply ten times\nas much to some one who has tapped the pipe. But the tapping has been\ndone underground, where the workingman cannot see it. All the workingman\nknows is that there is no job for him if the products of \"cheap foreign\nlabor\" are allowed to be \"dumped\" on the American market. That is\nobvious, and so he votes for a tax on foreign imports, high enough to\nenable his own employer to market at a profit. He does not realize that\nhe is thus raising the price of everything that he buys, and so leaving\nhimself worse off than he was before.\n\nAll governments are delighted with this tariff device, because they are\nthus enabled to get money from the public without the public's knowing\nit. \"The foreigner pays the tax,\" we are told, and as a result of this\narrangement the steel trust just before the war was selling its product\nat a high price to the American people, and taking its surplus abroad\nand selling it to the foreigner at half the domestic price. And we see\nthis same thing in every line of manufacture, and all over the world. We\nsee one nation after another withdrawing itself as a market for\nmanufactured products, and entering the lists as a marketer. One more\nnation now able to fill all its own needs, and going out hungrily to\nlook for foreign customers, adding to the glut of the world's\nmanufactured products and the ferocity of international competition!\n\nAt the close of the Civil War the total exports of the United States\naveraged approximately $300,000,000, and the total imports were about\nthe same. In 1892 the exports first touched $1,000,000,000, while the\nimports were about nine-tenths of that sum. In the year 1913 the exports\nwere nearly $2,500,000,000, while the imports were $600,000,000 less;\nand in the year 1920 our exports were over $8,000,000,000 and our\nimports a little over $5,000,000,000! So we have a \"favorable balance\"\nof almost $3,000,000,000 a year--and as a result we are on the verge of\nruin!\n\nThis \"iron ring\" of overproduction and lack of market exercises upon our\nindustrial body a steady pressure, a slow strangling. But because the\nbody is in convulsions, struggling to break the ring, the pressure of\nthe ring is worse at some times than at others. We have periods of what\nwe call \"prosperity,\" followed by periods of panic and hard times. You\nmust understand that only a small part of our business is done by means\nof cash payments, whether in gold or silver or paper money. Close to 99%\nof our business is done by means of credit, and this introduces into the\nprocess a psychological factor. The business man expects certain\nprofits, and he capitalizes these expectations. Business booms, because\neverybody believes everybody else's promises; credit expands like a huge\nballoon, with the breath of everybody's enthusiasm. But meantime real\nbusiness, the real market, remains just what it was before; it cannot\nincrease, because of the iron ring which restricts the buying power of\nthe mass of the people by the competitive wage. So presently the time\ncomes when somebody realizes that he has over-capitalized his hopes; he\ncurtails his orders, he calls in his money, and the impulse thus started\nprecipitates a crash in the whole business world. We had such a crash in\n1907, and I remember a Wall Street man explaining it in a magazine\narticle entitled, \"Somebody Asked for a Dollar.\"\n\nWe learned one lesson by that panic; at least, the big financial men\nlearned it, and had Congress pass what is called the \"Federal Reserve\nAct,\" a provision whereby in time of need the government issues\npractically unlimited credit to banks. This, of course, is fine for the\nbanks; it puts the credit of everybody else behind them, and all they\nhave to do is to stop lending money--except to the big insiders--and sit\nback and wait, while the little men go to the wall, and the mass of us\nlive on our savings or starve. We saw this happen in the year 1920, and\nfor the first time we had \"hard times\" without having a financial panic.\nBut instead we see prices staying high--because the banks have issued so\nmuch paper money and bank credits.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LX\n\nCAPITALIST WAR\n\n     (Shows how the competition for foreign markets leads nations\n     automatically into war.)\n\n\nIn a discussion of the world's economic situation, published in 1906,\nthe writer portrayed the ruling class of Germany as sitting in front of\na thermometer, watching the mercury rising, and knowing that when it\nreached the top, the thermometer would break. This thermometer was the\nGerman class system of government, and the mercury was the Socialist\nvote. In 1870 the vote was 30,000, in 1884 it was 549,000, in 1893 it\nwas 1,876,000, in 1903 it was 3,008,000, in 1907 it was 3,250,000, in\n1911 it was 4,250,000. Writing between 1906 and 1913, I again and again\npointed out that this increase was the symptom of social discontent in\nGermany, caused by the overproduction of invested capital throughout the\nworld, and the intensification of the competition for world markets. I\npointed out that a slight increase in the vote would be sufficient to\ntransfer to the working class of Germany the political power of the\nGerman state; and I said that the ruling class of Germany would never\npermit that to happen--when it was ready to happen Germany would go to\nwar, to seize the trade privileges of some other nation.\n\nThere was a time when wars were caused by national and racial hatreds.\nThere are still enough of these venerable prejudices left in the world,\nbut no student of the subject would deny that the main source of modern\nwars is commercial rivalry. In 1917 we sent Eugene V. Debs to prison for\ndeclaring that the late world war was a war of capitalist greed. But two\nyears later President Wilson, who had waged the war, declared in a\npublic speech that everybody knew it had been a war of commercial\nrivalries.\n\nThe aims of modern war-makers are two. First, capitalism must have raw\nmaterials, including coal and oil, the sources of power, and gold and\nsilver, the bases of credit. Parts of the world which are so unfortunate\nas to be rich in these substances become the bone of contention between\nrival financial groups, organized as nations. Some sarcastic writer has\ndefined a \"backward\" nation as one which has gold mines and no navy. We\nare horrified to read of the wars of the French monarchs, caused by the\njealous quarrels of mistresses; but in 1905 we saw Russia and Japan go\nto war and waste a million lives because certain Russian grand dukes had\nbribed certain Chinese mandarins and obtained concessions of timber on\nthe Yalu River. We now observe France and Germany vowed to undying hate\nbecause of iron mines in Lorraine, and the efforts of France to take the\ncoal mines of Silesia from Germany, and give them to Poland, which is\nanother name for French capitalism.\n\nThe other end sought by the war-makers is markets for manufactured\nproducts, and control of trade routes, coaling stations and cables\nnecessary to the building up of foreign trade. England has been\n\"mistress of the seas\" for some 300 years, which meant that her traders\nhad obtained most of these advantages. But then came Germany, with her\nnewly developed commercialism, shoving her rival out of the way. The\nEnglishman was easy-going; he liked to play cricket, and stop and drink\ntea every afternoon. But the German worked all day and part of the\nnight; he trained himself as a specialist, he studied the needs of his\ncustomers--all of which to the Englishman was \"unfair\" competition. But\nhere were the populations of the crowded slums, dependent for their\nweekly wage and their daily bread upon the ability of the factories to\ngo on turning out products! Here was the ever-blackening shadow of\nunemployment, the mutterings of social discontent, the agitators on the\nsoap-boxes, the workers listening to them with more and more eager\nattention, and the journalists and politicians and bankers watching this\nphenomenon with a ghastly fear.\n\nSo came the great war. Social discontent was forgotten over night, and\nEngland and France plunged in to down their hated rival, once and for\nall time. Now they have succeeded: Germany's ships have been taken from\nher, and likewise her cables and coaling stations; the Berlin-Bagdad\nRailroad is a forgotten dream; the British sit in Constantinople, and\nthe traffic goes by sea. American capitalism wakes up, and rubs its eyes\nafter a debauch of Presbyterian idealism, and discovers that it has paid\nout some $20,000,000,000, in order to confer all these privileges and\nadvantages upon its rivals!\n\nEver since I can remember the world, there have been peace societies; I\nlook back in history and discover that ever since there have been wars,\nthere have been prophets declaiming against them in the name of\nhumanity and God. As I write, there is a great world conference on\ndisarmament in session in Washington, and all good Americans hope that\nwar is to be ended and permanent peace made safe. All that I can do at\nthis juncture is to point out the fundamental and all-controlling fact\nof present-day economics: that for the ruling class of any country to\nagree to disarmament and the abolition of war, is for that class to sign\nits own death warrant and cut its own throat. American capitalism can\nsurvive on this earth only by strangling and destroying Japanese\ncapitalism and British capitalism, and doing it before long. The\nfar-sighted capitalists on both sides know that, and are making their\npreparations accordingly.\n\nWhat the members of the peace societies and the diplomats of the\ndisarmament conferences do is to cut off the branches of the tree of\nwar. They leave the roots untouched, and then, when the tree continues\nto thrive, they are astounded. I conclude this chapter with a concrete\nillustration, cut from my morning newspaper. We went to war against\nGerman militarism, and to make the world safe for democracy--meaning\nthereby capitalist commercialism. We commanded the German people to\n\"beat their swords into plough-shares\"; that is, to set their Krupp\nfactories to making tools of peace; and they did so. We saddled them\nwith an enormous indemnity, making them our serfs for a generation or\ntwo, and compelling them to hasten out into the world markets, to sell\ntheir goods and raise gold to pay us. And now, how does their behavior\nstrike us? Do we praise their industry, and fidelity to their\nobligations? Here are the headlines of a news despatch, published by the\nLos Angeles Times on December 10, 1921, at the top of the front page,\nright hand column, the most conspicuous position in the paper. Read it,\nand understand the sources of modern war!\n\n       _NEW ATTACK BY BERLIN_\n\n  *       *       *       *       *\n\n     DUMPING GOODS BY WHOLESALE\n\n  *       *       *       *       *\n\nCheap German Trash Puts Thousands of Americans Out of Employment\n\n  *       *       *       *       *\n\n Glove Plants Shut Down and Potash Industry Killed\n        by Teuton Intrigue\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXI\n\nTHE POSSIBILITIES OF PRODUCTION\n\n     (Shows how much wealth we could produce if we tried, and how we\n     proved it when we had to.)\n\n\nOne of the commonest arguments in defense of the present business system\nruns as follows: The amount of money which is paid to labor is greatly\nin excess of the amount which is paid to capital. Suppose that tomorrow\nyou were to abolish all dividends and profits, and divide the money up\namong the wage workers, how much would each one get? The sum is figured\nfor some big industry, and it is shown that each worker would get one or\ntwo hundred dollars additional per year. Obviously, this would not bring\nthe millennium; it would hardly be worth while to take the risk of\nreducing production in order to gain so small a result.\n\nBut now we are in position to realize the fallacy of such an argument.\nThe tax which capital levies upon labor is not the amount which capital\ntakes for itself, but the amount which it prevents labor from producing.\nThe real injury of the profit system is not that it pays so large a\nreward to a ruling class; it is the \"iron ring\" which it fastens about\nindustry, barring the workers from access to the machinery of production\nexcept when the product can be sold for a profit. Labor pays an enormous\nreward to the business man for his management of industry, but it would\npay labor to reward the business man even more highly, if only he would\ntake his goods in kind, and would permit labor, after this tax is paid,\nto go on making those things which labor itself so desperately needs.\n\nBut, you see, the business man does not take his goods in kind. The\nowner of a great automobile factory may make for himself one automobile\nor a score of automobiles, but he quickly comes to a limit where he has\nno use for any more, and what he wants is to sell automobiles and \"make\nmoney.\" He does not permit his workers to make automobiles for\nthemselves, or for any one else. He reserves the product of the factory\nfor himself, and when he can no longer sell automobiles at a profit, he\nshuts the workers out and automobile-making comes to an end in that\ncommunity. Thus it appears that the \"iron ring\" which strangles the\nincome of labor, strangles equally the income of capital. It paralyzes\nthe whole social body, and so limits production that we can form no\nconception of what prosperity might and ought to be.\n\nConsider the situation before the war. We were all of us at work under\nthe competitive system, and with the exception of a few parasites,\neverybody was occupied pretty close to the limit of his energy. If any\none had said that it would be possible for our community to pitch in and\ndouble or treble our output, you would have laughed at him. But suddenly\nwe found ourselves at war, and in need of a great increase in output,\nand we resolved one and all to achieve this end. We did not waste any\ntime in theoretical discussions about the rights of private capital, or\nthe dangers of bureaucracy and the destruction of initiative. Our\ngovernment stepped in and took control; it took the railroads and\nsystematized them, it took the big factories and told them exactly what\nto make, it took the raw materials and allotted them, where they were\nneeded, it fixed the prices of labor, and ordered millions of men to\nthis or that place, to this or that occupation. It even seized the\nfoodstuffs and directed what people should eat. In a thousand ways it\nsuppressed competition and replaced it by order and system. And what was\nthe result?\n\nWe took five million of our young men, the very cream of our industrial\nforce, and withdrew them from all productive activities; we put them\ninto uniforms, and put them through a training which meant that they\nwere eating more food and wearing more clothing and consuming more goods\nthan nine-tenths of them had ever done in their lives before. We built\ncamps for them, and supplied them with all kinds of costly products of\nlabor, such as guns and cartridges, automobiles and airplanes. We\ntreated two million of them to an expensive trip to Europe, and there we\nset them to work burning up and destroying the products of industry, to\nthe value of many billions of dollars. And not only did we supply our\nown armies, we supplied the armies of all our allies. We built millions\nof dollars worth of ships, and we sent over to Europe, whether by\nprivate business or by government loans, some $10,000,000,000 worth of\ngoods--more than ten years of our exports before the war.\n\nAll the labor necessary to produce all this wealth had to be withdrawn\nfrom industry, so far as concerned our domestic uses and needs. It would\nnot be too much to say that from domestic industry we withdrew a total\nof ten million of our most capable labor force. I think it would be\nreasonable to say that two-thirds of our productive energies went to war\npurposes, and only one-third was available for home use. And yet, we did\nit without a particle of real suffering. Many of us worked hard, but few\nof us worked harder than usual. Most of us got along with less wheat and\nsugar, but nobody starved, nobody really suffered ill health, and our\npoor made higher wages and had better food than ever in their lives\nbefore. If this argument is sound, it proves that our productive\nmachinery is capable, when properly organized and directed, of producing\nthree times the common necessities of our population. Assuming that our\naverage working day is nine hours, we could produce what we at present\nconsume by three hours of intelligently directed work per day.\n\nLet us look at the matter from another angle. Just at present the hero\nof the American business man is Herbert Hoover; and Mr. Hoover recently\nappointed a committee, not of Socialists and \"Utopians,\" but of\nengineering experts, to make a study of American productive methods. The\nreport showed that American industry was only thirty-five or forty per\ncent efficient. Incidentally, this \"Committee on Waste\" assessed, in the\ncase of the building industry, sixty-five per cent of the blame against\nmanagement and only twenty-one per cent against labor; in six\nfundamental industries it assessed fifty per cent of the blame against\nmanagement and less than twenty-five per cent against labor. Fifteen\nyears ago a professor of engineering, Sidney A. Reeve by name, made an\nelaborate study of the wastes involved in our haphazard and planless\nindustrial methods, and embodied his findings in a book, \"The Cost of\nCompetition.\" His conclusion was that of the total amount of energy\nexpended in America, more than seventy per cent was wasted. We were\ndoing one hundred per cent of work and getting thirty per cent of\nresults. If we would get one hundred per cent of results, we should\nproduce three and one-third times as much wealth, and the income of our\nworkers would be increased one or two thousand dollars a year.\n\nRobert Blatchford in his book, \"Merrie England,\" has a saying to the\neffect that it makes all the difference, when half a dozen men go out to\ncatch a horse, whether they spend their time catching the horse or\nkeeping one another from catching the horse. Our next task will be to\npoint out a few of the ways in which good, honest American business men\nand workingmen, laboring as intelligently and conscientiously as they\nknow how, waste their energies in keeping one another from producing\ngoods.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXII\n\nTHE COST OF COMPETITION\n\n     (Discusses the losses of friction in our productive machine, those\n     which are obvious and those which are hidden.)\n\n\nThe United States government is by far the largest single business\nenterprise in the United States; and a study of congressional\nappropriations in 1920, made by the United States Bureau of Standards,\nreveals the fact that ninety-three per cent of the total income of the\ngovernment went to paying for past wars or preparing for future wars. We\nhave shown that modern war is a product of the profit system, and if\ncivilized nations would put their industry upon a co-operative basis,\nthey could forget the very idea of war, and we should then receive\nfourteen times as much benefit from our government as we receive at\npresent; we should have fourteen times as good roads, fourteen times as\nmany schools, fourteen times as prompt a postoffice and fourteen times\nas efficient a Congress. What it would mean to industry to abolish war\nis something wholly beyond the power of our imagination to conceive; for\nalong with ninety-three per cent of our government money there goes into\nmilitary preparation the vast bulk of our intellectual energy and\ninventive genius, our moral and emotional equipment.\n\nNext, strikes and the losses incidental to strikes, and the costs of\npreparing against strikes. This includes, not merely the actual loss of\nworking time, it includes police and militia, private armies of gunmen,\nand great secret service agencies, whose total income runs up into\nhundreds of millions of dollars per year. Industrial warfare is simply\nthe method by which capitalists and workers determine the division of\nthe product of industry; as if two men should co-operate in raising\npoultry, and then fall to quarrelling over the ownership of the eggs,\nand settle the matter by throwing the eggs at each other's heads.\n\nNext, bankruptcy. Statistics show that regularly some ten per cent of\nour business enterprises fail every year. Take any block occupied by\nlittle business men, grocers and haberdashers and \"notions,\" and you\nwill see that they are always changing. Each change represents a human\ntragedy, and the total is a frightful waste of human energy; it happens\nbecause we can think of no better way to distribute goods than to go\nthrough the work of setting up a business, and then discover that it\ncannot succeed because the neighborhood is already overstocked with that\nkind of goods.\n\nNext, fires which are a result of bankruptcy. You may laugh, perhaps,\nthinking that I am making a joke; but every little man who fails in\nbusiness knows that he has a choice of going down in the social scale,\nor of setting fire to his stock some night, and having a big insurance\ncompany set him on his feet again. The result is that a certain\npercentage of bankrupts do regularly set fire to their stores. Some\nfifteen years ago there was published in \"Collier's Weekly\" a study of\nthe costs to society of incendiary fires. The Fire Underwriters'\nAssociation estimated the amount as a quarter of a billion dollars a\nyear; and all this cost, you understand, is paid out of the pockets of\nthose who insure their homes and their stores, and do not burn them\ndown.\n\nFrom this follows the costs of insurance, and the whole insurance\nindustry, which is inevitable under the profit system, but is entire\nwaste so far as true production is concerned. Big enterprises like the\nSteel Trust do not carry insurance, and neither does the United States\nPostoffice. They are wealthy enough to stand their own losses. A\nnational co-operative enterprise would be in the same position, and the\nwhole business of collecting money for insurance and keeping records and\ncarrying on lawsuits would be forgotten.\n\nNext, advertising. It would be no exaggeration to say that seventy per\ncent of the material published in American newspapers and magazines\ntoday is pure waste; and therefore seventy per cent of the labor of all\nthe people who cut down forests and manufacture and transport paper and\nset up type and print and distribute publications is wasted. There is,\nof course, a small percentage of advertising that is useful, but most of\nit is boasting and falsehood, and even where it tells the truth it\nsimply represents the effort of a merchant to persuade you to buy in his\nstore instead of in a rival store--an achievement which is profitable to\nthe merchant, but utterly useless to society as a whole.\n\nThis same statement applies to all traveling salesmen, and to a great\npercentage of middlemen. It applies also to a great part of delivery\nservice. If you live in a crowded part of any city, you see a dozen milk\nwagons pass your door every morning, doing the work which could be done\nexactly as well by one. That is only one case out of a thousand I might\nname.\n\nNext, crime. I have already discussed the crime of arson, and I might\ndiscuss the crimes of pocket-picking, burglary, forgery, and a hundred\nothers in the same way. I am aware of the fact that there may be a few\nborn criminals; there may be a few congenital cheats, whom we should\nhave to put in hospitals. But we have only to consult the crime records,\nduring the war and after the war, in order to see that when jobs are\nhunting men there are few criminals, and when men are hunting jobs there\nare many criminals. I have no figures as to the cost of administering\njustice in the United States--policemen, courts and jails--but it must\nbe hundreds of millions of dollars every year.\n\nI have discussed at great length the suppression of the productive power\nof society. I should not fail to mention the suppression of the\ninventive power of society, a factor less obvious, but probably in the\nlong run even greater. Every one familiar with the inside of a big\nindustry knows that hundreds and even thousands of useful processes are\nentirely suppressed, because it would not pay one particular concern to\nstand the expense of the changes involved. You know how, during the war,\nour government brought all the makers of engines together and perfected\nin triumph a \"Liberty motor.\" But now we have gone back to private\ninterest and competition, and each concern is jealously engaged in\nguarding its own secrets, and depriving industry as a whole of the\nbenefit of everything that it learns. Each is spying upon the others,\nstealing the secrets of the others, stealing likewise from those who\ninvent new ideas--and thus discouraging them from inventing any more.\n\nI use this word \"discourage,\" and I might write a chapter upon it. What\nhuman imagination can conceive the amount of social energy that is lost\nbecause of the factor of discouragement, directly caused by the\ncompetitive method? Who can figure what it means to human society that a\ngreat percentage of the people in it should be haunted by fear of one\nsort or another--the poor in fear of unemployment, sickness and\nstarvation, the little business man in fear of bankruptcy and suicide,\nthe big business man in fear of hard times and treachery of his\ncompetitors, the idle rich in fear of robbery and blackmail, and the\nwhole community in fear of foreign war and domestic tumult!\n\nAnyone might go on and elaborate these factors that I have named, and\nthink of scores of others. Anyone familiar with business life or with\nindustrial processes would be able to put his finger on this or that\nenormous saving which he would be able to make if he and all his rivals\ncould combine and come to an agreement. This has been proven over and\nover again in large-scale industry; it is the fact which has made of\nlarge-scale industry an overwhelming power, sucking all the profits to\nitself, reaching out and taking in new fields of human activity, and\nsetting at naught all popular clamor and even legal terrors. How can\nanyone, seeing these facts, bring himself to deny that if we did\nsystematize production and make it one enterprise, precisely adapted to\none end, we should enormously increase the results of human labor, and\nthe benefit to all who do the world's work?\n\nA good deal of this waste we can stop when we get ready, and other parts\nof it our bountiful mother nature will replace. When in a world war we\nkill some ten or twenty millions of the flower of our young manhood, we\nhave only to wait several generations, and our race will be as good as\never. But, on the other hand, there is some waste that can never be\nrepaired, and this is the thing truly frightful to contemplate. When we\ndig the iron ore out of the bowels of the earth and rust it away in\nwars, we are doing something our race can never undo. And the same is\ntrue of many of our precious substances: phosphorus, sulphur, potash.\nWhen we cut down the forests from our mountain slopes, and lay bare the\nearth, we not merely cause floods and washouts, and silt up our harbors,\nwe take away from the surface of our land the precious life-giving soil,\nand make a habitable land into a desert, which no irrigating and\nreforesting can ever completely restore. The Chinese have done that for\nmany centuries, and we are following in their footsteps; more than six\nhundred million wagon-loads of our best soil are washed down to the sea\nevery year! If you wish to know about these matters, I send you to a\nbook, \"On Board the Good Ship Earth,\" by Herbert Quick. It is one of the\nmost heart-breaking books you ever read, yet it is merely a quiet\nstatement of the facts about our present commercial anarchy.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXIII\n\nSOCIALISM AND SYNDICALISM\n\n     (Discusses the idea of the management of industry by the state, and\n     the idea of its management by the trade unions.)\n\n\nLet us now assume that we desire to abolish the wastes of the\ncompetitive method, and to put our industry on a basis of co-operation.\nHow should we effect the change, and how should we run our industry\nafter it was done?\n\nLet us take the United States Steel Corporation. What change would be\nnecessary to the socializing of this concern? United States Steel is\nowned by a group of stockholders, and governed by a board of directors\nelected by them. The owners are now to be bought out with government\nbonds, and the board of directors retired. It may also be necessary to\nreplace a certain number of the higher executive officials, who are\nimbued entirely with the point of view of this board, and have to do\nwith finance, rather than with production. Of course, some other\ngoverning authority would have to be put in control. What would this\nauthority be? There are several plans before the world, several\ndifferent schools of thought, which we shall consider one by one.\n\nFirst, the Socialist program. The Socialist says, \"Consider the\npostoffice, how that is run. It is run by the President, who appoints a\nPostmaster-General as his executive. Let us therefore turn the steel\nindustry over to the government, and let the President appoint another\nmember of his cabinet, a Director of Steel; or let there be a\ncommission, similar to the Interstate Commerce Commission, or the\nvarious war industry boards.\" Any form of management of the steel\nindustry which provides for its control and operation by our United\nStates government is Socialism of one sort or another.\n\nThere has been, of late, a great deal of dissatisfaction with\ngovernment, on the part of the general public, and also of labor. The\npostoffice clerks, for example, complain that they are inadequately paid\nand autocratically managed, deprived of their rights not merely as\nworkers but as citizens. The steel workers complain that when they go on\nstrike against their masters, the government sends in troops and\ncrushes their strike, regardless of the rights or wrongs of it. In order\nto meet such tactics, labor goes into politics, and elects here and\nthere its own representatives; but these representatives become\nmysteriously affected by the bureaucratic point of view, and even where\nthey try hard, they do not accomplish much for labor. Therefore, labor\nbecomes disgusted with the political process, and labor men do not\nwelcome the prospect of being managed by government.\n\nIf you ask such men, they will say: \"No; the politicians don't know\nanything about industry, and can't learn. The people who know about\nindustry are those who work in it. The true way to run an industry is\nthrough an organization of the workers, both of hand and brain. The true\nway to run the Steel Trust is for all the workers in it, men and women,\nhigh and low, to be recognized by law as citizens of that industry; each\nshop must elect its own delegates to run that shop, and elect a delegate\nto a central parliament of the industry, and this industry in turn must\nelect delegates to a great parliament or convention of all the delegates\nof all the industries. In such a central gathering every one would be\nrepresented, because every person would be a producer of some sort, and\nwhether he was a steel worker or a street sweeper or a newsboy, he would\nhave a vote at the place where he earns his living, and would have a say\nin the management of his job. The great central parliament would elect\nan executive committee and a president, and so we should have a\ngovernment of the workers, by the workers, for the workers.\" This idea\nis known as Syndicalism, derived from the French word \"syndicat,\"\nmeaning a labor union. Since the Russian revolution it has come to be\nknown as soviet government, \"soviet\" being the Russian word for trade\ncouncil.\n\nNow, taking these two ideas of Socialism and Syndicalism, it is evident\nthat they may be combined in various ways, and applied in varying\ndegrees. It is perfectly conceivable, for example, that the people of\nthe United States might elect a president pledged to call a parliament\nof industry, and to delegate the control of industry to this parliament.\nHe might delegate the control to a certain extent, and provide for its\nextension, step by step; so our society might move into Syndicalism by\nthe way of Socialism. You have only to put your mind on the\npossibilities of the situation to realize that one method shades into\nthe other with a great variety of stages.\n\nConsider next the stages between capitalism and Socialism. We have in\nthe United States some industries which are purely capitalistic; for\nexample, the Steel Trust, which is privately owned, and has been\npowerful enough, not merely to suppress every effort of its workers to\norganize, but every effort of the government to regulate it. On the\nother hand, the United States Postoffice represents State Socialism;\nalthough the workers have been forbidden to organize, and the management\nof the industry is so arbitrary that I have always preferred to call it\nState Capitalism. Likewise the United States army and navy represent\nState Socialism. When we had the job of putting the Kaiser out of\nbusiness, we did not hire Mr. Rockefeller to do it; it never once\noccurred to our advocates of \"individualism,\" of \"capitalist enterprise\nand initiative,\" to suggest that we should hire out our army and navy,\nor employ the Steel Trust or the Powder Trust to organize its own army\nand navy to do the fighting for us. Likewise, for the most part, we run\nthe job of educating our children by the method of municipal Socialism.\nWe run our libraries in the same way, and likewise our job of fire\nprotection.\n\nIt is interesting to note how in every country the line between\ncapitalism and Socialism is drawn in a different place. In America we\nrun practically all our libraries for ourselves, but it would seem to us\npreposterous to think of running our theatres. In Europe, however, they\nhave state-owned theatres, which set a far higher standard of art than\nanything we know at home. Also, they have state-owned orchestras and\nopera-houses, something we Americans leave to the subscriptions of\nmillionaires. In Europe it seems perfectly natural to the people that\nthe state should handle their telegrams in connection with the\npostoffice; but if you urge government ownership of the telegraphs in\nthe United States, they tell you that the proposition is \"socialistic,\"\nand that saves the need of thinking about it. We take it for granted\nthat our cities could run the libraries--even though we were glad when\nCarnegie came along and saved us the need of appropriating money for\nbuildings. Just why a city should be able to run a library, and should\nnot be able to run an opera-house, or a newspaper, is something which\nhas never been made clear to me.\n\nLet us next examine the stages between capitalism and Syndicalism. A\ngreat many large corporations are making experiments in what they call\n\"shop management,\" allowing the workers membership in the boards of\ndirectors and a voice in the conditions of their labor. This is\nSyndicalism so far as it goes. Likewise it is Syndicalism when the\nclothing workers and the clothing manufacturers meet together and agree\nto the setting up of a permanent committee to work out a set of rules\nfor the conduct of the industry, and to fix wages from time to time.\nObviously, these things are capable of indefinite extension, and in\nEurope they are being developed far more rapidly. For example, in Italy\nthe agricultural workers are organized, and are gradually taking\npossession of the great estates, which are owned by absentee landlords.\nThey wage war upon these estates by means of sabotage and strikes, and\nthen they buy up the estates at bargain prices and develop them by\nco-operative labor. This has been going on in Italy for ten years, and\nhas become the most significant movement in the country. It is a triumph\nof pure Syndicalism; and such is the power of pure capitalism in the\nUnited States that the American people have not been allowed to know\nanything about this change.\n\nNext, what are the stages between Socialism and Syndicalism? These also\nare infinite in number and variety. As a matter of fact, there are very\nfew Socialists who advocate State Socialism without any admixture of\nSyndicalism. The regular formula of the Socialist party is \"the social\nownership and democratic control of the instruments and means of\nproduction;\" and what the phrase \"democratic control\" means is simply\nthat you introduce into your Socialist mixture a certain flavoring of\nSyndicalism, greater or less, according to your temperament. In the same\nway there are many Syndicalists who are inclined toward Socialism. In\nevery convention of radical trade unionists, such as, for example, the\nI. W. W., you find some who favor political action, and these will have\nthe same point of view as the more radical members of the Socialist\nparty, who urge a program of industrial as well as political action.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXIV\n\nCOMMUNISM AND ANARCHISM\n\n     (Considers the idea of goods owned in common, and the idea of a\n     society without compulsion, and how these ideas have fared in\n     Russia.)\n\n\nThe Russian revolution has familiarized us with the word Communism. In\nthe beginning of the revolutionary movement Communism denoted what we\nnow call Socialism; for example, the Communist Manifesto of Marx and\nEngels became the platform of the Social-democratic parties. But because\nmost of these parties supported their governments during the war, the\nmore radical elements have now rejected the word Socialism, and taken up\nthe old word Communism. In the Russian revolution the Communists went so\nfar as to seize all the property of the rich, and so the word Communism\nhas come to bear something of its early Christian significance.\n\nIt is obvious that here, too, it is a question of degree, and Socialism\nwill shade into Communism by an infinite variety of stages, depending\nupon what forms of property it is decided to socialize. The Socialist\nformula commonly accepted is that \"goods socially used shall be socially\nowned, and goods privately used shall be privately owned.\" If you own a\nfactory, it will be taken by the state, or by the workers, and made\nsocial property like the postoffice; but no Socialist wants to socialize\nyour clothing, or your books, any more than he wants to socialize your\ntoothbrush.\n\nBut when you come to apply this formula, you run quickly into\ndifficulties. Suppose you are a millionaire, and own a palace with one\nor two hundred rooms, and a hundred servants. Do you use that socially,\nor do you use it privately? And suppose there is a scarcity of houses,\nand thousands of children are dying of tuberculosis in crowded tenement\nrooms? You own a dozen automobiles, and do you use them all privately? I\npoint out to you that in time of emergency the capitalist state does not\nhesitate over such a problem; it seizes your palace and turns it into a\nhospital, it takes all your cars and uses them to carry troops. It\nshould be obvious that a proletarian state would be tempted by this\nprecedent.\n\nThe Communists also have a formula, which reads: \"From each according to\nhis ability, to each according to his necessity.\" I do not see how any\nsensitive person can deny that this is an extremely fine statement of an\nideal in social life. We take it quite for granted in family life; if\nyou knew a family in which that rule did not apply, you would consider\nit an unloving and uncivilized family. I believe that when once industry\nhas been socialized, and we have a chance to see what production can\nbecome, we shall find ourselves quickly adopting that family custom as\nour law, for all except a few congenital criminals and cheats. We shall\nfind that we can produce so much wealth that it is not worth while\nkeeping count of unimportant items. If today you meet someone on the\nstreet and ask him for a match or a pin, you do not think of offering to\npay him. This is an automatic consequence of the cheapness of matches\nand pins. Once upon a time you were stopped on the road every few miles\nand made to pay a few cents toll. I remember seeing toll-gates when I\nwas a boy, but I don't think I have seen one for twenty years.\n\nIn exactly the same way, under socialized industry, we shall probably\nmake street-car traffic free, and then railroad traffic; we shall\nabolish water meters and gas meters and electric light meters, also\ntelephone charges, except perhaps for long distances, and telegraph\ntolls for personal messages. Then, presently, we shall find ourselves\nwith such a large wheat crop that we shall make bread free; and then\nmusic and theatres and clothing and books. At present we use furniture\nand clothing as a means of manifesting our economic superiority to our\nfellowmen. One of the most charming books in our language is Veblen's\n\"Theory of the Leisure Class,\" in which these processes are studied. We\nshall, of course, have to raise up a new generation, unaccustomed to the\nidea of class and of class distinction, before we could undertake to\nsupply people with all the clothing they wanted free of charge.\n\nThe Russian theorists made haste to carry out these ideas all at once;\nthey tried to leap several centuries in the evolution of Russian\nsociety. They ordained complete Communism in land; but the peasants\nwould have nothing to do with such notions--each wanted his own land,\nand what he produced on it. The Soviets have now been forced to give\nway, not merely to the peasants, but to the traders; and so we see once\nagain that it is better to take one step forward than to take several\nsteps forward and then several steps backward. The Russian revolution\nis not yet completed, so no one can say how many steps backward it will\nbe forced to take.\n\nThis revolution was an interesting combination of the ideas of Socialism\nand Syndicalism. The trade unionists seized the factories, and made an\neffort at democratic control of industry. At the same time the state was\noverthrown by a political party, the Bolsheviks, who set up a\ndictatorship of the proletariat. Because of civil war and outside\ninvasion, the democratic elements in the experiment have been more and\nmore driven into the background, and the authority of the state has\ncorrespondingly increased. This causes us to think of the Soviet system\nas necessarily opposed to democracy, but this is not in any way a\nnecessary thing. There is no inevitable connection between industrial\ncontrol by the workers and a dictatorship over the state. In Germany the\nstate is proceeding to organize a national parliament of industry, and\nto provide for management of the factories by the labor unions. The\nItalian government has promised to do the same thing. These, of course,\nare capitalist governments, and they will keep their promises only as\nthey are made to; but it is a perfectly possible thing that in either of\nthese countries a vote of the people might change the government, and\nput in authority men who would really proceed to turn industry over to\nthe control of the workers. That would be the Soviet or Syndicalist\nsystem, brought about by democratic means, without dictatorship or civil\nwar.\n\nAnother group of revolutionary thinkers whose theories must be mentioned\nare the Anarchists. The word Anarchy is commonly used as a synonym for\nchaos and disorder, which it does not mean at all. It means the absence\nof authority; and it is characteristic of people's view of life that\nthey are unable to conceive of there being such a thing as order, unless\nit is maintained by force. The theory of the Anarchist is that order is\na necessity of the human spirit, and that people would conform to the\nrequirements of a just order by their own free will and without external\ncompulsion. The Anarchist believes that the state is an instrument of\nclass oppression, and has no other reason for being. He wishes the\nindustries to be organized by free associations of the people who work\nin them.\n\nSome of the greatest of the world's moral teachers have been Anarchists:\nJesus, for example, and Shelley and Thoreau and Tolstoi, and in our time\nKropotkin. These men voiced the highest aspirations of the human\nspirit, and the form of society which they dreamed is the one we set\nbefore us as our final goal. But the world does not leap into perfection\nall at once, and meantime here we have the capitalist system and the\ncapitalist state, and what attitude shall we take to them? There are\nimpassioned idealists who refuse to make any terms with injustice, or to\nsubmit to compulsion, and these preach the immediate destruction of\ncapitalist government, and capitalist government responds with prison\nand torture, and so we have some Anarchists who throw bombs.\n\nThere are those who call themselves \"philosophic\" Anarchists, wishing to\nindicate thereby that they preach this doctrine, but do not attempt to\ncarry it into action as yet. Some among these verge toward the Communist\npoint of view, and call themselves Communist-anarchists; such was\nKropotkin, whose theories of social organization you will find in his\nbook \"The Conquest of Bread.\" There are others who call themselves\nSyndicalist-anarchists, finding their centers of free association in the\nradical labor unions.\n\nAfter the Russian revolution, the Anarchists found themselves in a\ndilemma, and their groups were torn apart like every other party and\nclass in Russia. Here was a new form of state set up in society, a\nworkers' state, and what attitude should the Anarchists take toward\nthat? Many of them stood out for their principles, and resisted the\nBolshevik state, and put the Bolsheviks under the embarrassing necessity\nof throwing them into jail. We good orthodox Americans, who are\naccustomed to dump Socialists and Communists and Syndicalists and\nAnarchists all together into one common kettle, took Emma Goldman and\nAlexander Berkman and shipped them over to Russia, where we thought they\nbelonged. Now our capitalist newspapers find it strange that these\nAnarchists do not like the Russian government any better than they like\nthe American government!\n\nOn the other hand, a great many Anarchists have suddenly found\nthemselves compelled by the Russian situation to face the facts of life.\nThey have decided that a government is not such a bad thing after\nall--when it is your own government! Robert Minor, for example, has\nrecanted his Anarchist position, and joined the Communists in advocating\nthe dropping of all differences among the workers, all theories as to\nthe future, and concentrating upon the immediate task of overthrowing\ncapitalist government and keeping it overthrown. In every civilized\nnation the Russian revolution has had this effect upon the extreme\nrevolutionists. It has given them a definite aim and a definite program\nupon which they can unite; it has presented to capitalist government the\nanswer of force to force; it has shown the masters of industry in\nprecise and definite form what they have to face--unless they set\nthemselves immediately and in good faith to the task of establishing\nreal democracy in industry.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXV\n\nSOCIAL REVOLUTION\n\n     (How the great change is coming in different industries, and how we\n     may prepare to meet it.)\n\n\nFrom a study of the world's political revolutions we observe that a\nvariety of governmental forms develop, and that different circumstances\nin each country produce different institutions. Suppose that back in the\ndays of the French monarchy some one asked you how France was going to\nbe governed as a political republic; how would elections be held, what\nwould be the powers of the deputies, who would choose the premier, who\nwould choose the president, what would be the duties of each? Who can\nexplain why in France and England the executive is responsible to the\nparliament and must answer its questions, while in the United States the\nexecutive is an autocrat, responsible to no one for four years? Who\ncould have foreseen that in England, supposed to remain a monarchy, the\nconstitution would be fluid; while in America, supposed to be a\ndemocracy, the constitution would be rigid, and the supreme power of\nrejecting changes in the laws would be vested in a group of reactionary\nlawyers appointed for life? There will be similar surprises in the\nsocial revolution, and similar differences between what things pretend\nto be and what they are.\n\nI used to compare the social revolution to the hatching of an egg. You\nexamine it, and apparently it is all egg; but then suddenly something\nbegins to happen, and in a few minutes it is all chicken. If, however,\nyou investigate, you discover that the chicken had been forming inside\nthe egg for some time. I know that there is a chicken now forming inside\nour social egg; but having realized the complexity of social phenomena,\nI no longer venture to predict the exact time of the hatching, or the\nsize and color of the chicken.\n\nPerhaps it is more useful to compare the social revolution to a\nchild-birth. A good surgeon knows what is due to happen, but he knows\nalso that there are a thousand uncertainties, a thousand dangerous\npossibilities, and all he can do is to watch the process and be prepared\nto meet each emergency as it arises. The birth process consists of one\npang after another, but no one can say which pang will complete the\nbirth, or whether it will be completed at all. Karl Marx is author of\nthe saying that \"force is the midwife of progress,\" so you may see that\nI am not the inventor of this simile of child-birth.\n\nThere are three factors in the social revolution, each of which will\nvary in each country, and in different parts of the country, and at\ndifferent periods. First, there is the industrial condition of the\ncountry, a complex set of economic factors. The industrial life of\nEngland depends primarily on shipping and coal. In the United States\nshipping is of less importance, and railroads take the place. In the\nUnited States the eastern portion lives mainly by manufacture, the\nwestern by agriculture, while the south is held a generation behind by a\nrace problem. In France the great estates were broken up, and\nagriculture fell into the hands of peasant proprietors, who are the main\nsupport of French capitalism. In Prussia the great estates were held\nintact, and remained the basis of a feudal aristocracy. In America land\nchanges hands freely, and therefore one-third of our farms are\nmortgaged, and another third are worked by tenants. In Russia there was\npractically no middle class, while in the United States there is\npractically nothing but middle class; the rich have been rich for such a\nshort while that they still look middle class and act middle class, in\nspite of all their efforts, while the working class hopes to be middle\nclass and is persuaded that it can become middle class. Such varying\nfactors produce in each country a different problem, and make inevitable\na different process of change.\n\nThe second factor is the condition of organization and education of the\nworkers. This likewise varies in every country, and in every part of\nevery country. There is a continual struggle on the part of the workers\nto organize and educate themselves, and a continual effort on the part\nof the ruling class to prevent this. In some industries in America you\nfind the workers one hundred per cent organized, and in other industries\nyou find them not organized at all. It is obvious that in the former\ncase the social change, when it comes, will be comparatively simple,\ninvolving little bloodshed and waste; in the latter case there will be\nsocial convulsions, rioting and destruction of property, disorganization\nof industry and widespread distress.\n\nThe third factor is the state of mind of the propertied classes, the\namount of resistance they are willing to make to social change. I have\ndone a great deal of pleading with the masters of industry in my\ncountry; I have written appeals to Vincent Astor and John D.\nRockefeller, to capitalist newspapers and judges and congressmen and\npresidents. I have been told that this is a waste of my time; that these\npeople cannot learn and will not learn, and that it is foolish to appeal\neither to their hearts or their understanding. But I perceive that the\nclass struggle is like a fraction; it has a numerator and a denominator,\nand you can increase the fraction just as well by decreasing the\ndenominator as by increasing the numerator. To vary the simile, here are\ntwo groups of men engaged in a tug of war, and you can affect the result\njust as decisively by persuading one group to pull less hard, as by\npersuading the other group to pull harder.\n\nPicture to yourself two factories. In factory number one the owner is a\nhard-driving business man, an active spirit in the so-called \"open-shop\"\ncampaign. He believes in his divine right to manage industry, and he\nbelieves also in the gospel of \"all that the traffic will bear.\" He\nprevents his men from organizing, and employs spies to weed out the\nradicals and to sow dissensions. When a strike comes, he calls in the\npolice and the strike-breaking agencies, and in every possible way he\nmakes himself hated and feared by his workers. Then some day comes the\nunemployment crisis, and a wave of revolt sweeping over the country. The\nworkers seize that factory and set up a dictatorship of the proletariat\nand a \"red terror.\" If the owner resists, they kill him; in any case,\nthey wipe out his interest in the business, and do everything possible\nto destroy his power over it, even to his very name. They run the\nbusiness by a shop committee, and you have for that particular factory a\nSyndicalist, or even Anarchist form of social reconstruction.\n\nNow for factory number two, whose owner is a humane and enlightened man,\nstudying social questions and realizing his responsibility, and the\ntemporary nature of his stewardship. He gives his people the best\npossible working conditions, he keeps open books and discusses wages and\nprofits with them, he educates the young workers, he meets with their\nunion committees on a basis of free discussion. When the unemployment\ncrisis comes and the wave of revolt sweeps the country, this man and his\nworkers understand one another. He says: \"I can no longer pay profits,\nand so I can no longer keep going under the profit system; but if you\nare ready to run the plant, I am ready to help you the best I can.\"\nManifestly, this man will continue the president of the corporation, and\nif he trains his sons wisely, they will keep his place; so, instead of\nhaving in that factory a dictatorship and a terror, you will have a\nconstitutional monarchy, gradually evolving into a democratic republic.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXVI\n\nCONFISCATION OR COMPENSATION\n\n     (Shall the workers buy out the capitalists? Can they afford to do\n     it, and what will be the price?)\n\n\nThe problem of whether the social revolution shall be violent or\npeaceable depends in great part upon our answer to the question of\nconfiscation versus compensation. We are now going to consider, first,\nthe abstract rights and wrongs of the question, and, second, the\npractical aspects of it.\n\nThere is a story very popular among single taxers and other advocates of\nfreedom of the land. An English land-owner met a stranger walking on his\nestate, and rebuked him for trespassing. Said the stranger, \"You own\nthis land?\" Said the other, \"I do.\" \"And how did you get it?\" \"I\ninherited it from my father.\" \"And how did your father get it?\" \"He\ninherited it from his father.\" So on for half a dozen more ancestors,\nuntil at last the Englishman answered, \"He fought for it.\" Whereupon the\nstranger took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves and said, \"I'll\nfight you for it.\"\n\nThis is all there is to say on the subject of the abstract rights of\nland titles. There is no title to land which is valid on a historical\nbasis. Everything rests upon fraud and force, continued through endless\nages of human history. We in the United States took most of our land\nfrom the Indians, and in the process our guiding rule was that the only\ngood Injun was a dead Injun. We first helped the English kings to take\nlarge sections of our country from the French and Spanish, and then we\ntook them from the English king by a violent revolution. We purchased\nour Southwestern states from Mexico, but not until we had taken the\nprecaution of killing some thousands of Mexicans in war, which had the\neffect of keeping down the purchase price. It would be a simple matter\nto show that all public franchises are similarly tainted with fraud.\nProudhon laid down the principle that \"property is theft,\" and from this\nprinciple it is an obvious conclusion that society has the right to\nscrap all paper titles to wealth, and to start the world's industries\nover again on the basis of share and share alike.\n\nBut stop and consider for a moment. \"Property is theft,\" you say. But go\nto your corner grocery, and tell the grocer that you deny his title to\nthe sack of prunes which he exhibits in front of his counter. He will\ntell you that he has paid for them; but you answer that the prunes were\nraised on stolen land, and shipped to him over a railroad whose\nfranchise was obtained by bribery. Will that convince the grocer? It\nwill not. Neither will it convince the policeman or the judge, nor will\nit convince the voters of the country. Most people have a deeply rooted\nconviction that there are rights to property now definitely established\nand made valid by law. If you have paid taxes on land for a certain\nperiod, the land \"belongs\" to you; and I am sure you might agitate from\nnow to kingdom come without persuading the American people that New\nMexico ought to be returned to Mexico, or the western prairies to the\nIndian tribes.\n\nSuch are the facts; now let us apply them to the right of exploitation,\nembodied in the ownership of a certain number of bonds or shares of\nstock in the United States Steel Corporation. \"Pass a law,\" says the\nSocialist, \"providing for the taking over of United States Steel by the\ngovernment.\" At once to every owner comes one single thought--are you\ngoing to buy this stock, or are you going to confiscate it? If you\nattempt confiscation, the courts will declare the law unconstitutional;\nand you either have to defy the courts, which is revolutionary action,\nor to amend the constitution. If you adopt the latter course, you have\nbefore you a long period of agitation; you have to carry both houses of\nCongress by a two-thirds majority, and the legislatures of three-fourths\nof the States. You have to do this in the face of the most bitter and\ninfuriated opposition of those who are defending what they regard as\ntheir rights. You have to meet the arguments of the entire capitalist\npress of the country, and you have the certainty of widespread bribery\nof your elected officials.\n\nThe prospect of doing all this under the forms of law seems extremely\ndiscouraging; so come the Syndicalists, saying, \"Let us seize the\nfactories, and stop the exploitation at the point of production.\" So\ncome the Communists, saying, \"Let us overthrow capitalist government,\nand break the net of bourgeois legality, and establish a dictatorship of\nthe proletariat, which will put an end to privilege and class domination\nall at once.\" What are we to say to these different programs?\n\nSuppose we buy out the stockholders of United States Steel, and issue\nto them government bonds, what have we accomplished? Nothing, say the\nadvocates of confiscation; we have changed the form of exploitation, but\nthe substance of it remains the same. The stockholders get their money\nfrom the United States government, instead of from the United States\nSteel Corporation; but they get their money just the same--the product,\nnot of their labor, but of the labor of the steel workers. Suppose we\ncarried out the same procedure all along the line; suppose the\ngovernment took over all industries, and paid for their securities with\ngovernment bonds. Then we should have capitalism administered by a\ncapitalist government, instead of by our present masters of industry; we\nshould have a state capitalism, instead of a private capitalism; we\nshould have the government buying and selling products, and exploiting\nlabor, and paying over the profits to an hereditary privileged class.\nThe capitalist system would go on just the same, except that labor would\nhave one all-powerful tyrant, instead of many lesser tyrants, as at\npresent.\n\nSo argue the advocates of confiscation. And the advocates of purchase\nreply that in buying the securities of United States Steel, we should\nfix the purchase price at the present market value of the property, and\nthat price, once fixed, would be permanent; all future unearned\nincrement of the steel industry would belong to the government instead\nof to private owners. Consider, for example, what happened during the\nworld war. When I was a boy, soon after the Steel Trust was launched,\nits stock was down to something like six dollars, and I knew small\ninvestors who lost every dollar they had put in. But during the war,\nsteel stock soared to a hundred and thirty-six dollars per share; it\npaid dividends of some thirty per cent per year, and accumulated\nenormous surpluses besides.\n\nThe same thing was true of practically all the big corporations.\nAccording to Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo, there were coal companies\nwhich paid as high as eight hundred per cent per year; that is to say,\nthe profits in one year were eight times the total investment. Assuming\nthat our government bonds paid five per cent, it appears that the owners\nof these coal companies got one hundred and sixty times as much under\nour present private property system as they would have got under a\nsystem of state purchase. Even completely dominated by capitalism as our\ncourts are today, they would not dare require us to pay for industries\nmore than six per cent on the market value of the investment; and from\nwhat I know of the inside graft of American big business that would be\nrestricting the private owners to less than one-fourth of what they are\ngetting at present.\n\nWe have already pointed out the economies that can be made by putting\nindustry under a uniform system. But all these, important as they are,\namount to little in comparison with the one great consideration, which\nis that by purchasing large scale industry, we should break the \"iron\nring\"; we should thenceforth be able to do our manufacturing for use\ninstead of for profit, and so we should put an end to unemployment. Our\ncheerful workers would throng into the factories, to produce for\nthemselves instead of for masters; and in one year of that we should so\nchange the face of our country that a return to the system of private\nownership would be unthinkable. In one year we could raise production to\nsuch a point that the interest on the bonds we had issued would be like\nthe crumbs left over from a feast.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXVII\n\nEXPROPRIATING THE EXPROPRIATORS\n\n     (Discusses the dictatorship of the proletariat, and its chances for\n     success in the United States.)\n\n\nI am aware that the suggestion of paying for the industries we socialize\nwill sound tame and uninspiring to a lot of ardent young radicals of my\nacquaintance. They will shake their heads sadly and say that I am\ngetting middle-aged and tired. We have seen in Russia and Hungary and\nother places, so many illustrations of the quick and easy way to\nexpropriate the expropriators that now there is in every country a\nconsiderable group of radicals who will hear to no program less\npicturesque than barricades and councils of action.\n\nIn considering this question, I set aside all considerations of abstract\nright or wrong, the justification for violence in the overthrow of\ncapitalist society. I put the question on the basis of cash, pure and\nsimple. It will cost a certain amount of money to buy out the owners,\nand that money will have to be paid, as it is paid at present, out of\nthe labor of the useful workers. The workers don't want to pay any more\nthan they have to; the question they must consider is, which way will\nthey have to pay most. The advocates of the dictatorship of the\nproletariat are lured by the delightful prospect of not having to pay\nanything; and if that were really possible it would undoubtedly be the\nbetter way. But we have to consider this question: Is the program of not\nhaving to pay anything a reality, or is it only a dream? Suppose it\nshould turn out that we have to pay anyhow, and that in the case of\nviolent revolution we pay much more, and in addition run serious risk of\nnot getting what we pay for?\n\nHere are enormous industries, running at full blast, and it is proposed\nthat some morning the workers shall rise up and seize them, and turn out\nthe owners and managers, and run the industries themselves. Will anybody\nmaintain that this can be done without stopping production in those\nfactories for a single day? Certainly production must stop during the\ntime you are fighting for possession; and the cruel experience of\nRussia proves that it will stop during the further time you are fighting\nto keep possession, and to put down counter-revolutionary conspiracies.\nAlso, alas, it will stop during the time you are looking for somebody\nwho knows how to run that industry; it will stop during the time you are\norganizing your new administrative staff. You may discover to your\nconsternation that it stops during the time you are arranging to get\nother industries to give you credit, and to ship you raw materials; also\nduring the time you are finding the workers in other industries who want\nyour product, and are able to pay for it with something that you can\nuse, or that you can sell in a badly disorganized market.\n\nAnd all the time that you are arranging these things, you are going to\nhave the workers at your back, not getting any pay, or being paid with\nyour paper money which they distrust, and growling and grumbling at you\nbecause you are not running things as you promised. You see, the mass of\nthe workers are not going to understand, because you haven't made them\nunderstand; you have brought about the great change by your program of a\ndictatorship, of action by an \"enlightened minority\"; and now you have\nthe terror that the unenlightened majority may be won back by their\ncapitalist masters, and may kick you out of control, or even stand you\nup against a wall and shoot you by a firing squad. And all the time you\nare worrying over these problems, who can estimate the total amount the\nfactory might have been producing if it had been running at full blast?\nWhatever that difference is, remember, it is paid by the workers; and\nmight that sum not just as well have been used to buy out the owners?\n\nIf we were back in the old days of hand labor and crude, unorganized\nproduction, I admit that the only way to benefit the slaves might be to\nturn out the masters by force. But here we have a social system of\ninfinite complexity, a delicate and sensitive machine, which no one\nperson in the world, and no group of persons understands thoroughly. In\nthe running of such a machine a slight blunder may cost a fortune; and\ncertainly all the skill, all the training, all the loyal services of our\nexpert engineers and managers is needed if we are to remodel that\nmachine while keeping it running. The amount of wealth which we could\nsave by the achieving of that feat would be sufficient to maintain a\nclass of owners in idleness and luxury for a generation; and so I say,\nwith all the energy and conviction I possess, _pay them_! Pay them\nanything that is necessary, in order to avoid civil war and social\ndisorganization! Pay them so much that they can have no possible cause\nof complaint, that the most hide-bound capitalistic-minded judge in the\ncountry cannot find a legal flaw in the bargain! Pay them so that every\nengineer and efficiency expert and manager and foreman and stenographer\nand office-boy will stay on the job and work double time to put the\nenterprise through! Pay them such a price that even Judge Gary and John\nD. Rockefeller will be willing to help us do the job of social\nreadjustment!\n\n\"Ah, yes,\" my young radical friends will say, \"that sounds all very\nbeautiful, but it's the old Utopian dream of brotherhood and class\nco-operation. That will never happen on this earth, until you have first\nabolished capitalism.\" My answer is, it could happen tomorrow if we had\nsufficient intelligence to make it happen. That it does not happen is\nsimply absence of intelligence. And will anyone maintain that it is the\npart of an intelligent man to advocate a less intelligent course than he\nknows? What is the use of our intelligence, if we abdicate its\nauthority, and give ourselves up to programs of action which we know are\nblind and destructive and wasteful? We may see a great vessel going on\nthe rocks; we may feel certain that it is going, in spite of everything\nwe can do; but shall we fail to do what we can to make those in the\nvessel realize how they might get safely into the harbor?\n\nWe have had the Russian revolution before us for four years. Mankind\nwill spend the next hundred years in studying it, and still have much to\nlearn, but the broad outlines of the great experiment are now plain\nbefore our eyes. Russia was a backward country, and she tried to fight a\nmodern war, and it broke her down. She had practically no middle class,\nand her ruling class was rotten, and so the revolutionists had their\nchance, and they seized it. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that\nthey came to the rescue of Russia, saving her from the hands of those\nwho were trying to force her to fight, when she was utterly exhausted\nand incapable of fighting.\n\nAnyhow, here was your dictatorship of the proletariat. It turned out all\nthe executive experts, or nearly all of them, because they were tainted\nwith the capitalist psychology; and then straightway it had to call them\nback and make terms with them, because industry could not be run without\nthem. And of course these engineers and managers sabotaged the\nrevolution--every non-proletarian sabotaged it, both inside Russia and\noutside. You denounced this, and protested against this, but all the\nsame it happened; it was human nature that it should happen, and it is\none of the things you have to count on, in any and every country where\nyou attempt the social revolution by minority action.\n\nThey have got power in Russia, and they dream of getting power in\nAmerica in the same way. But there is no such disorganization in our\ncountry as there was in Russia, and it would take a generation of civil\nstrife to bring us to such a condition. We have a middle class,\npowerful, thoroughly organized, and thoroughly conscious. Moreover, this\nclass has ideals of majority rule, which are bred in its very bones; and\nwhile they have never realized these ideals, they think they have, and\nthey are prepared to fight to the last gasp in that belief. All that the\nleaders of Moscow have to do is to bring about an attempt at forcible\nrevolution, and they will discover in American society sufficient power\nof organization and of brutal action to put their movement out of\nbusiness for a generation.\n\nA hundred years ago we had chattel slavery firmly fixed as the\nindustrial system of one-half of these United States. To far-seeing\nstatesmen it was manifest that chattel slavery was a wasteful system,\nand that it could not exist in competition with free labor. There was a\ngreat American, Henry Clay, who came forward with a proposition that the\npeople of the United States, through their government, should raise the\nmoney, about a billion dollars, and compensate the owners of all the\nslaves and set them free. For most of his lifetime Henry Clay pleaded\nfor that plan. But the masters of the South were making money fast; they\nknew how to handle the negro as a slave, they could not imagine handling\nhim as a free laborer, and they would not hear to the plan. On the other\nside of Mason and Dixon's line were fanatical men of \"principle,\" who\nsaid that slavery was wrong, and that was the end of it. There is a\nstanza by Emerson discussing this question of confiscation versus\ncompensation:\n\n    Pay ransom to the owner\n      And fill the bag to the brim.\n    Who is the owner? The slave is owner,\n      And ever was. Pay him.\n\nThis, you see, is magnificent utterance, but as economic philosophy it\nis reckless and unsound. The abolitionists of the North took up this\npoem, and the slave power of the South answered with a battle-song:\n\n    War to the hilt,\n    Theirs be the guilt,\n    Who fetter the freeman to ransom the slave!\n\nAnd so the issue had to be fought out. It cost a million human lives and\nfive billions of treasure, and it set American civilization back a\ngeneration. And now we confront exactly the same kind of emergency, and\nare coming to exactly the same method of solution. We have white\nwage-slaves clamoring for their freedom, and we have business men making\nmoney out of them, and exercising power over them, and finding it\nconvenient and pleasant. They are going to fight it out in a civil war,\nand which side is going to win I am not sure. But when the historians\ncome to write about it a couple of generations from now, let them be\nable to record that there were a few men in the country who pleaded for\na sane and orderly and human solution of the problem, and who continued\nto voice their convictions even in the midst of the cruel and wasteful\nstrife!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXVIII\n\nTHE PROBLEM OF THE LAND\n\n     (Discusses the land values tax as a means of social readjustment,\n     and compares it with other programs.)\n\n\nThe writer of this book has been watching the social process for twenty\nyears, trying to figure out one thing--how the change from competition\nto co-operation can be brought about with the minimum of human waste. He\nhas come to realize that the first step is a mental one; to get the\npeople to want the change. That means that the program must be simple,\nso that the masses can understand it. As a social engineer you might\nwork out a perfect plan, but find yourself helpless, because it was hard\nto explain. As illustration of what I mean, I cite the single tax, a\ntheory which has a considerable hold in America, but which politically\nhas been utterly ineffective.\n\nA few years ago a devoted enthusiast in Southern California, Luke North,\nstarted what he called the \"Great Adventure\" to set free the idle land.\nIn the campaign of 1918 I gave my help to this movement, and when it\nfailed I went back and took stock, and revised my conclusions concerning\nthe single tax. Theoretically the movement has a considerable percentage\nof right on its side. Land, in the sense that single taxers use it,\nmeaning all the natural sources of wealth, is certainly an important\nbasis of exploitation, and if you were to tax land values to the full\nextent, you would abolish a large portion of privilege--just how large\nwould be hard to figure. I was perfectly willing to begin with that\nportion, so I helped with the \"Great Adventure.\" But a practical test\nconvinced me that it could never persuade a majority of the people.\n\nThe single tax proposal is to abolish all taxes except the tax on land\nvalues. Then come the associations of the bankers and merchants and real\nestate speculators, crying in outraged horror, \"What? You propose to let\nthe rich man's stocks and bonds go free? You propose to put no tax on\nhis cash in the vaults and on his wife's jewels? You propose to abolish\nthe income tax and the inheritance tax, and put all the costs of\ngovernment on the poor man's lot?\"\n\nNow, of course, I know perfectly well that the rich man dodges most of\nhis income tax and most of his inheritance tax. I know that he pays a\nnominal pittance on his cash in the bank and on his wife's jewels, and\nlikewise on his stocks and bonds. I know that the corporations issuing\nthese stocks and bonds would be far more heavily hit by a tax on the\nnatural resources they own; they could not evade this tax, and they know\nit, and that is why they are moved to such deep concern for the fate of\nthe poor man and his lot. I know that the tax on the poor man's lot\nwould be infinitesimal in comparison with the tax on the great\ncorporation. But how can I explain all this to the poor man? To\nunderstand it requires a knowledge of the complexities of our economic\nsystem which the voters simply have not got.\n\nHow much easier to take the bankers and speculators at their word! To\nanswer, \"All right, gentlemen, since you like the income and inheritance\ntaxes, the taxes on stocks and bonds and money and jewels, we will leave\nthese taxes standing. Likewise, we assent to your proposition that the\npoor man should not pay taxes on his lot, while there are rich men and\ncorporations in our state holding twenty million acres of land out of\nuse for purposes of speculation. We will therefore arrange a land values\ntax on a graduated basis, after the plan of the income tax; we will\nallow one or two thousand dollars' worth of land exempt from all\ntaxation, provided it is used by the owner; and we will put a graduated\ntax on all individuals and corporations owning a greater quantity of\nland, so that in the case of individuals and corporations owning more\nthan ten thousand dollars' worth of land, we will take the full rental\nvalue, and thus force all idle land into the market.\"\n\nNow, the provision above outlined would have spiked every single\nargument used by the opposition to the \"Great Adventure\" in California\nin 1918; it would have made the real intent of the measure so plain as\nto win automatically the additional votes needed to carry the election.\nBut I tried for three years, without being able to persuade a single one\nof the \"Great Adventure\" leaders to recognize this plain fact. The\nsingle taxer has his formula, the land values tax and no other tax, and\nall else is heresy. Actually, the president of a big single tax\norganization in the East declared that by the advocacy of my idea I had\n\"betrayed the single tax!\" We may take this as an illustration of the\ndifference between dogmatism and science in the strategy of the class\nstruggle.\n\nI first suggested my program immediately after the war, with the\nprovision that the land thrown on the market should be purchased by the\nstate, and used to establish co-operative agricultural colonies for the\nbenefit of returned soldiers. But we have preferred to have our returned\nsoldiers stay without work, or to displace the men and women who had\nbeen gallantly \"doing their bit.\" By this means we soon had five million\nmen out of work, and many other millions bitterly discontented with\ntheir wages. Again I took up the proposition for a graduated land tax,\nwith the suggestion that the money should be used to provide a pension,\nfirst for every dependent man or woman over sixty years of age in the\ncountry, and second for every child in the country whose parents were\nunable properly to support it, whether because they were dead or sick or\nunemployed.\n\nYou may note that in advocating this program, you would not have to\nconvert anybody to any foreign theories, nor would you have to use any\nlong words; you would not have to say anything against the constitution,\nnor to break any law, nor to give occasion for patriotic mobs to tar and\nfeather you. To every poor man in your state you could say, \"If you own\nyour own house and lot, this bill will lift the taxes from both, and\ntherefore it will mean fifty or a hundred dollars a year in your pocket.\nIf you do not own a home, it will take millions of idle acres out of the\nhands of the speculators, and break the price of real estate, so that\nyou can have either a lot in the city or a farm in the country with\nease.\"\n\nFurthermore, you could say, \"This measure will have the effect of\ndrawing the unemployed from the cities at once, and so stopping the\ndownward course of wages. At the same time that wages hold firm, the\ncost of food will go down, because there will be millions more men\nworking on the land. In addition to that, the state will have an\nenormous income, many millions of dollars a year, taken exclusively from\nthose who are owning and not producing. This money will be expended in\nsaving from suffering and humiliation the old people of the country, who\nhave worked hard all their lives and have been thrown on the scrap-heap;\nalso in making certain that every child in the country has food enough\nand care enough to make him into a normal and healthy human being, so\nthat he can do his share of work in the world and pay his own way\nthrough life.\"\n\nI submit the above measure to those who believe that the road to social\nfreedom lies by some sort of land tax. But before you take it up I\ninvite you to consider whether there may not be some other way, even\neasier. There is a homely old saying to the effect that \"molasses\ncatches more flies than vinegar\"; and I am always looking for some way\nthat will get the poor what they want, without frightening the rich any\nmore than necessary.\n\nI know a certain type of radical whom this question always exasperates.\nHe answers that the opposition will be equally strong to any plan; the\nrich will do anything for the poor except get off their backs--and so\non. In reply I mention that among the most ardent radicals I know are\nhalf a dozen millionaires; I know one woman who is worth a million, who\npleads day and night for social revolution, while the people who work\nfor her are devoted and respectful wage slaves. Herbert Spencer said\nthat his idea of a tragedy was a generalization killed by a fact. I\nshall not say that the existence of millionaire Socialists and parlor\nBolsheviks kills the theory of the class struggle, but I certainly say\nit compels us to take thought of the rich as well as of the poor in\nplanning the strategy of our campaign.\n\nAnd manifestly, if we want to consider the rich, the very last device we\nshall use is that of a tax. Nobody likes to pay taxes; everybody agrees\nin classifying taxes with death. Each feels that he is paying more than\nhis share already; each knows that the government which collects the tax\nis incompetent or worse. Stop and recall what we have proven about the\n\"iron ring\"; the possibilities of production latent in our society.\nRealize the bearings of this all-important fact, that we can offer to\nmankind a social revolution which will make everybody richer, instead of\nmaking some people poorer! Exactly how to do this is the next thing we\nhave to inquire.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXIX\n\nTHE CONTROL OF CREDIT\n\n     (Deals with money, the part it plays in the restriction of\n     industry, and may play in the freeing of industry.)\n\n\nHow is it that the rich are becoming richer? The single taxer answers\nthat it is by monopoly of the land, the natural sources of wealth; the\nSocialist answers that it is by the control of the machinery of\nproduction. But if you go among the rich and make inquiry, you speedily\nlearn that these factors, large as they are, amount to little in\ncomparison with another factor, the control of credit. There are hosts\nof little capitalists and business men who deal in land and produce\ngoods with machinery, but the men who make the real fortunes and\ndominate the modern world are those who control credit, and whose\nbusiness is, not the production of anything, but speculation and the\nmanipulation of markets.\n\n\"Money makes the mare go,\" our ancestors used to say; and money today\ndetermines the destiny of empires. What is money? We think of it as gold\nand silver coins, and pieces of engraved paper promising to pay gold and\nsilver coins. But the report of the U. S. Comptroller of the Currency\nfor 1919 shows that the business of the country was done, 5% by such\nmeans and 95 % by checks; so, for practical purposes, we may say that\nmoney consists of men's willingness to trust other men, or groups or\norganizations of men, when they make written promise to pay. In other\nwords, money is credit; and the control of credit means the control of\nindustry. The problem of social readjustment is mainly but the problem\nof taking the control of credit out of the hands of private individuals,\nand making it a public or social function.\n\nWho controls credit today? The bankers. And how do they control it? We\ngive it to them; we, the masses of the people, who take them our money\nand leave it with them. A very little real money in hand becomes, under\nour banking system, the basis of a great amount of imaginary money. The\nFederal Reserve law requires that banks shall hold in reserve from\nseven to thirteen per cent of demand deposits; which means, in\nsubstance, that when you leave a dollar with a banker, the banker is\nallowed, under the law, to turn that dollar into anywhere from seven to\nthirteen dollars, and lend those dollars out. In addition, he deposits\nhis reserves with the Federal Reserve bank, and that bank keeps only\nthirty-five per cent in reserve--in other words, the seven to thirteen\nimaginary dollars are multiplied again by three.\n\nUnder the stress of war, this process of credit inflation has been\ngrowing like the genii let out of the bottle. Under the law, the Federal\nReserve banks are supposed to hold a gold reserve of 40% to secure our\ncurrency. But in December, 1919, these banks held a trifle over a\nbillion dollars' worth of gold, while our paper money was over four\nbillion. In addition, our banks have over thirty-three billions of\ndeposits, and all these are supposed to be secured by gold; in addition,\nthere are twenty-five billions of government bonds, and uncounted\nbillions of private notes, bonds and accounts, all supposed to be\npayable in gold. So it appears that about one per cent of our\noutstanding money is real, and the rest is imaginary--that is, it is\ncredit.\n\nThe point for you to get clear is this: The great mass of this imaginary\nmoney is created by law, and we have the power to abolish it or to\nchange the ownership of it at any time we develop the necessary\nintelligence. Let us consider the ordinary paper money, the one and two\nand five and ten dollar \"bills,\" with which we plain people do most of\nour business. These are Federal Reserve notes, and there are about three\nbillions of them; how do they come to be? Why, we grant to the national\nbanks by law the right to make this money; the government prints it for\nthem, and they put it into circulation. And what does it cost them? They\npay one per cent for the use of the money; in some cases they pay only\none-half of one per cent; and then they lend it to us, the people--and\nwhat do they charge us? The answer is available in a recent report of\nthe U. S. Comptroller of the Currency, as follows:\n\n\"I have the record of the loans made by one Texas national bank to a\nhard-working woman who owned a little farm a few miles from town. She\nborrowed, in the aggregate, $2,375, making about thirty loans during the\nyear. Listen to the details of the robbery: $162.50 for 30 days at 36\nper cent; $377. for 34 days at 44 per cent; $620.25 for 23 days at 77\nper cent; $11. for 30 days at 120 per cent; $21.50 for 30 days at 90\nper cent; $33. for 2 days at 93 per cent; $27. for 15 days at 195 per\ncent; $110. for 30 days at 120 per cent--that was to buy a horse for her\nplowing; $20 for 48 days at 187 per cent; $6 for 10 days at 720 per\ncent; $7 for 3 days at 2,000 per cent, and so on; every cent paid off by\nwhat sweat and struggle only God knows.\"\n\nIn Oklahoma, where the legal rate of interest is six per cent, with ten\nper cent as the maximum under special contract, harassed farmers paid\nall the way from 12 to 2400 per cent, with 40 per cent as the average.\nIn the case of one bank, the Comptroller proved that not a single\nsolitary loan had been made under fifteen per cent. He cited one\nparticular case that he asked to be regarded as typical. In the spring\nthe farmer went to the bank and arranged for a loan of $200. Out of his\nnecessity he was compelled to pay 55 per cent interest charge. Unable to\nmeet the note at maturity, he had to agree to 100 per cent interest in\norder to get the renewal. The next renewal forced him up to 125 per\ncent. For four years the thing went on, and all the drudgery of the\nfather and the mother and the six children could never keep down the\nterrible interest or wipe out the principal. As a finish the bank\nswooped down and sold him out; the wretched man, barefoot and hungry,\nwent to work clearing a swamp, caught pneumonia and died; the county\nburied him, and neighbors raised a purse to send the widow and children\nback to friends in Arkansas.\n\nThis is the thing called the Money Trust in action, and this is the\npower we have to take out of private control. It is our first job, and\nall other jobs are in comparison hardly worth mentioning. How are we\ngoing to do it?\n\nThe farmers of North Dakota have shown one way. They took the control of\ntheir state government into their own hands, and the most important and\nsignificant thing they did was to start a public bank. The interests\nfought them tooth and nail; not merely the interests of North Dakota,\nnot merely of the Northwest, but of the entire United States. They\nfought them in the law courts, up to the United States Supreme Court,\nwhich decided in favor of the people of North Dakota. Therefore, make\nnote of this vital fact--the most important single fact in the strategy\nof the class struggle--every state can, under the constitution, have a\npublic bank; every city and town can have one, and no court can ever\nforbid it!\n\nTherefore, I say to all Socialists, labor men and social reformers of\nevery shade and variety, nail at the top of your program of action the\ndemand for a public bank in your community, to take the control of\ncredit out of the hands of speculators and use it for the welfare of the\npeople. Make it your first provision that every dollar of public money\nshall be deposited in this bank and every detail of public financing\nhandled by this bank; make it your second provision that the purpose of\nthis bank shall be to put all private banks out of business, and take\nover their power for the people.\n\nAt present, you understand, it is taken for granted that the first\npurpose of the government is to foster the private credit system. Take,\nfor example, the postal savings bank. The private banks fought this for\na generation, and finally they allowed us to have it, on condition that\nit should be turned into a device for collecting money for them. Our\npostal bank turns over all its money to the private banks, at the\ngrotesque rate of two per cent interest; and recently I read of the\ndirector of the postal bank appearing before a convention of bankers,\nasking for some small favor, and humbly explaining that it was not his\nidea to make the postal bank a rival of the private savings banks. Why\nshould he not do so? Let us nail it to our radical program that the\npostal savings bank is to fight for business, just as do the private\nbanks, and lend its funds direct to the people on good security.\n\nLet our Federal banking system also become the servant of the public\nwelfare, and let its energy be devoted to breaking the strangle-hold of\npredatory finance on our industry. Let the government issue all money,\nand use it for the transfer of industry from private into public hands.\nDo we want to socialize our railroads, our coal mines, our telegraphs\nand telephones? Do we want to buy them, in order to avoid the wastes of\ncivil war and insurrection? We have agreed that we do; and here we have\nthe way of doing it. If the bankers can create, out of our willingness\nto trust them, billions upon billions of imaginary money, then so can\nwe, the people of the United States, create money out of our willingness\nto trust ourselves. And do not let anybody fool you for a single second\nby talking about \"fiat money\" and \"inflation of the currency.\" If you\nare paying twice as much for everything as you did before the war, you\nare paying it because the bankers have doubled the amount of money in\ncirculation--for that reason and that alone. That double money the\nbankers own; the only question now to be decided is, who is to own the\ndouble money that will be created tomorrow?\n\nMake note of the fact that it costs nothing to start a public bank. If\nyou want to put the steel trust out of business by competition, you have\nseveral hundred thousand dollars worth of rolling mills and ore land to\nbuy; but the banks can be put out of business by nothing but a law. The\nmaterial parts of a bank, the white marble columns and bronze railings\nand mahogany trimmings, are as nothing compared with the inner soul of a\nbank, its control of the life-blood of your business and mine; and this\nwe can have for the taking. We can keep our own \"credit\"; instead of\nsending it to Wall Street, where speculators use it to bleed us white,\nwe can set it to building up our own community, under the direction of\nofficials whom we select. Also, we can have our gigantic national bank,\ncontrolling all our thirty-three billions of dollars of deposits, and\nlikewise the hundreds of billions of credit built upon them.\n\nThe first time you suggest this plan to a banker or business man, you\nwill be told that increase of money by the government does not benefit\nlabor or the general consumer; \"inflation of the currency\" causes prices\nto go up correspondingly. To this I will furnish an effective reply:\nthat at the same time the government issues new money, the government\nwill also fix prices; and then watch the face of your banker or business\nman! If he is a man who can really think, and is not just repeating like\na parrot the formulas he has learned from others, he will perceive that\nthe combination of currency inflation and price-fixing would catch him\nas the two parts of a nut-cracker catch a nut; and he will know that you\ncan take the meat out of him any time you please. He may argue that it\nis not fair; but point out to him that it is exactly what the big banks\nand the trusts have been doing to us right along--increasing the amount\nof money in circulation, and at the same time raising the prices we pay\nfor goods, and so taking out the meat from us nuts!\n\nWe have agreed that we do not mean to be unfair either to the banker or\nthe manufacturer; we are simply going to stop their being unfair to us.\nWe are going to convince them that their power to catch us in a\nnut-cracker is forever at an end. We allow them six per cent on their\ninvestments, and guarantee them this by turning over to them some of our\nnew money--that is, government bonds. When we have thoroughly convinced\nthem that they can't get any more, they will take these bonds and quit;\nand thus simply, without violence or destruction of property, we shall\nslide from our present system of commercial cannibalism into the new\nco-operative commonwealth.\n\nWe have had \"cheap money\" campaigns in the United States many times, and\nas this book is written, it becomes evident that we are to have another.\nHenry Ford is advocating the idea, and so is Thomas A. Edison. The\npresent writer would like to make plain that in supporting such a\nprogram, he does it for one purpose, and one only--the taking over of\nthe industries by the community. The creation of state credit for that\npurpose is the next step in the progress of human society; whereas the\ncreation of state credit for the continuance of the profit system is a\npiece of futility amounting to imbecility. This distinction is\nfundamental, and is the test by which to judge the usefulness of any new\nprogram, and the intelligence of those who advocate it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXX\n\nTHE CONTROL OF INDUSTRY\n\n     (Discusses various programs for the change from industrial\n     autocracy to industrial democracy.)\n\n\nThe program of the railway workers for the democratic management of\ntheir industry is embodied in the Plumb plan. You may learn about it by\naddressing the weekly paper of the railway brotherhoods, which is called\n\"Labor,\" and is published in Washington, D. C. It appears that our\ntransportation industry can be at once socialized, because of a clause\nin the constitution which gives the national government power over\n\"roads and communications.\" Through decades of mismanagement under the\nsystem of private greed, the railroads have been brought to such a\nfinancial condition that they will be forced into nationalization,\nwhenever we stop them from dipping their fingers into the public\ntreasury.\n\nUnder the Plumb plan the government is to purchase the roads from their\npresent owners, paying with government bonds. The management is to be\nunder the control of a board consisting in part of representatives of\nthe government, and in part of the workers--this being a combination of\nthe methods of Socialism and Syndicalism. The same program can be\napplied constitutionally to telegraphs and telephones, to interstate\ntrolley systems, express companies, oil pipe lines, and all other means\nof interstate communication and distribution.\n\nThe Plumb plan also deals with coal and steel and other great\nindustries. These could not be nationalized without a constitutional\namendment, but it appears that in the majority of the constitutions of\nthe states are provisions that all corporate charters are held subject\nto the power of the legislature to amend, modify, or revoke the same.\nThat gives us a right to take over these corporations through state\naction. The only preliminary is to elect state administrations which\nwill represent us, instead of representing the corporations. Also, most\nstate constitutions contain the provision that \"no corporation shall\nissue its stocks or bonds, except for money, labor, or property actually\nreceived.\" The word \"labor\" gives the opening wedge for the Plumb plan.\nThe state can purchase these industries, giving bonds in exchange, and\ncan issue to the workers labor stock, which stock will carry part\ncontrol of the industry.\n\nAlso, the railroad brotherhoods have started their own bank, in\nCleveland, Ohio, and it is proving an enormous success. Make note of\nthis point; every large labor union can have its own bank, to finance\nits industries and its propaganda. Stop and consider how preposterous it\nis that the five million organized workers of the United States should\ndeposit their hundreds of millions of savings in capitalist banks, to be\nused to finance private undertakings which crush unions and hold labor\nin bondage. Let every big labor union have its own building, its own\nbanking and insurance business, its own vacation camp in the country,\nits own school for training its future leaders. Also, let every labor\ncouncil in every big city start a labor daily, to tell the workers the\ntruth and point the way to freedom. Let every farmers' organization\nfollow suit; and let these groups get together, to exchange their\nproducts upon a co-operative basis. Already the railway men are\narranging with the farmers, to buy the farm products and distribute them\nco-operatively; they are getting together with the clothing workers, to\nhave the latter make clothing for them, and with the shoe-workers to\nmake shoes.\n\nThis is the co-operative movement, which has become the largest single\nindustry in Great Britain, and is the backbone of industrial democracy\nand sound radicalism. It is spreading rapidly in America now. It is\ntaking the money of the people out of the control of the profit system,\nand diverting it into channels of public service. It is training men to\nbelieve in brotherhood instead of in greed. It is giving them business\nexperience, so that when the time comes the taking over of our\nindustrial machine will not have to be done by amateurs, but by men who\nknow what co-operation is, and how to make a success of it.\n\nThis work will go on more rapidly yet when the workers have united\npolitically, and brought into power a government which will assist them\ninstead of assisting the bankers. A most interesting program for the\ndevelopment of working-class financial credit is known as the \"Douglas\nplan,\" which is advocated by a London weekly, the \"New Age,\" and is\nexplained in two books, called \"Economic Democracy\" and \"Credit Power\nand Democracy,\" by Douglas and Orage. This program is in brief that the\nfurnishing of credit shall become a function of organized labor, based\nupon the fact that the true and ultimate basis of all credit is the\npower of hand and brain labor to produce wealth. The labor unions, or\n\"guilds,\" shall pay the management of industry and pay capital for the\nuse of the industrial plant, and shall finance production and new\nindustrial development out of their \"credit power,\" their ability to\npromise production and to keep their promises.\n\nThis \"Douglas plan\" seeks to break the Money Trust by the method of\nSyndicalism. Another method of breaking it, through state regulation of\nbank loans, you will find most completely set forth in an extremely able\nbook, \"The Strangle Hold,\" by H. C. Cutting, an American business man,\nwhom you may address at San Lorenzo, California. Another method,\nutilizing the third factor in industry, the consumer, is the method of\nbanking by consumers' unions. Such are the Raffeisen banks, widely known\nin Germany, and a specimen of which exists in the single tax colony at\nArden, Delaware. Those who wish to know about the co-operative bank, or\nother forms of co-operation, may apply to the Co-operative League of\nAmerica, 2 West 13th Street, New York, whose president is Dr. James P.\nWarbasse. Information concerning public ownership may be had from the\nPublic Ownership League, 127 N. Dearborn Street, Chicago; also from the\nSocialist party, 220 South Ashland Boulevard, Chicago, and from the\nBureau of Social Research of the Rand School of Social Science, New\nYork.\n\nAlso, I ought to mention the very interesting plan for social\nreconstruction set forth by Mr. King C. Gillette, inventor of the safety\nrazor. This plan you may find in your public library in two encyclopedic\nvolumes, \"Gillette's Social Redemption,\" and \"Gillette's World\nSolution.\" The politician seeks to solve the industrial problem by means\nof the state, and the labor leader seeks to solve it by the unions; it\nis to be expected that Mr. Gillette, a capitalist, should seek to solve\nit by means of the corporation. He points out that the modern \"trust\" is\nthe greatest instrument of production yet invented by man; and he asks\nwhy the people should not form their own \"trust,\" to handle their own\naffairs, and to purchase and take over the industries from their present\nprivate masters. It is interesting to note that Mr. Gillette's solution\nis fully as radical and thorough-going as those of the State Socialists\nor the Syndicalists. The \"People's Corporation\" which he projects and\nplans some day to launch upon the world would be a gigantic \"consumers'\nunion,\" whose \"credit power\" would speedily dominate and absorb all\nother powers in modern society; it would make us all stockholders, and\ngive us our share of the benefits of social productivity.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXXI\n\nTHE NEW WORLD\n\n     (Describes the co-operative commonwealth, beginning with its money\n     aspects; the standard wage and its variations.)\n\n\nIt has been indicated that the new society will be different in\ndifferent countries and in different parts of the same country, in\ndifferent industries and at different times. No one can predict exactly\nwhat it will be, and anyone who tries to predict is unscientific. But\nevery man can work out his own ideas of the most economical and sensible\narrangements for a co-operative society, and in these final chapters I\nset forth my ideas.\n\nOne of the first things people ask is, \"Will there be money in the new\nsociety, or how will labor be rewarded and goods paid for?\" I answer\nthat there will be money, and the business methods of the new society\nwill be so nearly the same as at present that in this respect you would\nhardly realize there had been any change. The only difference will be\nthat in the new society you will be paid several times as much for your\nlabor; or, if you prefer to put it the other way, you will be able to\nbuy several times as much with your money. Why should we waste our time\nworking out systems of \"credit-cards,\" when we already have a system in\nthe form of gold and silver coins and paper currency? Why should we\nbother with \"labor checks,\" when we have a banking and clearing-house\nsystem, understood by everyone but the illiterate? The only difference\nwe shall make is that nobody can get gold and silver coins or paper\ncurrency, except by performing labor to pay for them; nobody can have\nmoney in the bank and draw checks against it, until he has rendered to\nsociety an equivalent amount of service.\n\nWhen you have earned your money in the new world, you will spend it\nwherever you please, and for whatever you please; the only difference\nbeing that the price you pay will be the exact labor-cost of producing\nthat article, with no deduction for any form of exploitation. As I wrote\nsixteen years ago in \"The Industrial Republic,\" you will be able to get,\nif you insist upon it, a seven-legged spider made of diamonds, and the\nonly question society will ask is, Have you performed services\nequivalent to the material and labor necessary to the creating of that\nunusual article of commerce? Of course, society won't put it to you in\nthat complicated formula; it will simply ask, \"Have you got the price?\"\nWhich, you observe, is exactly the question society asks you at present.\n\nThe next thing that everybody wants to know is, \"Shall we all be paid\nthe same wages?\" I answer, yes and no, because there will be three\nsystems of payment. There will be a basic wage, which everybody will get\nfor every kind of useful service necessary to production; this will be,\nas it were, the foundation of our economic structure. On top of this\nwill be built a system of special payments for special services, which\nare of an intellectual nature, and cannot be standardized and dealt with\nwholesale. In addition, there will be for a time a third arrangement,\napplying to agricultural work, which is in a different stage of\ndevelopment, and to which different conditions apply.\n\nLet us take, first, our standard wage. The census of our Utopian\ncommonwealth reveals that we have ten million able-bodied workers\nengaged in mining, manufacturing, and transportation; this including, of\ncourse, office-work and management--everything that enters into these\nindustries. By scientific management, the best machinery, and the\nelimination of all possible waste, we find that they produce eighty\nmillion dollars worth of goods an hour. A portion of this we have to set\naside to pay for the raw materials which they do not produce, and for\nthe upkeep of the plant, and for margin of error--what our great\ncorporations call a surplus. We find that we have fifty million dollars\nper hour left, and that means that we can pay for labor five dollars per\nhour, or twenty dollars for the regular four-hour day. This is our\nstandard wage, received by all able-bodied workers.\n\nBut quickly we find that our industries are not properly balanced. A\ngreat many men want to work at the jobs which are clean and pleasant,\nsuch as delivering mail, and very few want to work at washing dishes in\nrestaurants and cleaning the sewers. There is no way we can adjust this,\nexcept by paying a higher wage, or by reducing the number of hours in\nthe working day, which is the same thing. The only other method would be\nto have the state assign men to their work, and that would be\nbureaucracy and slavery, the essence of everything we wish to get away\nfrom in our co-operative commonwealth.\n\nWhat we shall have, so far as concerns our basic industries, is a\ngovernment department, registering with mathematical accuracy the\ncondition of supply and demand in all the industries of the country. Our\ndemand for shoes is increasing, for some reason or other; a thousand\nmore shoe-workers are needed, therefore the price of labor in the shoe\nindustry is increased five cents per day--or whatever amount will draw\nthat number of workers from other occupations. On the other hand, there\nare too many people applying for the job of driving trucks, therefore we\nreduce slightly the compensation for this work. There are more men who\nwant jobs in Southern California than in Alaska, therefore the payment\nfor the same grade of work in Alaska has to be higher. All this is not\nmerely speculation, it is not a matter of anybody's choice; it is an\nautomatic, self-adjusting system, subject to precise calculations. The\nonly change from our present system is from guesswork to exact\nmeasurement. At present we do not know how many shoes our country will\nrequire next season, neither do we know how many shoes are going to be\nmade, neither do we know how many people can make shoes, nor how many\nwould like to learn, nor how many would like to quit that job and take\nto farming. It would be the simplest matter in the world to find out\nthese things--far simpler that it was to register all our possible\nsoldiers, and examine them physically and mentally, and train them and\nfeed them and ship them overseas to \"can the Kaiser.\"\n\nOf course, we drafted the men for this war job; but in the new world\nnobody is drafted for anything. It is any man's privilege to starve if\nhe feels like it; it is his privilege to go out into the mountains and\nlive on nuts and berries if he can find them. Nobody makes him go\nanywhere, or makes him work at anything--unless, of course, he is a\nconvicted criminal. To the free citizen all that society has to say is,\nif he buys any products, he must pay for those products with his own\nlabor, and not with some other man's labor. Of course, he may steal, or\ncheat, as under capitalism; our new world has laws against stealing and\ncheating, and does its best to enforce them. The difference between the\ncapitalist world and our world is merely that we make it impossible for\nany man to get money _legally_ without working.\n\nUnder these conditions the average man wishes to work, and the only\nquestion remaining is, how shall he work? If he wants to work by\nhimself, and in his own way, nobody objects to it. He is able to buy\nanything he pleases, whether raw materials or finished products. If he\nwants to buy leather and make shoes after his own pattern, no one stops\nhim, and if he can find anyone to buy these shoes, he can earn his\nliving in that way. He is able to get land for as long a time as he\nwants it, by paying to the state the full rental value of that land, and\nif he wants to farm the land, he can do so, and sell his products. As a\nmatter of theory, he is perfectly free to hire others to farm the land\nfor him, or with him. There is no law to prevent it, neither is there\nany law to prevent his renting a factory and buying machinery, and\nhiring labor to make shoes.\n\nBut, as a matter of practical fact, it is impossible for him to do this,\nbecause the community is in the business of making shoes, and on an\nenormous scale, with great factories run democratically by the workers,\nand there is very small chance of any private business man being able to\ndraw the workers away from these factories. The community factories have\nall the latest machinery; they apply the latest methods of scientific\nmanagement, and they turn out standard shoes at such a rate that private\ncompetition is unthinkable. Of course, there may be some special kind of\nshoes, involving an intellectual element, in which there can be private\ncompetition. This kind of manufacture is covered in our second method of\npayment; but before we discuss it, let us settle the problem of our most\nimportant basic industry, which is agriculture.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXXII\n\nAGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION\n\n     (Discusses the land in the new world, and how we foster\n     co-operative farming and co-operative homes.)\n\n\nFarming the land is a very ancient industry, and while its tools have\nbeen improved, its social forms have been the same for a long time. The\nworker on the land is conservative, and the Russian Bolsheviks, who\ntried to rush their peasants into Communism, found that they had only\nsucceeded in stopping the production of food. We make no such blunder in\nour new society. We have found a way to abolish speculation in land, and\nexploitation based on land-ownership, while leaving the farmer free to\nrun his business in the old way if he wants to.\n\nIn our new society we take the full rental value of all land which is\nnot occupied and used by the state. The farmer and the city dweller\nalike \"own\" their land, in the sense that they have the use of it for as\nlong as they please, but they pay to the state the rental value of the\nland, minus the improvements. So they cannot speculate in the land or\nrent it out to others; they can only use it, and they only pay for what\nthey actually use. They may put improvements on the land, with full\nassurance of having the use and benefit thereof, and they may sell the\nimprovements, and the new owner enters into possession, with no\nobligation but to pay the rental value of the unimproved land to the\nstate.\n\nThe farmer goes on raising his products, and if he wants to drive to\ntown and deliver them to his customers, he may do so; but he finds it\ncheaper to market them through the great labor co-operatives and state\nmarkets. As there is no longer any private interest involved in these\nactivities, no one has any interest in cheating him, and he gets the\nfull value of the products, less the cost of marketing. If the farmer\nwishes to continue all his life in his old style individualistic method\nof working the land, he is free to do so. But here is what he sees going\non within a few miles of his place:\n\nThe state has bought a square mile of land, and has taken down the\nfences and established an agricultural co-operative for purposes of\nexperiment and demonstration. The farm is run under the direction of\nexperts; the soils are treated with exactly the right fertilizers for\neach crop, the best paying crops are raised, the best seed is used, and\nthe best machinery. The workers of this new agricultural co-operative\nreceive the standard wage, and they live in homes specially built for\nthem, with all the conveniences made possible by wholesale production.\nAlso, these co-operators live in a democratic community; they determine\ntheir own conditions of labor, being represented on the governing board,\nalong with the experts appointed by the state.\n\nThe farmer watches this experiment, at first with suspicion; but he\nfinds that his sons have less suspicion than he has, and his sons keep\npointing out to him that their little farm is not making the standard\nwage or anything like it; and, moreover, the standard wage is constantly\nincreasing, whereas, the price of farm-products is dropping. And here is\nthe state, ready to direct new co-operative ventures, inviting a score\nof farmers in the community to combine and buy out the unwilling ones,\nand establish a new co-operative. Sooner or later the old farmer gives\nway; or he dies, and his sons belong to the new world.\n\nSo ultimately we have our national agricultural system, in which all the\nrequirements of our people are studied, and all the possibilities of our\nsoil and climate, and the job of raising the exact quantities of food\nthat we need, both for our own use and for export, is worked out as one\nproblem. We know how much lumber we need, and we raise it on all our\nhillsides and mountain slopes, and so protect ourselves from floods and\nthe denuding of our continent. We know where best to raise our wheat,\nand where best to raise our potatoes and our cabbages, and we do not do\nthis by crude hand-labor, nor by the labor of women and children from\ndaybreak till dark. We have special machines that plant each crop, and\nother machines that reap it or dig it out of the ground and prepare it\nfor market.\n\nA few days ago I read a discussion in the Chamber of Commerce of\nCalcutta. Some one called attention to the wastes involved in the\ncurrent method of handling rubber. One consignment of rubber had been\nsold more than three hundred separate times, and the cost of these\ntransactions amounted to three times the value of the rubber. This is\nonly one illustration, and I might quote a thousand. If you doubt my\nfigures as to the possibility of production in the new society, remind\nyourself that a large percentage of the things you use have been bought\nand sold many scores of times before you get them. Consider the cabbage,\nfor which you pay six or eight cents a pound in the grocery store, and\nfor which the farmer gets, say, half a cent a pound.\n\nIn this new world the state has an enormous income, derived from its tax\non land values. It no longer has to send around men once a year to ask\nyou how many diamond rings your wife has, and to tax you on your\nhonesty, if you have any. It no longer has to make its money by such\nlying devices as a tariff, therefore its moral being is no longer\npoisoned by a tariff-lobby. It taxes every citizen for the right to use\nthat which nature created, and leaves free from taxation that which the\ncitizens' own labor created; this kind of taxation is honest, and fair\nto all, because no one can evade it. The state uses the proceeds of this\nland tax in the public services, the libraries and research laboratories\nand information bureaus; in free insurance against fire and flood and\ntempest; and in a pension to every member of society above the working\nage of fifty-five, or below the working age of eighteen. Of course, the\nstate might leave it to every man to save up for his old age, but not\nall men are this wise, and the state cannot afford to let the unwise\nones starve. It is more convenient for the state to figure that all men,\nor nearly all, are going to be old, and to hold back some of their money\nwhile they are young and strong, in the certainty that when they are\nold, they will appreciate this service. Also the state takes care of the\nsick and incapacitated, and the mentally or physically defective. But we\ndo not leave these latter loose in the world to reproduce their defects;\nwe have in our new world some sense of responsibility to the future, and\nthere is nothing to which we devote more effort than making certain that\nnothing unsound or abnormal is allowed entrance into life.\n\nThe problem of the care of children is a complicated one, and our new\nsociety is in process of solving it. We look back on the old world in\nwhich the having of children was heavily taxed, in the form of an\nobligation to care for these children until they were old enough to\nwork. Then the parents were allowed to exploit the labor of the\nchildren, so that among the very poor the raising of children was a\nbusiness speculation, like the raising of slaves or poultry. But in our\nnew world we consider the interest of the child, and of the society in\nwhich that child is to be a citizen. We decide that this society must\nhave citizens, and that the raising of the future citizens is a work\njust exactly as necessary and useful as the raising of a crop of\ncabbages. Therefore, we pay a pension to all mothers while they are\nraising and caring for children. At the same time we assert the right to\nsee that this money is wisely spent, and that the child is really cared\nfor. If it is neglected, we are quick to take it away from its parents,\nand put it in one of our twenty-four-hour-a-day schools.\n\nWe realize that the home is an ancient industry, even more ancient than\nagriculture, and we do not try to socialize it all at once. But just as\nwe demonstrate to farmers that the individual farm does not pay, so we\ndemonstrate to mothers the wastefulness of the single laundry, the\nsingle kitchen, the single nursery. We establish community laundries,\ncommunity kitchens, community nurseries, and invite our women to help in\nthese activities, and to learn there, under expert guidance, the\nadvantages of domestic co-operation. We convince them by showing better\nresults in the health and happiness of the children, and in the time and\nstrength of the mothers. So, little by little, we widen the field of\nco-operative endeavor, and increase the total product of human labor and\nthe total enjoyment of human life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXXIII\n\nINTELLECTUAL PRODUCTION\n\n     (Discusses scientific, artistic and religious activities, as a\n     superstructure built upon the foundation of the standard wage.)\n\n\nKarl Kautsky, intellectual leader of the German Social-democracy, gives\nin his book, \"The Social Revolution,\" a useful formula as to the\norganization of the future society. This formula is: \"Communism in\nmaterial production, Anarchism in intellectual production.\" It will\nrepay us to study this statement, and see exactly what it means.\n\nMaterial production depends directly upon things; and as there is only a\nlimited quantity of things in the world, if any one person has more than\nhis share, he deprives some other person to that extent. So there have\nto be strict laws concerning the distribution of material products. But\nwith intellectual things exactly the opposite is the case. There is no\nlimit in quantity, and any one person can have all he wants without\ninterfering with anybody else. Everybody in the world can perform a play\nby Shakespeare, or play a sonata by Beethoven, and everybody can enjoy\nit as much as he pleases without keeping other people from enjoying it\nall they please. Also, material production can be standardized; we can\nhave great factories to turn out millions of boxes of matches, each\nmatch like every other match, and the more alike they are the better.\nBut in intellectual affairs we want everyone to be different, or at\nleast we want everyone to be free to be different, and if some one can\nbecome much better than the others, this is the most important kind of\nproduction in the world, for he may make over our whole intellectual and\nmoral life.\n\nFor the production of material things our new society has great\nfactories owned in common, and run by majority vote of the workers, and\nwe place the products of that factory at the disposal of all members of\nsociety upon equal terms. That is our \"Communism in material\nproduction.\" On the other hand, in our intellectual production we leave\neverybody free to live his own life, and to associate himself with\nothers of like aims, and we place as few restrictions as possible upon\ntheir activities. This is the method of free association, or \"Anarchism\nin intellectual production.\"\n\nOur problem would be simple if material and intellectual production\nnever had to mingle. But, as it happens, every kind of intellectual\nproduction requires a certain amount of material, and every kind of\nmaterial production involves an intellectual element. Therefore, our two\nmethods have to be combined, and we have a complex problem which we have\nto solve in a variety of different ways, and upon which we must\nexperiment with open minds and scientific temper.\n\nFirst, let us take the intellectual elements involved in the production\nof purely material things, such as matches and shoes and soap. Let us\ntake invention. Naturally, we do not want to go on making matches and\nshoes and soap in the same old way forever. On the contrary, we want to\nstimulate all the workers in these industries to use their wits and\nimprove the processes in every possible way. The whole of society has an\ninterest in this, and the soap workers have an especial interest. Our\nsoap industry has an invention department, with a group of experts\nappointed by the executive committee of the national council of soap\nworkers. All soap workers are taxed, say five cents a day, for the\nsupport of this activity. Likewise the state contributes a generous sum\nout of its income toward the work of soap research. In addition to this,\nthe soap industry offers prizes and scholarships for suggestions as to\nthe improvement of every detail of the work, and at meetings of every\nlocal of soap workers somebody makes new suggestions as to methods of\nstimulating their intellectual life--not merely as regards soap, but as\nregards citizenship, and art and literature, and human life in general.\nOur soap workers, you must understand, are no longer wage-slaves,\nbrutalized by toil and poverty; they are free citizens of a free\nsociety. Our soap workers' local in every city has its own theatre and\nconcert hall and lecture bureau, and publishes its own magazine.\n\nEvery industry has its immediate intellectual problems, its trade\njournals in which these are discussed, and its research boards in which\nthey are worked out. The ambitions of the young workers in that industry\nare concentrated upon getting into this intellectual part of their\ntrade. Examinations are held and tests are made to discover the most\ncompetent men, and written suggestions are considered by boards of\ncontrol. It is, of course, of great importance to every worker that the\nchannels of promotion should be kept open, and that the man who really\nhas inventive talent shall get, not merely distinction and promotion,\nbut financial reward, so that he may have time and materials to continue\nhis experiments.\n\nThis research department, you perceive, is a sort of superstructure,\nbuilt upon the foundation of our standard wage; and this same simile\napplies to numerous other forms of intellectual production. For example,\nour community paper mills turn out paper, and our community printers are\nprepared to turn out millions of books. How shall we determine what is\nto be the intellectual content of these material books? There are many\ndifferent methods. First, there is the method of individualism. A man\nhas something to say, and he writes a book; he works in the soap\nfactory, and saves a part of his standard wage, and when he has money\nenough he orders the community printers to print his book, and the\ncommunity booksellers to handle it for him, and the community postoffice\nto deliver it for him. Again, a group of men organize themselves into an\nassociation, or club, or scientific society, and publish books. The\nAuthors' League takes up the work of publishing the writings of its\nmembers, and the Poetry Society does the same.\n\nThis is the method of Anarchism, or free association. But there is no\nreason why we should not have along side it the method of Socialism;\nthere is no reason why we should not have state publishing houses, just\nas we have state universities and state libraries. The state should\ncertainly publish standard works of all sorts, bibles and dictionaries\nand directories, and cheap editions of the classics. In this new world\nour school boards are not chosen by business men for purposes of graft,\nthey are chosen by the people to educate our children; so it seems to us\nperfectly natural that the National Educational Association should\nconduct a publication department, and order the printing of the school\nbooks which the children use.\n\nIn the same way, anyone is free to write a play, or to put on a play,\nand invite people to come and see it. But, like the individual farmers\nand the individual mothers of families, the play-producer in our society\nis in competition with great community enterprises, which set a high\nstandard and make competition difficult. The same thing applies to the\nopera, and to concerts, and to all the arts and sciences. You can start\na private hospital if you wish, but you will be in competition with\npublic institutions, and you can only succeed if you are a man of\ngenius--that is, if you have something to teach, too new and startling\nfor the public boards of control to recognize. You try your new method,\nand it works, and that becomes a criticism of the public boards of\ncontrol, and before long the people by their votes turn out the old\nboard of control and put you in.\n\nThat is politics, you say; but we in our new world do not use the word\npolitics as one of contempt. We really believe that public sentiment is\nin the long run the best authority, and the appeal to public sentiment\nis at once a social privilege and a social service. What we strive to do\nis to clear the channels of appeal, and avoid favoritism and stagnation.\nTo that end we maintain, in every art and every science and every\ndepartment of human thought, endless numbers of centers of free,\nindependent, co-operative activity, so that every man who has an\ninspiration, or a new idea, can find some group to support him or can\nform a new group of his own.\n\nThis is our \"Anarchism in intellectual production,\" and it is the method\nunder which in capitalist society men organize all their clubs and\nsocieties and churches. Devout members of the Roman Catholic Church will\nbe startled to be told that theirs is an Anarchist organization; but\nnevertheless, such is the case. The Catholic Church owns a great deal of\nproperty, and speculates in real estate, and to that extent it is a\ncapitalist institution. It holds a great many people by fear, and to\nthat extent it is a feudal institution. But in so far as members of the\nchurch believe in it and love it and contribute of their free will to\nits support, they are organizing by the method which all Anarchists\nrecommend and desire to apply to the whole of society. Anarchist clubs\nand Christian churches are both free associations for the advocacy of\ncertain ideas, the only difference being in the ideas they advocate.\n\nIn our new world such organizations have been multiplied many fold, and\nform a vast superstructure of intellectual activity, built upon the\nfoundation of the standard wage. In this new world all the people are\nfree. They are free, not merely from oppression, but from the fear of\noppression; they have leisure and plenty, and they take part naturally\nand simply in the intellectual life. The old, of course, have not got\nover the dullness which a lifetime of drudgery impressed upon them, but\nthe young are growing up in a world without classes, and in which it\nseems natural that everyone should be educated and everyone should have\nideas. They earn their standard wage, and devote their spare time to\nsome form of intellectual or artistic endeavor, and spend their spare\nmoney in paying writers and artists and musicians and actors to\nstimulate and entertain them.\n\nThese latter are the ways of distinction in our new society; these are\nthe paths to power. The only rich men in our world are the men who\nproduce intellectual goods; the great artists, orators, musicians,\nactors and writers, who are free to serve or not to serve, as they see\nfit, and can therefore hold up the public for any price they care to\ncharge. Just now there is eager discussion going on in our world as to\nwhether it is proper for an opera singer, or a moving picture star, or a\nnovelist, to make a million dollars. Our newspapers are full of\ndiscussions of the question whether anyone can make a million dollars\nhonestly, and whether men of genius should exploit their public. Some\npoint out that our most eminent opera singer spends his millions in\nendowing a conservatory of art; but others maintain that it would be\nbetter if he lowered his prices of admission, and let the public use its\nmoney in its own way. The extremists are busy founding what they call\nthe Ten-cent Society, whose members agree to boycott all singers and\nactors who charge more than ten cents admission, and all moving picture\nstars who receive more than a hundred thousand dollars a year for their\nservice. These \"Ten-centers\" do not object to paying the money, but they\nobject to the commercializing of art, and declare especially that the\nmoral effect of riches is such that no rich person should ever, under\nany circumstances, be allowed to influence the youth of the nation. In\nthis some of the greatest writers join them, and renounce their\ncopyrights, and agree to accept a laureateship from some union of\nworkers, who pay them a generous stipend for the joy and honor of being\nassociated with their names. The greatest poet of our time began life as\na newsboy, and so the National Newsvenders' Society has adopted him, and\ntaken his name, and pays him ten thousand dollars a year for the\nprivilege of publishing his works.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXXIV\n\nMANKIND REMADE\n\n     (Discusses human nature and its weaknesses, and what happens to\n     these in the new world.)\n\n\nWe have briefly sketched the economic arrangements of the co-operative\ncommonwealth. Let us now consider what are the effects of these\narrangements upon the principal social diseases of capitalism.\n\nThe first and most dreadful of capitalism's diseases is war, and the\neconomic changes here outlined have placed war, along with piracy and\nslavery, among the half-forgotten nightmares of history. We have broken\nthe \"iron ring,\" and are no longer dependent upon foreign concessions\nand foreign markets for the preservation of our social system and the\naggrandizement of a ruling class. We can stay quietly at home and do our\nown work, and as we produce nearly everything we need, we no longer have\nto threaten our neighbors. Our neighbors know this, and therefore they\ndo not arm against us, and we have no pretext to arm against them. We\ntake toward all other civilized nations the attitude which we have taken\ntoward Canada for the past hundred years.\n\nWe have a small and highly trained army, a few regiments of which are\nlocated at strategic points over the country. This army we regard and\nuse as we do our fire department. When there is widespread damage by\nfire or flood or storm or earthquake, we rush the army to the spot to\nattend to the work of rescue and rebuilding. Also, we have a small navy\nin international service; for, of course, we are no longer an\nindependent and self-centered nation; we have come to realize that we\nare part of the world community, and have taken our place as one state\nin the International Socialist Federation. We send our delegates to the\nworld parliament, and we place our resources at the disposal of the\nworld government. However, it now takes but a small army and navy to\npreserve order in the world. We govern the backward nations, but the\neconomic arrangements of the world are such that we are no longer driven\nto exploit and oppress them. We send them teachers instead of soldiers,\nand as there are really very few people in the world who fight for the\nlove of fighting, we have little difficulty in preserving peace. We pay\nthe backward peoples a fair price for their products which we need. Our\nworld government takes no money out of these countries, but spends it\nfor the benefit of those who live in the countries, to teach them and\ntrain their young generations for self-government.\n\nNext, what are the effects of our new arrangements upon political\ncorruption and graft? The social revolution has broken the prestige of\nwealth. Money will buy things, but it no longer buys power, the right to\nrule other men; it no longer buys men's admiration. Everybody now has\nmoney, and nobody is any longer afraid of starvation. It is no longer\nthe fashion to save money--any more than it is the fashion to carry\nrevolvers in drawing-rooms or to wear chain mail in place of\nunderclothing. So our political life is cleansed of the money influence.\nPeople now get power by persuading their fellows, not by buying them or\nthreatening them. The world is no longer full of men ravenous for jobs,\nand ready to sell their soul for a \"position.\" So it is no longer\npossible to build up a \"machine\" based on desire for office.\n\nThe changes have resulted in an enormous intensification of our\npolitical activities. We have endless meetings and debates; we have so\nmany propaganda societies that we cannot keep track of them. And some of\nthese societies, like the Catholic Church, have a large membership, and\nlarge sums of money at their disposal. But a few experiments at carrying\nelections by a \"campaign-chest\" have convinced everybody that to have\nthe facts on your side is the only permanent way to political power. Our\nnew society is jealous of attempts to establish any sort of ruling\nclass, and the surest way to discredit yourself is to advocate any form\nof barrier against freedom of discussion, or the right of the people's\nwill to prevail.\n\nNext, what is the status of crime? We have too recently escaped from\ncapitalism to have been able to civilize entirely our slum population,\nand we still have occasional crimes of violence, especially crimes of\npassion. But we have almost entirely eliminated those classes of crime\nwhich had to do with property, and we have discovered that this was\nninety-five per cent of all crime. We have eliminated them by the simple\ndevice of making them no longer profitable. Anybody can go into our\ncommunity factories, and under clean and attractive working conditions,\nand without any loss of prestige or social position, can earn the means\nof satisfying his reasonable wants by three hours work a day. Almost\neverybody finds this easier than stealing or cheating.\n\nBut more important yet, as a factor in abolishing crime, is the\nabolition of class domination and the prestige of wealth. We no longer\nhave in our community a ruling class which lives without working, and\nwhich offers to the weak-minded and viciously inclined the perpetual\nexample of luxury. We no longer set much store on jewels and fine\nraiment; we do not make costly things, except for public purposes, where\nall may enjoy them; and nobody stores great quantities of money, because\neveryone has a guarantee of security from the state. So we are gradually\nputting our policemen and jailers and judges and lawyers to constructive\nwork.\n\nNext, what about disease? The diseases of poverty are entirely done away\nwith. We are now able to apply the knowledge of science to the whole\ncommunity, and so we no longer have to do with tuberculosis and typhoid,\nor with rickets and anaemia in children, or with heavy infant mortality.\nWe have sterilized our unfit, the degenerates and the defectives, and so\ndo not have to reckon with millions of children from these wretched\nstocks. We now give to the question of public health that prominence\nwhich in the old days we used to give to war and the suppression of\ncrime and social protest. Our public health officers now replace our\ngenerals and admirals, and we really obey their orders.\n\nNext, as to prostitution. Just as in the case of crime, we are still too\nclose to capitalism not to have among us the victims of social\ndepravity, both men and women. We still have a great deal of vice which\nsprings from untrained animal impulse, and we have some cultivated and\nhighly sophisticated pornography. But we have entirely done away with\ncommercial vice, and we have done it by cutting the root which nourished\nit. Women in our communities are really free; and by that we do not mean\nthe empty political freedom which existed in the days of wage\nslavery--we mean that women are permanently delivered from economic\ninferiority, by the recognition on the part of the state of the money\nvalue of their special kind of work, the bearing and training of\nchildren. This kind of work not merely receives the standard wage, it\nalso receives the best surgical and nursing treatment free. Housework\nand home-making are legally recognized services; and the woman before\nmarriage and after her children have been nursed is free to go into the\ncommunity factories and earn for herself the standard wage, with no loss\nof social position. Consequently, no woman sells her sex, and no man\nbuys it.\n\nThis does not mean, of course, that we have solved the sex problem in\nour new society. There are two great social problems with which we have\nto deal, the first of these being the sex problem, and the second the\nrace problem. Our scientists are occupied with eugenics, and we are\nfinding out how to guide our young people in marriage, so that our race\nmay be built up, and the ravages of capitalism remedied as quickly as\npossible. Also we are trying to find out the laws of happiness and\nhealth in love. We are founding societies for the purpose of protecting\nlove, and, as hinted in the Book of Love, we have a determined social\nstruggle between two groups of women--the mother-women and the\nmistress-women--those who take love gravely, as a means of improving the\nrace, and those who take it as a decoration, a form of play. Our men are\nembarrassed by having to choose between these groups, and occupy\nthemselves with trying to keep the struggle from turning into civil war.\n\nSecond, the race problem. Our economic changes have, of course, done\naway with some of the bitterest phases of this strife. White workingmen\nin the North no longer mob and murder negro workingmen for taking their\njobs, and in the South our land values tax prevents the landlord from\nexploiting either white or negro labor. But our white race is still\nirresistibly bent upon preserving its integrity of blood, and the more\nfar-seeing among the negroes have come to realize that there can never\nbe any real happiness for them in a society where they are denied the\nhigher social privileges. There is a movement for the development of a\ngenuine Negro Republic in Africa, and for mass emigration. Also there is\na proposition, soon to be settled at an election, for the dividing of\nthe United States into three districts upon racial lines. First, there\nare to be, in the Far South, three or four states which are inhabited\nand governed solely by negroes, and to which white men may come only as\ntemporary visitors; a large group of states in the North which are white\nstates, and to which negroes may come only as visitors; and finally, a\nmiddle group of states, in which both whites and black are allowed to\nlive, as at present, but with the proviso that no one may live there\nwho takes part in any form of racial strife or agitation. This program\ngives to race-conscious negroes their own land, their own civilization,\ntheir own chance of self-realization; it gives to race-conscious white\nmen the same opportunity; and it leaves to those who are not troubled by\nthe problem, a country where black and white may dwell in quiet good\nfellowship.\n\nFinally, what has been the effect of our economic changes upon the\npurely personal vices which gave us so much trouble and unhappiness in\nthe old days? What, for example, has been the effect upon vanity? You\nshould see our new crop of children in our high schools! There are no\nlonger any social classes among them; the rich ones do not arrive in\nprivate automobiles, to make the poor ones envious, and they do not\nisolate themselves in little snobbish cliques. They arrive in community\nautomobiles, and all wear uniforms--one of the simple devices by which\nwe repress the impulse of the young toward display of personal egotism.\nThey are all full of health and happy play, and their heads are busily\noccupied with interesting ideas. Our girls are trained to thinking,\ninstead of to personal adornment; they are developing their minds,\ninstead of catching a rich husband by sexual charms. So we have been\nable, in a single generation of training, to make a real and appreciable\ndifference in the amount of vanity and self-consciousness to be found\namong our young people.\n\nAnd the same thing applies to a score of other undesirable qualities,\nwhich, under the system of competitive commercialism, were\noverstimulated in human beings. In those old days everyone was seeking\nhis own survival, and certain qualities which had survival value became\nthe principal characteristics of our race. Those qualities were greed\nand persistence in acquisitiveness, cunning and subtlety, also bragging\nand self-assertiveness. In that old world people destroyed their fellows\nin order to make their own safety and power; they wasted goods in order\nto be esteemed, to preserve what they called their \"social position.\"\nBut now we have cut the roots of all these vile weeds. We have so\nadjusted the business relationships of men that we do not have to have\nhysterical religious revivals in order to keep the human factors alive\nin their hearts. We have established it as a money fact, which everyone\nquickly realizes, that it pays better to co-operate; there is more\nprofit and less bother in being of service to others. So we have\nprepared a soil in which virtues grow instead of vices, and we find\nthat people become decent and kindly and helpful without exhortation,\nand with no more moral effort than the average man can comfortably make.\nOf course, we have still personal vices to combat, and new virtues to\ndiscover and to propagate; but this has to do with the future, whereas\nwe are here confining ourselves to those things which have been\ndemonstrated in our new society.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\nAbortion, 61\n\nAbortions, 30\n\nAdvertising, 163\n\nAgricultural co-operative, 206\n\nAnarchism, 210\n\nAnarchist, 89, 90\n\nAnarchy, 172\n\nAnglo-Saxon, 62, 111\n\n\"Appeal to Reason\", 149\n\nAristocratic doctrine, 116\n\nArmour, 128\n\nAtherton, Gertrude, 87\n\n\nBabies, 63\n\nBachelorhood, 52\n\nBacon, Francis, 51\n\nBanking system, 192\n\nBankruptcy, 162\n\nBarbarism, 124\n\nBarnum, P. T., 27\n\nBerkman, Alexander, 173\n\nBiology, 103\n\nBirth control, 61, 76\n\nBirth Control Review, 64\n\nBlatchford, Robert, 55, 161\n\n\"Blind\" love, 58\n\nBolsheviks, 172\n\nBreach of promise suit, 91\n\nBrothel, 66\n\nBrothels, 31\n\nBurbank, Luther, 99\n\nBusiness man, 143\n\n\nCapital, 158\n\nCapitalism, 136, 168\n\nCapitalists, 142\n\nCarnegie, 168\n\nCatholic Church, 213, 216\n\nCelibacy, 51, 52, 64\n\nChastity, 51\n\nChattel slavery, 186\n\nChildbirths, 70\n\nChildren, 70, 72, 85, 208\n\nChristianity, 115, 133\n\n\"Clarion\", 31\n\nClass struggle, 133, 177\n\nClay, Henry, 186\n\nColeridge, 85\n\n\"Collier's Weekly\", 122, 163\n\nCommittee on Waste, 160\n\nCommune, 129\n\nCommunism, 10, 170, 210\n\nCompensation, 179\n\nCompetition, 108, 127\n\nCompetitive wage system, 148\n\n\"Complex\", 49\n\nComstock, Anthony, 20\n\nConfiscation, 179\n\nCongress, 138\n\nContraception, 61\n\nCo-operation, 109, 199, 200\n\nCoquetry, 38\n\nCorporation, 127\n\nCourtship, 91\n\nCredit, 152, 154, 192, 200\n\nCredit-cards, 202\n\nCrime, 164, 216\n\nCulture, 62\n\nCutting, H. C., 200\n\n\nDances, 15\n\nDebs, Eugene V., 155\n\nDegeneration, 121\n\n\"Demi-monde\", 80\n\nDemocratic doctrine, 115\n\nDictatorship, 180, 183, 185\n\nDill, James B., 25\n\nDisarmament, 157\n\nDiscouragement, 164\n\nDisease, 217\n\nDivorce, 32, 93, 97\n\nDouble standard, 5\n\n\"Douglas plan\", 199\n\n\"Dumping\", 152\n\n\nEconomic evolution, 123\n\nEconomic man, 108\n\nEmerson, 186\n\nEmulation, 112\n\nEngagements, 72\n\nEngland, 120, 156, 175\n\nEugenics, 58\n\nEvolution, 122\n\nExogamy, 105\n\nExploitation, 181\n\nExploiting, 148\n\nExports, 153\n\n\nFactory system, 129\n\nFarming, 206\n\n\"Favorable balance\", 151\n\nFear, 122, 164\n\nFederal Reserve Act, 154\n\nFeminist, 69\n\nFeudal stage, 124\n\nFires, 163\n\nForeign trade, 151\n\n\"Free love\", 44, 87\n\n\"Free lover\", 92\n\nFrance, 175\n\nFrance, Anatole, 44\n\nFreud, 104\n\n\nGens, 9\n\nGermany, 155, 156\n\nGillette, King C., 200\n\nGoldman, Emma, 173\n\nGonorrhea, 30\n\nGoode, Mary J., 41\n\nGovernment, 166\n\n\"Graft\", 127, 216\n\n\"Great Adventure\", 188\n\n\nHammurabi, 78\n\n\"Hamon case\", 26\n\n\"Hard times\", 144\n\nHardy, 13\n\nHarris, Frank, 21\n\n\"High life\", 23\n\nHome, 42, 209\n\nHoneymoon, 56\n\nHoover, Herbert, 160\n\nHouse of Commons, 137\n\nHuguenots, 134\n\nHuman nature, 99\n\nHunger, 122\n\n\nIdeals, 132\n\nImports, 153\n\nIncome tax, 143, 188\n\nIndustrial evolution, 126\n\nInfant, 103\n\nInfanticide, 61\n\nInflation, 196\n\nInheritance tax, 188\n\n\"Ingenues\", 19\n\nInstinct, 57\n\nInsurance, 163\n\nIntellectual production, 211\n\n\"Iron ring\", 158\n\nIsland, 145\n\nI. W. W., 169\n\n\nJames, William, 16\n\nJealousy, 89\n\nJews, 127\n\n\nKautsky, Karl, 210\n\n\"King Coal\", 139\n\nKropotkin, 109, 129, 173\n\n\nLabor, 158\n\nLabor checks, 202\n\nLabor union, 199\n\nLaissez faire, 110\n\nLand tax, 190\n\nLand titles, 179\n\nLand values, 208\n\nLate marriage, 67\n\nLecky, 6, 33\n\nLeviticus, 78\n\nLiberty motor, 164\n\nLondon, Jack, 62\n\nLos Angeles Times, 157\n\nLove, 34, 47, 100, 112, 218\n\nLust, 48\n\nLuther, Martin, 129\n\nLuxury, 60\n\n\nMachinery, 149\n\n\"Magic gestures\", 104\n\nMagna Carta, 134\n\nMalthusian law, 108\n\nMarkham, Edwin, 139\n\nMarquesas Islands, 33\n\nMarriage, 4\n\nMarriage club, 71\n\nMarriage market, 68\n\nMarx, Karl, 132, 138, 176\n\nMaterialistic interpretation, 132\n\nMaterial production 210\n\nMaternity endowment 79\n\nMeredith, George 43\n\n\"Merrie England\" 161\n\nMetchnikoff, Elie 33, 46\n\nMexico 121\n\nMiddle class 176, 186\n\nMinor, Robert 173\n\nMistress 12\n\nMoney 37, 192, 202\n\nMoney Trust 194\n\nMonogamy 5, 83, 90\n\nMoors 134\n\nMoralists 59\n\nMorgan 128\n\nMother's pension 79\n\nMoving pictures 17\n\n\nNegro 218\n\nNegroes 116\n\nNeuroses 105\n\nNeurotics 103\n\nNorth Dakota 194\n\nNorth, Luke 188\n\n\nO'Brien, Frederick 10\n\nOedipus complex 104\n\n\"Open-shop\" 177\n\n\nPanic 154\n\nParasitism 74\n\nPassion 58\n\nPermanence 87\n\nPiracy 111\n\nPity 74\n\nPlumb plan 198\n\nPolitical evolution 123\n\nPolitical revolution 125\n\nPolitics 213\n\nPornography 20\n\nPostal savings bank 195\n\nPoverty 40\n\nPrimitive man 9\n\nPrivilege 36\n\nProfessor Sumner 122\n\nProfit system 148, 158\n\n\"Progressive polygamy\" 90\n\nProletariat 142\n\nPromiscuity 87\n\nProperty marriage 44\n\nProsperity 144\n\nProstitute 6\n\nProstitution 4, 31, 41, 217\n\nProudhon 179\n\nPsycho-analysis 49, 103\n\nPublic bank 194\n\nPublishing 212\n\n\nQuick, Herbert 165\n\n\nRace prejudice 62\n\nRace problem 218\n\nRacial immaturity 116\n\nRaffeisen bank 200\n\nReeve, Sidney A. 160\n\nRepublic 125\n\nResearch 212\n\n\"Resurrection\" 53\n\nRevolt 134\n\nRicardo 108\n\nRichardson, Dorothy 26\n\nRing 148\n\nRobinson, Dr. William, J, 21, 30, 70, 77\n\nRoman Catholic church 90\n\n\"Romance\" 91\n\n\"Romantic\" love 55\n\nRoosevelt 61\n\nRulers 119\n\nRussia 129, 185\n\n\nSanger, Margaret 63\n\nSchool of marriage 75\n\nSelection 8\n\nSex 8\n\nSex education 72\n\nSex impulse 46\n\nSex problem 218\n\nSex urge 86\n\nSex war 81\n\nShelley 59, 89\n\n\"She-towns\" 29\n\nShop management 168\n\nSienkiewicz 13\n\nSims, District Attorney 28\n\nSingle tax 188\n\nSlavery 10, 126, 136\n\n\"Smart set\" 24\n\nSmith, Adam 108\n\nSnobbery 61\n\nSocialism, 166\n\nSocial revolution, 128, 147, 175\n\nSoviets, 130, 171\n\n\"Speeding up\", 138\n\nSpencer, Herbert, 122\n\nSpirituality, 64\n\nSport, 113\n\nStandard wage, 203\n\nSteel Trust, 137\n\nStopes, Dr. Marie C., 77\n\nStrikes, 162\n\nSyndicalism, 167\n\nSyphilis, 30\n\n\nTabu, 9\n\nTariff, 153\n\nTaxes, 191\n\nTennyson, 38, 120\n\n\"The Brass Check\", 31, 137\n\n\"The Conquest of Bread\", 173\n\n\"The Cost of Competition\", 160\n\n\"The Industrial Republic\", 202\n\n\"The Jungle\", 139\n\n\"The Lady\", 12\n\n\"The Long Day\", 26, 29\n\n\"The Nature of Man\", 33\n\n\"The Profits of Religion\", 137\n\n\"The Social Revolution\", 210\n\n\"The Strangle Hold\", 200\n\nThompson, A. M., 31\n\nTolstoi, 53\n\n\"Totem and Taboo\", 104\n\n\"Triangle\", 56\n\n\nUnconscious, 105\n\nUnemployment, 147\n\n\n\"Vamps\", 19\n\nVanity, 219\n\nVarietism, 85\n\nVenereal disease, 30, 67, 83\n\nVoltaire, 36\n\nVoluntary Parenthood League, 64\n\n\nWar, 162\n\nWars, 155\n\nWaste, 165\n\nWells, H. G., 89\n\nWharton, Edith, 95\n\n\"Wild oats\", 6\n\nWhite man's burden, 117\n\nWhite, William Allen, 17\n\nWorker, 140\n\nWorkers, 176\n\nWorking class, 140\n\nWoman, 12\n\n\n\"Young love\", 56, 73\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nBOOKS BY UPTON SINCLAIR\n\nPublished by the Author, Pasadena, California\n\nTrade Distributors: The Paine Book Co., Chicago, [I].\n\n\nThe Brass Check\n\nA Study of American Journalism\n\nWho owns the press and why?\n\nWhen you read your daily paper, are you reading facts or propaganda? And\nwhose propaganda?\n\nWho furnishes the raw material for your thoughts about life? Is it\nhonest material?\n\nNo man can ask more important questions than these; and here for the\nfirst time the questions are answered in a book.\n\nThe first edition of this book, 23,000 copies, was sold out two weeks\nafter publication. Paper could not be obtained for printing, and a\ncarload of brown wrapping paper was used. The printings to date amount\nto 144,000 copies. The book is being published in Great Britain and\ncolonies, and in translations in Germany, France, Holland, Norway,\nSweden, Denmark, Italy, Hungary and Japan.\n\n     HERMANN BESSEMER, _in the \"Neues Journal,\" Vienna_:\n\n     \"Upton Sinclair deals with names, only with names, with balances,\n     with figures, with documents, a truly stunning, gigantic\n     fact-material. His book is an armored military train which with\n     rushing pistons roars through the jungle of American monsterlies,\n     whistling, roaring, shooting, chopping off with Berserker rage the\n     obscene heads of these evils. A breath-taking, clutching, frightful\n     book is 'The Brass Check.'\"\n\n(=Prices of all books, unless otherwise stated, cloth $1.20, 3 copies $3,\n10 copies $9; paper 60c, 3 copies $1.50, 10 copies $4.50. All prices\npostpaid.=)\n\n\nTHE BOOK OF LIFE\n\nA book of practical counsel. Volume One--Mind and Body. Discusses truth\nand its standards, and the basis of health, both mental and physical.\nTells people how to live, in order to avoid waste and pain, and to find\nhappiness and achieve progress.\n\nVolume Two--Love and Society. Discusses health in sex; love and\nmarriage, chastity, monogamy, birth control, divorce. Explains modern\neconomic problems, Socialism, revolution, industrial democracy, and the\nfuture society. Prices of volumes one and two bound in one, cloth $1.50,\npaper $1.00. Either of the two volumes separately, cloth $1.20, paper\n60c.\n\n\nTHE JUNGLE\n\nThis novel, first published in 1906, caused an international sensation.\nIt was the best selling book in the United States for a year; also in\nGreat Britain and its colonies. It was translated into seventeen\nlanguages, and caused an investigation by President Roosevelt, and\naction by Congress. The book has been out of print for ten years, and is\nnow reprinted by the author at a lower price than when first published,\nalthough the cost of manufacture has since more than doubled.\n\n     \"Not since Byron awoke one morning to find himself famous has there\n     been such an example of world-wide celebrity won in a day by a book\n     as has come to Upton Sinclair.\"--_New York Evening World._\n\n     \"It is a book that does for modern industrial slavery what 'Uncle\n     Tom's Cabin' did for black slavery. But the work is done far better\n     and more accurately in 'The Jungle' than in 'Uncle Tom's\n     Cabin.'\"--ARTHUR BRISBANE, _in the New York Evening Journal_.\n\n\nKING COAL\n\nA novel of the Colorado coal country.\n\n     \"Clear, convincing, complete.\"--LINCOLN STEFFENS.\n\n     \"I wish that every word of it could be burned deep into the heart\n     of every American.\"--ADOLPH GERMER.\n\n     DEBS AND THE POETS: Edited by Ruth Le Prade, with an introduction\n     by Upton Sinclair. A collection of poetry about Debs.\n\nSYLVIA: A novel of the South.\n\nSYLVIA'S MARRIAGE: A sequel. (Both in cloth only.)\n\n\n100% A STORY OF A PATRIOT\n\nWould you like to go behind the scenes and see the \"invisible\ngovernment\" of your country saving you from the Bolsheviks and the Reds?\nWould you like to meet the secret agents and provocateurs of \"Big\nBusiness,\" to know what they look like, how they talk and what they are\ndoing to make the world safe for democracy? Several of these gentlemen\nhave been haunting the home of Upton Sinclair during the past three\nyears and he has had the idea of turning the tables and investigating\nthe investigators. He has put one of them, Peter Gudge by name, into a\nbook, together with Peter's ladyloves, and his wife, and his boss, and a\nwhole group of his fellow-agents and their employers.\n\n     _From_ LOUIS UNTERMEYER, _Author of \"Challenge,\" etc._:\n\n     \"Upton Sinclair has done it again. He has loaded his Maxim (no\n     Silencer attached), taken careful aim, and--bang!--hit the bell\n     plump in the center.\n\n     \"First of all, '100%' is a story; a story full of suspense, drama,\n     'heart interest,' plots, counterplots, high life, low life, humor,\n     hate and other passions--as thrilling as a W. S. Hart movie, as\n     interest-crammed as (and a darned sight more truthful than) your\n     daily newspaper.\"\n\n\nTHEY CALL ME CARPENTER: A TALE OF THE SECOND COMING\n\nNarrates how Jesus came to Los Angeles in the year 1921, and what\nhappened to Him. To be published in September, 1922.\n\n\nTHE CRY FOR JUSTICE\n\nAn anthology of the literature of social protest, with an introduction\nby Jack London, who calls it \"this humanist Holy-book.\" Thirty-two\nillustrations, 891 pages. Cloth, $1.50; paper, $1.00.\n\n     \"It should rank with the very noblest works of all time. You could\n     scarcely have improved on its contents--it is remarkable in variety\n     and scope. Buoyant, but never blatant, powerful and passionate, it\n     has the spirit of a challenge and a battle cry.\"--LOUIS UNTERMEYER.\n\n     \"You have marvelously covered the whole ground. The result is a\n     book that radicals of every shade have long been waiting for. You\n     have made one that every student of the world's thought--economic,\n     philosophic, artistic--has to have.\"--REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN.\n\n\nTHE PROFITS OF RELIGION\n\nA study of supernaturalism as a source of income and a shield to\nprivilege. The first investigation of this subject ever made in any\nlanguage.\n\n     \"You have put a lot of work into it and you have marshalled your\n     facts in, masterly fashion.\"--WILLIAM MARION REEDY.\n\n\t        *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe following typographical errors have been corrected by the text\ntranscriber:\n\nworshiping=>worshipping\n\nchanges takes place=>changes take place\n\nis an impuse=>is an impulse\n\ncenter of continous=>center of continuous\n\na starvling beggar at the gates=>a starving beggar at the gates\n\nof fool nations about sex=>of fool notions about sex\n\nany personal right in contravened=>any personal right is contravened\n\nindustrial evoluton=>industrial evolution\n\nto the poeple=>to the people\n\nSocial revoluton=>Social revolution\n\nher hands and and feet=>her hands and her feet\n\nLiebault=>Liebault\n\nSienkewicz's \"Whirlpools\"=>Sienkiewicz's \"Whirlpools\"\n\nMagna Charta, 134=>Magna Carta, 134","title":"The Book of Life","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":166574}