{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_51808/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_51808","id":"gutenberg_51808","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51808","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Economics","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Sociology","Ruskin, John, 1819-1900"],"text":"THE HARVEST\nOF RUSKIN\n\n\n\n\nTHE HARVEST\nOF RUSKIN\n\nBY\n\nJOHN W. GRAHAM, M.A.\n\nPRINCIPAL OF DALTON HALL, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER\nAUTHOR OF \u201cTHE DESTRUCTION OF DAYLIGHT\u201d\n\n[Illustration: colophon]\n\nLONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.\nRUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1\n\n_First published in 1920_\n\n(_All rights reserved_)\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThis book is concerned with Ruskin\u2019s teaching in the departments of\nReligion and Economics only, including his social reforms and\neducational schemes. It leaves out all his work on Art and in Natural\nHistory and Mineralogy. His thoughts on Beauty in Landscape are treated\nonly so far as that Beauty is damaged by Industrialism or by War. Nor\nhas any attempt been made to produce an analysis of his literary style\nor styles. The long extracts which the plan of the book requires,\nhowever, afford sufficient examples of his artistry in words.\n\nMy aim is to give a critical estimate in a reverent spirit of Ruskin\u2019s\nteaching in these two departments, and to apply it to the needs of our\nown time.\n\nThe development of Ruskin\u2019s religious faith and its final outcome have\nnot, I believe, been fully worked out before, and the reconciliation\nwhich I have attempted in the region of Economics is long overdue. These\nparts of the book have been delivered as lectures in past years under\nthe Manchester and Liverpool University Extension Committees, at Summer\nSchools, and elsewhere.\n\nI am indebted to Ruskin\u2019s literary executors for permission to quote\nfreely from his works.\n\nJ. W. G.\n\nDALTON HALL,\nMANCHESTER.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nCHAPTER\t                                                            PAGE\n\nI. THE SIGNS OF A PROPHET                                              9\n\nII. THE PILGRIM\u2019S WAY                                                 26\n\nIII. TO WHAT FOLD?                                                    55\n\nIV. RUSKIN AND MILL: A RECONCILIATION                                 78\n\nV. RUSKIN\u2019S RECONSTRUCTION                                           120\n\nVI. RUSKIN\u2019S ECONOMICS TO-DAY                                        151\n\nVII. USURY                                                           185\n\nVIII. WAR                                                            203\n\nIX. MACHINERY                                                        222\n\nEPILOGUE                                                             259\n\nINDEX                                                                267\n\n\n\n\nThe Harvest of Ruskin\n\n\n\n\n_CHAPTER I_\n\n_THE SIGNS OF A PROPHET_\n\n\nNow that one hundred years have gone by since their one precious boy was\nborn in London to a Scottish wine merchant and his wife, it may be well\nto ask how much of Ruskin\u2019s teaching has proved to be chaff which the\nwind driveth away, and how much has been precious seed. Ruskin is just\nnow suffering from the time of comparative neglect which intervenes\nbetween an author\u2019s contemporaries and posterity, the years when the\nimmediate appropriateness of his message may have lapsed, when it is no\nlonger fresh and startling, but its permanent value has not yet been\nsettled by the verdict of several generations. All or nearly all the\ngreat Victorians are in like case.\n\nRuskin\u2019s art criticism is, as a matter of fact, not only ignored but\nresolutely rejected nowadays among critical writers. He loved beauty\nand charm in subject; he rejected scenes of horror and torture, and also\nsubjects of mere Dutch commonplace. He loved delicate and accurately\nminute drawing, and the realistic detail of the Preraph\u00e6lites. He\ndesired that a tree in a picture should be recognized as an oak or a\nbirch; and he loved above all fine drawing of mosses, leaves, and\npeacocks\u2019 wings. This is the day of impressionism, super-impressionism\nand impression of impressionism, and so on, through ever greater\nabandonment of drawing and significance, to cubism, futurism and other\nweird follies. I am not wishful to dogmatize on these matters; I incline\nto the sage and wonderful conclusion that all styles are good provided\nthey are good styles; that conscientiousness in the portrayal of what\nthe artist really sees will not lead him astray; that originality, or at\nany rate a marked individual gift, is a necessity; and that there is no\none orthodox school. As in everything else, the letter killeth,\nconvention blocks progress, and slovenliness includes a multitude of\nsins.\n\nBut this book is not concerned with art criticism, but with the teaching\nabout human duty and happiness, to which Ruskin\u2019s art interests led\nhim. The characteristic note he contributed to art criticism was to\nregard art as a revelation of God and of Man. He was a prophet of Beauty\nfrom his birth. Concerning his susceptibility in childhood to the power\nof natural Beauty, he writes in the third volume of _Modern\nPainters_,[1] in words which throw light upon his special gifts of\ntemperament: \u201cAlthough there was no definite religious sentiment mingled\nwith it, there was a continual perception of sanctity in the whole of\nNature, from the slightest thing to the vastest; an instinctive awe,\nmixed with delight; an indefinable thrill, such as we sometimes imagine\nto indicate the presence of a disembodied spirit. I could only feel this\nperfectly when I was alone; and then it would often make me shiver from\nhead to foot from the joy and fear of it, when, after being some time\naway from the hills, I first got to the shore of a mountain river, where\nthe brown water circled among the pebbles, or when I first saw the swell\nof distant land against the sunset, or the first low broken wall covered\nwith mountain moss. I cannot in the least describe the feeling; but I do\nnot think this is my fault, nor that of the English language, for I am\nafraid no feeling is describable. If we had to explain even the sense of\nbodily hunger to a person who had never felt it, we should be hard put\nto it for words; and the joy in nature seemed to me to come of a sort of\nheart-hunger, satisfied with the presence of a Great and Holy Spirit.\nThese feelings remained in their full intensity till I was eighteen or\ntwenty, and then, as the reflective and practical power increased, and\nthe \u2018cares of the world\u2019 gained upon me, faded gradually away, in the\nmanner described by Wordsworth in his _Intimations of Immortality_.\u201d\n\nThe fact is that we are dealing with a man who belongs to the prophetic\norder: and this book is written in the belief that he was not only a\nprophet for the nineteenth, but also for the twentieth century. He has\nall the prophetic signs. Right or wrong, fantastic or terribly truthful,\nwe feel that he is coining his soul into golden words. The stress and\nstrain of his cry against priesthoods, modern business, false teaching\nof economics as he thought it, wore him out, and left him subject to\nattacks of inflammation of the brain. Rightly he spoke of _Fors\nClavigera_ as the book of his life; \u201cbest worth calling a book,\u201d he\nsaid, of anything he had written. With it his serious work ended in\n1884. Only the chatty reminiscences of _Pr\u00e6terita_ were to be written\nafter that.\n\nHe had, besides a dreadful sincerity, another mark of the true afflatus.\nNever, as he pleaded, had he written a line for money or for the glory\nof self. It was the wrong done to Turner that drove him to write _Modern\nPainters_; the necessity of character in a nation was the lesson he had\nto teach in tracing the history of Venice in her monuments; the cry of\nthe poor, and indignation over the wrecking of humanity in the name of\nbusiness, drove him to write _Unto This Last_, and all his social and\neconomic works. He had the single-mindedness of the seer.\n\nAgain, he inspired love and discipleship in hearts ready for his\nmessage, as prophets do. The Master he was called, and the Master he\nremains. His loss was a personal loss. The event of January 20, 1900,\nwas to many of us a real bereavement. The strong personal note which\ncaused the prophets Isaiah and Hosea to do in their own persons\nemblematic acts for a sign, caused Ruskin also to tell his readers more\nabout himself than anyone would who did not identify himself with his\nmessage. To the unseeing eye this looks like egotism, but it is far\nfrom that.\n\nHis life, too, was such as a prophet\u2019s ought to be. He gave away the\ngreater part of a fortune of \u00a3157,000, and some house property, and\nchose to do without advertising his books. In love and in the loss of\nlove he suffered, but did nothing base, everything that was kind and\ntrue. As a prophet whose burden was wealth and poverty, social tyranny\nand human wreckage, he was able to speak as a rich man to members of his\nown class. A poor man who prophesies on this subject is apt to be\ndiscounted by blunt humanity, who think that he may be merely an envious\ngrumbler.\n\nAnd, once again, he has that characteristic of the messengers of the\nTruth, that their message is too new and strange to be acceptable at\nonce to their contemporaries. They are accepted by the few: the world\nsmiles or curses and passes by, but gradually it bends round in one of\nits great curves, and round its spiral path revolves as it approaches\nthe centre of attraction. I shall try to show that much of Ruskin\u2019s\nsocial and economic teaching is just such a centre of our constant\napproximation, though we are apparently always going nearly at right\nangles to it.\n\nHere, then, we have every sign of the prophetic character: fidelity to\nthe deepest motives of the soul, an inevitable and generally unconscious\nselflessness, the loyalty of his followers, his frank openness to the\nworld, his consecrated life and holy sorrow, the antagonisms he evoked\nand the contempt of the proud, and the clear influence he is\nexerting--these, all together, are prophetic.\n\nLet us examine his outward qualifications. Ruskin\u2019s judgment was at\ntimes erratic; his playfulness and his petulance prevent our taking\neverything he said with prosaic seriousness; he was not always able to\nspeak in measured tones of sober exactness, but gave way to\nexaggeration. But his intellectual equipment was of the best. He was\nheir both to Greece and to Jud\u00e6a. The Bible was his text-book and Plato\nwas his political teacher. All culture was at his command. Oxford,\nGeneva, Rome, Venice, the Alps, the Apennines and the Lake of Coniston\nhad yielded up their best to him. He prophesied from no street\ncorner--from the Sheldonian Theatre in the University of Oxford his\nmessage was uttered.\n\nSo much for the signs and for the outward qualifications of the seer.\nThe prophet\u2019s fire is recognizably there. The tabernacle of God is with\nmen, as of old; and if He is to speak with a clear Word to our hasting\nage, to preach righteousness, purity, work to the idle and rest to the\nweary, clean cities, and clean hearts, how else would He preach than\nwith the text of Ruskin: \u201cConsider the lilies of the field, how they\ngrow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you that\nyour millionaires in all their glory of machines cannot supply to us the\nloss of these.\u201d\n\nAt the age of forty-one, about the time when the mind reaches maturity,\nbegin the social teachings of John Ruskin in full completeness--not to\nbe much changed, except in one particular, for the quarter of a century\nof writing that was left him. The live coal from off the altar came to\nhim as he was wandering in restless suffering among the valleys of\nSavoy, and his first \u201cThus saith the Lord\u201d was written at Chamonix. Not\nthat all this came at once. The growth can be traced; but before 1860 he\nwas chiefly an art critic, and in that year the last volume of _Modern\nPainters_ appeared.\n\nLet us look at the advantages of the delay. They were manifold. A man\nshould do something else besides prophesy. He should win his position,\ntake his rank among men, in some walk of life, before he is quite\nqualified to tell others how to order their steps. He has a degree to\ntake in something besides homiletics. It was from the pulpit of a great\nliterary reputation that the author of _Modern Painters_ opened his\nmouth to preach. That reputation he was content utterly to throw away;\nto tread on it, step upon it as upon a ladder, that from the top of it\nhe might be heard when he spoke the words the Spirit taught him. That\nwas the great renunciation of his literary life. What a refusal of a\ncall it would have been had he hugged his reputation, been careful of\nhis influence, that last temptation of noble minds. It is politicians\nwho do that, not prophets. But these know the glorious liberty into\nwhich they come.\n\nNo doubt any other professional career would have ended with a message.\nWhat an explosion might have occurred in the Church had his mother\u2019s\nwish been fulfilled, and he become a clergyman, with a Bishop to look\nafter him. As it was, his father\u2019s art tastes and preoccupation with\npictures and with picturesque scenery, and the boy\u2019s own early skill\nboth as writer and draughtsman, led him, after an attempt at poetry, to\nbecome by profession a writer on Art. There he had the opportunity of\nelaborating his mighty implement, that superb, facile, plastic\ninstrument of music and voice of thunder, his inimitable style. It is\nthat which ensures the preservation of his work. Noble style is the\nantiseptic which preserves from decay the written words of men. Books\nwithout style are not read long.\n\nIn classifying the books in our libraries, under what head shall we\nplace the seventy volumes of John Ruskin? There is much temptation to\nfall back helplessly upon the heading \u201cMiscellaneous\u201d; for he wrote on\nArt, including Sculpture, Engraving, Architecture and Heraldry; on\nEconomics, History and constructive Politics; on Botany, Meteorology,\nOrnithology, Geology, and Mineralogy; he wrote Guide-books, Poems,\nAutobiography, Literary Criticism; he treated Theology, Ethics,\nEducation, Music and Mythology; he brought out regularly for seven years\na monthly periodical _de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis_; he edited\nBiography, German stories and translations from the Greek and the\nItalian: he wrote Dialogue and Fairy Tale.\n\nWhere shall we seek for unity in this manifold outpouring of a versatile\ngenius, who touched none of these subjects without irradiating it? In\nthat fact lies our key. With what did he irradiate this comprehensive\nlist of human interests? The answer cannot be doubtful in the mind of\nany careful student. He told us how it seemed to him that all these\nthings looked to the eye of God. He tried to solve all questions by the\nflashlight of the Eternal. He worked at agate and crystal that it might\nreveal the beauty of the Lord; he fought his social crusade for the sake\nof the dim disinherited multitude who had no eyes for the Divine\nloveliness, and no glory to behold: and for the sake of justice and of\nlove which wealth and luxury denied. He was a messenger of the Most High\nto modern needs; and his eager soul found a service throughout this wide\nrange of science and art.\n\nNot one of his writings is called a sermon, yet we have found his class,\nfor he belongs to the class of Divines, ordained in a temple more\nMetropolitan and more Catholic than Canterbury or Rome, and not made\nwith hands. Through nearly half a century of active authorship he\nconsecrated his every gift to the service of men. He never looked back\nin any unfaithfulness that we know of. I wish first to make clear that\nall his life the gates between the soul and the Divine Source were open:\nthat he was truly a religious man under every form of faith and doubt;\nand that no one need hesitate about this at any tight place in his\ncareer. Keep this as a sure clue, and we shall fearlessly follow his\nstory.\n\nThe childish sensibility to landscape beauty I take to be an early\nmanifestation of the gift of the seer, a significant token of native\nnearness to the Unseen. For many years he never climbed a mountain,\nalone, without instinctively dropping on his knees on the summit, in\nthankful reverence. As the careless foot of an engrossing industrialism\nstamped into ashes more and more of the land whose fairness had been his\nlife\u2019s passion, it seemed to him to be indeed sacrilege and desecration,\na reckless destruction of Divine things. Art he only valued as a form of\nexpression, a language whose subject was Nature and Man. In the latter\nhalf of his life more emphatically, but more or less from the beginning,\nhe regarded Man as the object for whose welfare Nature, in the landscape\nsense, existed; and he rested not till he had brought Man into due\nrelation with God, up to whom in the end came all things.\n\nHe was devout by training. Morning and evening he read his chapter out\nof the Bible; and the fourteenth century manuscript he used in later\nyears occupied a prominent and handy place in the study at Brantwood. In\nSwiss and Italian villages in his early journeys he read the service\nthrough on Sunday to his servant, when there was no Protestant Church.\nFrom the Biblical references in the indexes to his works, you would\nsuppose they were a theological library. In his Oxford Lectures Art was\nthe illustration, but conduct the theme, and Art was chosen as an\nillustration because in it the artist shows what manner of Man he is, in\na way that cannot be dissembled.\n\nWhat are the qualifications which fit a man to be a religious\nresearcher, a mountain-top gazer into heaven?\n\nHe must know from his own experience the meaning of holiness, thereby\ngaining a practical knowledge of God. He must, in Pauline words, be\ncrucified with Christ, though he may not care for such an expression; he\nmust preach not himself and please not himself. Such a man John Ruskin\nwas. Among the many wayward and impulsive men who have been \u201cdear to\nthe Muses and to the nymphs not unbeloved,\u201d not all like him have been\nalso masters of themselves, and kept on their foreheads the white stone,\nwith the new name written. Ruskin was himself noble and sweet in his\nlife, a man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief endured in silence,\nwith nothing ignoble in his eighty years of generous charity and lonely\nservice. He had passed, too, through that experience which seems\nessential to the wielding of spiritual power. He had had his great\nrenunciation, he had heard some hard call, and had obeyed. The prophets\nhave all gone on the Via Crucis: they have all lost their lives that\nthey might find them. As Whittier abandoned a hopeful political career\nand remained poor till he was sixty that he might help to free the\nslave, and gained his spiritual power thereby, so Ruskin in 1860 went\nboldly out to do battle with the Society that loved and honoured him.\n\nFurther, such a man must greatly dare. He must face the demon of the\nstudy first; then, too probably, the resentment of organized religion.\nOne cannot succeed as a researcher without discovering something new;\nand that is bound to modify or overthrow something old and established.\n\nNor can such a man usually present a heart of iron and a front of brass\nto the darts of controversy. He must be a sensitive man, by the very\nnature of his research. He may or may not be privileged to feel strong\nin the strength of his cause; but even if he does the shrinking of the\nnerves remains. This daring and suffering were pre-eminently the lot of\nRuskin; and it was this which finally broke down his mind. \u201cHe was\nbeside himself for others\u2019 sakes.\u201d It was the neglect with which the St.\nGeorge\u2019s Guild and allied reform work were treated by those who were\notherwise his friends, which contributed to drive him into inflammation\nof the brain in 1878, and again several times afterwards. \u201cWounded in\nthe house of my friends.\u201d\n\nBesides these essential qualifications Ruskin had his very unusual\ngifts, which it may be long before we find again combined with the\nreligious faculty--his long lifetime free from the need of earning\nmoney, his early popularity, his wonderful style, the vantage ground of\nhis Professorial chair, his penetrating mind, his wit and his fire. It\nmay be long before we see his like again.\n\nI am far from claiming infallibility for Ruskin. Infallibility is an\nout-of-date conception altogether. There is no such thing on earth. To\nbe infallible you must know everything; you must be infinite. The\ninfallibility of a finite creature is an inhuman, even an inorganic\nconception. Organic life means growth, and growth means imperfection;\nbut growth is Nature\u2019s way of making things. Infallibility is a tyrant\nborn of ecclesiasticism, and bred on human laziness and fear. It has\nbecome the attribute of the quack pill, and there let it abide.\n\nBut, beyond this safe generality, Ruskin had human weaknesses of an\nobvious kind. He loved paradox; he played with his thunderbolts a\nlittle, and rather liked to shock people. He was a humorist as well as a\ndivine. It is difficult to put down some of his derivations to anything\nbut sheer fooling; a man who will put the English _Force_ and Latin\n_Fors_ down to the same root, will do anything in that line. Again, when\nhe was in thunderous action he allowed volcanoes of vituperation to\nerupt, which one would have wished otherwise. He sadly lacked restraint,\nbut, like the strong language of the old Prophets, his had its root in\nlove of man.\n\nWe know more of his intimacies and his foibles, which he loves\nhumorously to exaggerate, than are generally given to the public. He has\ntaken means to prevent any artificial pedestal, in idealized aloofness,\never being raised to him. His utter frankness led him to give the public\nhis private accounts, which people generally keep to themselves; and\nsuch correspondence as that painful one with Octavia Hill.[2] But when\nthe faults of others were in question he was silent as the grave, to his\nown hurt. He was \u201ckind even to the unthankful and the evil.\u201d As for many\nof us, how much more vulgar and base would the world have been without\nthat noble and lovely soul. Many are those who owe him an irredeemable\ndebt. His life was not, as he sadly thought, the story of baffled\nstrife. Of him, as of Dr. Arnold, it could be said that not alone was he\nsaved.[3]\n\n\n\n\n_CHAPTER II_\n\n_THE PILGRIM\u2019S WAY_\n\n\nHaving now stated our conviction that Ruskin was always essentially\nreligious, we will trace the history of his beliefs.\n\nHe began life in 1819, under the strong influence of his mother, as a\nCalvinistic Protestant, of the narrow type then current. The Ruskins\nwere properly Scottish Presbyterians, living in London. A Low Church or\nSpurgeon\u2019s Tabernacle was equally acceptable. His mother made him read\nwith her daily portions of the Bible, two or three chapters, undiluted\nand unselected. They accomplished the journey from Genesis to Revelation\nin about a year, and then began at Genesis again next day, \u201chard names,\nnumbers, Levitical Law and all.\u201d They went through it at least six times\ntogether.\n\nShe also taught him, \u201ccomplete and sure,\u201d twenty-six chapters of the\nBible, including the 119th Psalm, and all the Scottish Paraphrases of\nthe Psalms.[4]\n\nThis did not make him vitally religious; he was not \u201cconverted.\u201d The\nBible was, for the present, a rather tiresome task, and to chapel he and\nhis father went submissively, feeling their sad inferiority to the\nmother in these matters. His mother\u2019s creed he dutifully imbibed,\nwithout question or strong feeling of any kind. He had the proper\nantipathy to Rome, and the habit of outward prayer.[5] His real religion\nwas born at Friar\u2019s Crag, Derwentwater, at four years old, when he\nlooked with awe into the dark lake over the mossy tree roots, and felt\nhimself in the Presence.\n\nHe was, as an only child, a protected treasure, the pride of and a great\nresponsibility to his wealthy parents. He never went to a Public School,\nand when he went to Oxford to be made into a Bishop his parents came\nwith him, lived in the High, and his mother saw him every day. With\nthem, far into mid-life, he went on all his foreign journeys but two,\nthose of 1845 and 1858. The parental ideas remained potent with him to\nan extent hardly realizable by this generation, which often finds it so\ndifficult to bring their parents up properly.\n\nHis earlier works are written with the questionless devoutness of the\nuntried mind. They were narrow in theology, fiercely Protestant, earnest\nenough; and on their positive side, still sound and valuable. The first\ntwo volumes of _Modern Painters_, the whole of the _Stones of Venice_\nand the _Seven Lamps of Architecture_, and the Edinburgh _Lectures on\nArchitecture and Painting_ belong to this period. So, broadly, do the\nManchester Lectures on the _Political Economy of Art_ in 1857; but they\nare the herald of the next epoch.\n\nHe resisted the new Geology of Lyell, declared indignantly that God had\ncreated the Alpine valleys, and put the rivers to flow along them,\ndenying that the rivers had worn their own valleys out. Somewhere in the\nlater fifties we find him scandalized by the statement of Frederick\nDenison Maurice that Jael\u2019s treacherous murder of Sisera was a wicked\ndeed. The fact that Deborah the Prophetess sang a sacred song over it\nwas enough to justify it to Ruskin, then over thirty-five.[6]\n\nJust before this incident, however, his moral sense was beginning to\nrevolt from certain parts of his creed. He was, he says, invited to a\n\u201cfashionable s\u00e9ance of Evangelical doctrine, at the Earl of Ducie\u2019s,\npresided over by Mr. Molyneux, then a divine of celebrity in that sect,\nwho sat with one leg over his other knee, in the attitude always given\nto Herod at the Massacre of the Innocents in medi\u00e6val sculpture, and\ndiscoursed in tones of consummate assurance and satisfaction, and to the\nentire comfort and consent of his Belgravian audience, on the beautiful\nparable of the Prodigal Son. Which, or how many, of his hearers he meant\nto describe as having personally lived on husks, and devoured their\nfather\u2019s property, did not of course appear; but that something of the\nsort was necessary to the completeness of the joy in heaven over them,\nnow in Belgrave Square, at the feet, or one foot, of Mr. Molyneux, could\nnot be questioned. Waiting my time, till the raptures of the converted\ncompany had begun to flag a little, I ventured, from a back seat, to\nenquire of Mr. Molyneux what we were to learn from the example of the\nother son, not prodigal, who was, his father said, \u2018ever with me and all\nthat I have, thine.\u2019 A sudden horror and unanimous feeling of the\nserpent having somehow got over the wall into their Garden of Eden,\nfell on the whole company; and some of them, I thought, looked at the\ncandles, as if they expected them to burn blue. After a pause of a\nminute, gathering himself into an expression of pity and indulgence,\nwithholding latent thunder, Mr. Molyneux explained to me that the\nhome-staying son was merely a picturesque figure introduced to fill\nthe background of the parable agreeably, and contained no instruction\nor example for the well-disposed scriptural student, but on the\ncontrary, rather, a snare for the unwary, and a temptation to\nself-righteousness--which was, of all sins, the most offensive to God.\nUnder the fulmination of which answer, I retired from the s\u00e9ance in\nsilence, nor ever attended another of the kind from that day to\nthis.\u201d[7]\n\nIt was just this lack of feeling for righteousness as such, the idea\nthat you needed first to be a \u201cmost sinful sinner\u201d if you wished to\nbecome a \u201cmost Christian Christian,\u201d and a want of recognition that\nforgiveness was a spiritual and inward process, which caused the\ncontemptuous references to his early form of doctrine which are\nscattered thickly throughout Ruskin\u2019s later writings.\n\nThe experiences which make epochs in men\u2019s lives are indeed strangely\nvarious and unexpected. Three events stand out as the destroyers of his\nProtestantism and of much of his outward edifice of faith. Their year\nwas 1858. One was the discovery that the Puritan Sabbath of his youth\nhad no Scriptural authority, but based itself, without confessing it, on\nthe Jewish Sabbath Day, by erroneous interpretation. \u201cIf they have\ndeceived me in this, they have deceived me in everything,\u201d he said. His\nfaith in his mother\u2019s religious guides was gone.[8] In 1858 for the\nfirst time he broke the Sabbath by drawing some flowers on Sunday. That\nact, in him, stood for emancipation.[9] He had been finding that\nCatholic Psalters were lovely things, that Catholic peasants in Tuscany\nled sweet and patient lives, and that \u201cPresbyterian prayers against time\nby people who never expected to be any the better for them, were\nunlovely and wrong.\u201d[10] The same year he turned in at Turin to hear a\nWaldensian pastor. This was the second event. \u201cTo an audience of about\nseventeen gray-haired women and a few men, the preacher, a somewhat\nstunted figure with a cracked voice, put his utmost zeal into a\nconsolatory discourse on the wickedness of the wide world, more\nespecially of the plain of Piedmont and the city of Turin, and on the\nexclusive favour with God enjoyed by the between nineteen and\ntwenty-four elect members of his congregation, in the streets of Admah\nand Zeboim.\u201d \u201cMyself neither cheered nor greatly alarmed by this\ndoctrine, I walked back into the condemned city, and up into the gallery\nwhere Paul Veronese\u2019s \u2018Solomon and the Queen of Sheba\u2019 glowed in full\nafternoon light.\u201d And in that hour\u2019s meditation his \u201cevangelical beliefs\nwere put away, to be debated of no more.\u201d[11]\n\nBut the solvent influences did not stop there. They seldom fail to\nproceed. Rebuilding rather than repair is generally necessary to a\nbroken down system of thought. But that which left him in great darkness\nwas an experience which could have so affected no one but Ruskin. This\nwas the third event. It was the discovery at Venice that the best work\nwas done by irreligious painters. He found that \u201cTintoret only\noccasionally forgot himself into religion,\u201d and that Titian had no\nreligion at all, and yet had to be given as the standard of perfection\nin painting. Ruskin concluded, first, and quite truly, that \u201chuman work\nmust be done honourably and thoroughly, because we are now men; whether\nwe expect to be angels, or ever were slugs, being practically no matter.\nThat by the work we have done and not by our belief we shall be\njudged.\u201d[12] He went on, by generalizing, to a further conclusion in\nthat year, afterwards to be corrected. The conclusion and the correction\ndivide the periods of Ruskin\u2019s life. He concluded that the group of\ngreat worldly painters of various nations, Turner, Titian, Velasquez,\nSir Joshua, Gainsborough, Tintoret, and Paul Veronese, did more perfect\nand stronger work than the sacred army of obedient Catholics headed by\nCimabue, Giotto and Angelico, who worked under the guidance of a\nheavenly vision.\n\nThis seems a strange reason for losing faith. It can only be understood\nwhen we remember that Ruskin regarded art as the expression of the\npainter\u2019s whole nature, especially the soul of him; and if the endowment\nfrom heaven were really potent, it should inspire the artist to do work\nthat is clearly supreme. That it did not do so was Ruskin\u2019s\nstumbling-block. I will not anticipate the ultimate solution; but only\npause to mourn over the many stumbling-blocks which our theories put in\nour way. Because the lot decided unfairly, Silas Marner, the wronged of\nheaven, lost his faith. How many have been and are unable to see through\npain and poverty to God. How many have bound their faith to the accuracy\nof a record or the fidelity of a frail fellow-creature.\n\nOf the religious utterances of this first period, which ended in 1858,\nthe second volume of _Modern Painters_ is the most typical. To me, it\nwas the door by which in 1882 I entered into my love of Ruskin the\nauthor, as _Fors_ led me to love and reverence the man. The subject is\nan analysis of Beauty as a various expression of the mind of God. It is\npublished separately; it is not a long book; and it might be read for a\nsecond time along with the Author\u2019s notes of 1883. These give us the\nverdict of age upon the enthusiasm of its own youth, and are vastly\nentertaining. Even as Tennyson, in his \u201cLocksley Hall Sixty Years\nAfter,\u201d puts his quietus upon the ebullitions of the most rhythmic and\nmoving utterance of his youth, so does Ruskin, with mocking self-blame,\nspeak with fatherly candour to the Oxford Graduate of 1845.\n\nTo this period, too, belongs his avowedly theological pamphlet, _Notes\non the Construction of Sheepfolds_. It is of 1851, attacks\necclesiastical pretensions on Scriptural grounds, and in spite of its\nsectarian limitations was considered so sound in its main drift that the\nauthor reissued it in his mature period.\n\nHe states that all his works up to 1853 are marred by his narrow\nProtestant dogmatism. Now 1858, as we have seen, was his year of freedom\nfrom it, and from much that was more precious. Between 1853 and 1858\ncame out volumes iii and iv of _Modern Painters_, the _Lectures on\nArchitecture and Painting_ at Edinburgh, and the lectures at Manchester\non the _Political Economy of Art_. The last marks transition. It is the\nforerunner of the next period; it shows us how his way of treating Art\nled him on to Economics. But it is of great interest to study his\nposition in these two volumes of _Modern Painters_. They are as\nreligious as ever, and as devout; but between Catholic and Protestant,\nfrequently brought into contrast, they hold the scales of judgment. The\nauthor casts the lantern of criticism impartially upon both, but his\nown faith in the great verities still holds. It is plain, however, that\nconduct was rising to the chief place in his mind. The Sermon on the\nMount was becoming, what it ever afterwards remained to him, the central\nteaching of the Christian faith.\n\nIf we omit the Poems of his boyhood and youth, and his early minor\nscientific contributions to journals, and begin his career as a writer\nfor the public with the year 1842, when he wrote the first volume of\n_Modern Painters_, published next year, we have sixteen years of\nauthorship for the Early Period. We have also, oddly enough, sixteen\nyears of authorship, 1858 to 1874, for his Middle Period, shortly to be\ndescribed; and if we give sixteen years for the mature period also, that\nbrings us to 1890, only a few months after the last number of\n_Pr\u00e6terita_ struggled into the light from his failing pen. He wrote no\nmore. We thus have three periods, Early, Middle, and Mature, each of\nsixteen years, not difficult to remember, 1842-1858, 1858-1874, and\n1874-1890. It is a testimony to his utter frankness and undimmed candour\nthat we are able thus to map out the growth of his convictions.\n\nFor a growth it was, all the time, though apparently 1858 was a year of\nwreck and ruin. We cannot put new wine into old wineskins. His middle\nperiod was the time for the analytical tendency of his mind to have its\nway. Mazzini had already said that Ruskin had the most analytic mind in\nEurope; and now that searching analysis which had discovered Luini and\nplaced Tintoretto, and had penetrated, by a way of its own, far into the\nhidden secret of Beauty, could not be denied when it faced the\nstronghold of the Christian revelation, even though his own heart and\nevery fibre of his sensitive nature was within the fortress attacked.\n\nHis economic crusade began in 1860; and on his spiritually desolated\nheart was piled the sorrow of the social system. Hermit and heretic he\nbecame, in religion and economics alike. Victorious in his championship\nof Turner and the Pre-raphaelites, whom single-handed he had placed on\nthe pinnacle they have never lost, he had the literary and artistic\nworld at his feet. This great position he cast aside to enter on a\nsterner battle. The recognized leader of taste, the arbiter of\nreputations, turned aside to abuse so good a man as John Stuart Mill, to\nsay the most shocking things about the clergy and the clergy\u2019s wives,\nto testify against rent and interest, to blaspheme that steam power by\nwhich England was conquering the world, and to utter strange hesitating\nsayings which showed that he was not sure of a life to come. Nor could\nhe brave the storm with the self-confident dogmatism of youth. \u201cI seldom\nnow feel sure of anything,\u201d he wrote in the first Christmas issue of\n_Fors_, \u201cstill seldomer, however, do I feel sure of the contrary of\nanything.\u201d[13] When we add that this period was marked by the loss of\nhis parents, who had been everything to him, and by a grievous\ndisappointment in love--for the girl who loved him would not marry him\nbecause he was not orthodox, so far as reasons can ever be given for\nsuch decisions, but died of a decline instead--we shall see how heavy\nwas the lonely task set before him to do. Nor had the veneration of\ndisciples and the growing recognition of all good men come to him yet;\nit came afterwards, built the prophet\u2019s shrine, in his lifetime\ncertainly,[14] but only after the world\u2019s neglect, and his failure even\nto carry his own friends with him, had helped to break the powers of\nhis mind and set his brain reeling in recurring attacks of delirious\ninflammation. He was, in that madness, being offered upon the sacrifice\nand service of our faith.\n\nDuring this middle period of prime mental power, he wrote nineteen\nvolumes, and numerous catalogues and pamphlets. They are, in order of\ntime: _The Two Paths_, _Modern Painters_, vol. v., _Unto This Last_,\n_Munera Pulveris_, _Sesame and Lilies_, _The Ethics of the Dust_, _The\nCrown of Wild Olive_, _Time and Tide_, _The Queen of the Air_, _Lectures\non Art at Oxford_, the first half of _Flors Clavigera_, _Aratra\nPentelici_, _The Eagle\u2019s Nest_, _Love\u2019s Meinie_, _Ariadne Florentina_,\n_Val D\u2019Arno_, and most of the papers reprinted in _On the Old Road_. As\nan author he was in his full strength.\n\nThe significance of the period is that under the most painful\nuncertainties of doctrine, true religion shone still, blazed beaconlike,\nin fact: blazed as a beacon blazes when blown by tempest. But few\nreaders ever thought of the writer as a heretic. He preached all the\ntime the simple eternal sanction for right conduct which the nature of\nman, akin to the Divine, provides. He recognized the ineradicable claim\nwhich the teaching of the New Testament has upon our obedience. He\nattacked the Churches, not for being too Christian, but for not being\nanything like Christian enough. Referring to his mother\u2019s gift of\ntwenty-six chapters learnt by heart, he says in 1874:--\n\n\u201cThe chapters became, indeed, strictly conclusive and protective to me\nin all modes of thought; and the body of divinity they contain,\nacceptable through all fear or doubt; nor, through any fear or doubt or\nfault have I ever lost my loyalty to them, nor betrayed the first\ncommand in the one I was made to repeat oftenest: \u2018Let not Mercy and\nTruth forsake thee.\u2019 And at my present age of fifty-five, in spite of\nsome enlarged observations of what modern philosophers call the Reign of\nLaw, I perceive more distinctly than ever the Reign of a Spirit of Mercy\nand Truth--infinite in pardon and purification for its wandering and\nfaultful children, who have yet Love in their hearts; and altogether\nadverse and implacable to its perverse and lying enemies, who have\nresolute hatred in their hearts, and resolute falsehood on their\nlips.\u201d[15]\n\nThe classical passage, as I should esteem it, for this period is in\n_The Eagle\u2019s Nest_,[16] the Oxford Lectures of 1872; which contain some\nof his most careful religious writing:\n\n\u201cAll of you who have ever read your Gospels carefully must have wondered\nsometimes, what could be the meaning of those words, \u2018If any speak\nagainst the Son of Man it shall be forgiven; but if against the Holy\nSpirit it shall not be forgiven, neither in this world nor in the next.\u2019\nThe passage may have many meanings which I do not know; but one meaning\nI know positively, and I tell you so just as frankly as I would that I\nknew the meaning of a verse in Homer. Those of you who still go to\nChapel say every day your creed; and, I suppose, too often, less and\nless every day believing it. Now, you may cease to believe two articles\nof it, and--admitting Christianity to be true--still be forgiven. But I\ncan tell you, you must not cease to believe the third!\n\n\u201cYou begin by saying that you believe in an Almighty Father. Well, you\nmay entirely lose the sense of that Fatherhood and yet be forgiven.\n\n\u201cYou go on to say that you believe in a Saviour Son. You may entirely\nlose the sense of that Sonship and yet be forgiven.\n\n\u201cBut the third article--disbelieve if you dare! \u2018I believe in the Holy\nGhost, the Lord and Giver of Life.\u2019 Disbelieve that! and your own being\nis degraded into the state of dust driven by the wind; and the elements\nof dissolution have entered your very heart and soul.\n\n\u201cAll Nature, with one voice--with one glory--is set to teach you\nreverence for the life communicated to you from the Father of Spirits.\nThe song of birds, and their plumage, the scent of flowers, their\ncolour, their very existence, are in direct connection with the mystery\nof that communicated life: and all the strength, and all the arts of\nmen, are measured by and founded upon their reverence for the passion,\nand their guardianship of the purity, of Love.\u201d\n\nSuch is the utmost asceticism of the soul; the most careful and\ndetermined assimilation of the least quantity of the bread of life. We\nmay sum his creed in the words: Happy are the pure in heart, for they\nyet in their flesh shall see the light of Heaven and know the will of\nGod.\n\nPerhaps the question of Divine Personality may be felt even in our most\naudacious moments to be beyond our analysis. I do not count the word\nPersonality a very helpful one, one way or the other. It is clearly on\nthe human plane, must be imperfect, and may seriously limit our thought\nof God. Tennyson\u2019s favourite prayer was \u201cO Thou Infinite, Amen.\u201d And\nwith this much of personal address or aspiration our souls may surely\nrest. Take this as a satisfying account of the Creative Logos of the\nGreeks, written in the light of evolution, in 1869 (_Queen of the Air_,\npp. 124-6):\n\n\u201cWith respect to all these divisions and powers of plants--it does not\nmatter in the least by what concurrences of circumstance or necessity\nthey may gradually have been developed: the concurrence of circumstance\nis itself the supreme and inexplicable fact. We always come at last to a\nformative cause, which directs the circumstance, and mode of meeting it.\nIf you ask an ordinary botanist the reason of the form of a leaf, he\nwill tell you it is \u2018a developed tubercle,\u2019 and that \u2018its ultimate form\nis owing to the directions of its vascular threads.\u2019 But what directs\nits vascular threads? \u2018They are seeking for something they want\u2019 he will\nprobably answer. What makes them want that? What made them seek for it\nthus? Seek for it, in five fibres or in three? Seek for it, in\nserration, or in sweeping curves? Seek for it, in servile tendrils, or\nimpetuous spray? Seek for it, in woollen wrinkles rough with stings, or\nin glossy surfaces, green with pure strength, and winterless delight?\n\n\u201cThere is no answer. But, the sum of all is, that over the entire\nsurface of the earth and its waters, as influenced by the power of the\nair under solar light, there is developed a series of changing forms, in\nclouds, plants and animals, all of which have reference in their action\nor nature, to the human intelligence that perceives them; and on which,\nin their aspects of horror and beauty, and their qualities of good and\nevil, there is engraved a series of myths or words of the forming power,\nwhich, according to the true passion and energy of the human race, they\nhave been enabled to read into religion. And this forming power has been\nby all nations partly confused with the breath of air through which it\nacts, and partly understood as a creative wisdom, proceeding from the\nSupreme Deity; but entering into and inspiring all intelligences that\nwork in harmony with Him. And whatever intellectual results may be in\nmodern days obtained by regarding this effluence only as a motion or\nvibration, every formative human art hitherto, and the best states of\nhuman happiness and order, have depended on the apprehension of its\nmystery (which is certain), and of its personality (which is probable).\u201d\n\nHe concludes that lecture, the second in _The Queen of the Air_, with\nthese words:\n\n\u201cThis only we may discern assuredly; this, every true light of science,\nevery mercifully granted power, every wisely restricted thought, teach\nus more clearly day by day, that in the heaven above, and the earth\nbeneath, there is one continual and omnipotent presence of help, and of\npeace, for all men who know that they Live, and remember that they Die.\u201d\n\nTo quote from the religious teaching of these fruitful years would be an\nendless task; I must only refer, I fear, without quoting any of it, to\n_The Mystery of Life and its Arts_, printed in the complete edition of\n_Sesame and Lilies_; a characteristic and pathetic exhortation, and\nchiefly perhaps, to \u00a710-16 of the Introduction to _The Crown of Wild\nOlive_.\n\nSo much for his constructive teaching. But he was a destroyer too. The\npeculiarity of his position and the cause of his loneliness was that he\nwas always throwing his darts not only into the camp of the business men\nand their allies the economists, but also into the two religious camps,\ngenerally opposed to one another, held, one by the clergy, the other by\nthe materialistic men of science. He rebuked both parties for their\nassumptions, and he smote them with all the artillery of sarcasm, wit\nand indignation. \u201cYou have to guard against the fatalest darkness of the\ntwo opposite Prides: the Pride of Faith, which imagines that the nature\nof the Deity can be defined by its convictions; and the Pride of\nScience, which imagines that the energy of Deity can be explained by its\nanalysis.\u201d[17] As sword-play it is fine. He gives what purports to be a\nscientific account of Shakespeare: so much water, so much carbo-hydrate\nand phosphorus, and thus you build up your organism called William\nShakespeare--with, of course, something left out. He was ever dwelling\non the realities of the spirit which chemistry omits. The fashionable\nscientific materialism of the seventies he utterly abhorred: he behaved\nto it as St. George to the Dragon. He loathed anatomy, mocked at the\nidea that you understood a creature by cutting up its remains; and when\nthe men of science at Oxford proceeded to vivisection he threw up his\nprofessorship in flaming wrath, sick at heart; every sentiment of\nmercy, every safe doctrine of science violated in unholy cruelty and\nimpatience.\n\nHe describes the limitations of \u201csome scientific minds, which in their\njudgment of the Universe can be compared to nothing so accurately as to\nthe woodworms in the panel of a picture by some great painter, if we may\nconceive them as tasting with discrimination of the wood, and with\nrepugnance of the colour, and declaring that even this unlooked for and\nundesirable combination is a normal result of the action of molecular\nForces.\u201d[18]\n\nWe pass on to the third period of sixteen years, the Mature Period as I\ncall it, from 1874 to 1890, when his productive life ended. He now came\nto know more fully the fullness of faith. Here he entered into his\nreward, I say. The revelation of God to him became clearer, sweeter,\nmightier. As in 1858, the time of crisis was marked by two events which\noccurred that year, one in things spiritual and one in things\nartistic.[19]\n\nThe artistic event of 1874 was a reversal of the puzzling judgment of\n1858 to the effect that the worldly painters excelled the devout ones.\nIt came about through his copying one of Giotto\u2019s frescoes on the roof\nof the Lower Church at Assisi. He was allowed to erect a platform in\nthat dark church over the High Altar, that he might see the picture.\nThere he discovered that Giotto was only beaten by Tintoret in mere\nscience, technique, laws of perspective, composition and light and\nshade, and that religion had solemnized and developed every faculty of\nGiotto\u2019s heart and hand. The Franciscan monastery at Assisi is one of\nthe most sacred places on earth anyhow, but 1874 saw one more gift of\nlight there vouchsafed, and a haunting problem solved. Art was to Ruskin\na visible manifestation of life\u2019s full faculties, in a department he\nspecially understood; and religion, which is the source of strength and\nthe support of character, he thought should be judged by its output.\n\nNow we turn to the second event. His hopes of the reality of a Spirit\nworld received unexpected and potent confirmation from the fact that in\nDecember, 1875, he had, at the house of Lord Mount Temple, at\nBroadlands, Romsey, some psychic experience so definite that he was\nconvinced that he had true communication with her whom he had lately\nlost, the \u201cRosie\u201d of _Pr\u00e6terita_, No. XXVII.[20] It was a confirmation\nto his faith. He became an Honorary Member of the Society for Psychical\nResearch the year after its formation in 1882, joining in that\nwell-grounded hope that a true science of human Personality might be\nbuilt up by its patient experimental methods. To Lady Mount Temple,\n_n\u00e9e_ Tollemache, the Egeria of the winter of 1840 in Rome, we owe much\nfor the help she was to Ruskin all through life; and much also that from\nher came the stimulus to Frederick W. H. Myers and Edmund Gurney to\nbegin the Society for Psychical Research. Two of Ruskin\u2019s stories of\nDeath wraiths may be found in _Fors_,[21] also a dream in Letter LXV. He\nnever took to ordinary spiritualism; it is indeed from an attack upon it\nthat he turns to a note describing the happiness of his own experience.\n\u201cI leave this passage as it was written; though as it passes through the\npress, it is ordered by Atropos that I should hear a piece of evidence\non this matter no less clear as to the present ministry of such powers\nas that which led Peter out of prison, than all the former, or nearly\nall the former, evidence examined by me was of the presence of the\nlegion which ruled among the tombs of Gennesaret.\u201d[22] He allows the\ncontradiction to stand; indeed, in this puzzling and partially known\nsubject, a consistent position is beyond the knowledge of most. He\nreturns to the attack on Spiritualism, however, in his 1883 note to the\nsecond volume of _Modern Painters_, p. 244.\n\nIn the following year, 1876, at Venice at Christmas, he had vouchsafed\nto himself the inward assurance of an immortal life; he entered into a\nsingular happiness; _Fors_ became the organ of a mysticism truly\nJohannine; he loved to expound universal Christian truth, so catholic\nindeed in the true sense that Cardinal Manning aspired to turn him to\nRome. That was a vain hope. He still retained his analytical faculty. He\nsays that he would \u201cgive up Moses\u201d if criticism demanded it.[23]\nConcerning his lectures of 1877 at Oxford he writes to Miss Beever in\nthe \u201chortus inclusus\u201d at Coniston that he has been able for the first\ntime to speak boldly to the students of immortal life. The concluding\npassage of the last lecture is this:[24]\n\n\u201cBut obey the word in its simplicity, in wholeness of purpose and with\nseverity of sacrifice, like this of the Venetian Maids\u2019, and truly you\nshall receive sevenfold into your bosom in this present life, as in the\nworld to come, life everlasting.\u201d \u201cHe shall give his angels charge over\nyou, to keep you in all your ways; and the peace of God, which passeth\nall understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ\nJesus.\u201d It came to be true of himself that \u201cif life be led under\nheaven\u2019s law, the sense of heaven\u2019s nearness only deepens with advancing\nyears, and is assured in death.\u201d[25]\n\n\u201cThe faith of the saints and prophets rising into serenity of knowledge,\n\u2018I know that my Redeemer liveth\u2019 is a state of mind of which ordinary\nmen cannot reason; but which, in the practical power of it, has always\ngoverned the world, and must for ever. No dynamite will ever be invented\nthat can rule--it can but dissolve and destroy. Only the Word of God and\nthe heart of man can govern.\u201d[26]\n\nWe cannot conclude this analysis better than by quoting from the last\nnumber of _Fors_ in 1884:\n\n\u201cLooking back upon my efforts for the last twenty years, I believe that\ntheir failure has been in great part owing to my compromise with the\ninfidelity of this outer world, and my endeavours to base my pleading\nupon motives of ordinary prudence and kindness, instead of on the\nprimary duty of loving God; foundation other than which no man can lay.\nI thought myself speaking to a crowd which could only be influenced by\nvisible utility; nor was I the least aware how many entirely good and\nholy persons were living in the faith and love of God as vividly and\npractically now as ever in the early enthusiasm of Christendom. These\nhave shown me, with lovely initiation, in how many secret places the\nprayer was made which I had foolishly listened for at the corners of the\nstreets, and on how many hills which I had thought left desolate, the\nhosts of heaven still moved in chariots of fire.\u201d[27] These passages\nshow that F. W. H. Myers, in the beautiful obituary which I am permitted\nto print as an Epilogue, was not correct in describing the experience\nwith the medium at Broadlands, as Ruskin\u2019s one brief season of blissful\ntrust in the Unseen. It is true of his temporary belief in spiritualism.\n\nI trust it will have become clear that Ruskin\u2019s spiritual history is not\na story of arbitrary and fanciful changes without connected\nsignificance. It is the orderly development of a research, by a man\nsingularly qualified to hold a religious Research Fellowship.\n\nHe may be said to have matriculated in religion at his mother\u2019s knee.\nThere he learnt his Bible. He took a degree with the second volume of\n_Modern Painters_ and the works allied to it in spirit. He then became a\nMaster of Arts, qualified to teach, a recognized religious authority\namong many authorities. Had he never gone to Venice and seen Tintoret he\nmight have built, so he says, a Catholic archiepiscopal palace at York\ninstead of a museum at Sheffield; or he might have been such a man as\nDean Church or John Henry Newman, on Calvinistic Protestant lines. But\nRuskin proceeded to a higher status. He must needs penetrate deeper; and\nin the crisis of 1858 he took his Fellowship by a thesis on the\nIrreducible Minimum of the Religious Outfit. Thenceforth he carried on\na research, he was a \u201cseeker after God,\u201d often wrote \u201cin much darkness\nand sorrow of heart\u201d; and in sixteen years the conclusions were ready,\nthe convictions matured, the saint perfected.\n\n\n\n\n_CHAPTER III_\n\n_TO WHAT FOLD?_\n\n\nTo what school of thought or to which among our denominations, if to\nany, can Ruskin be said to belong? He did not actively, in mature life,\nbelong to any, or attend Church or Chapel. Let us examine his doctrines\nin this connection.\n\nThe first point which strikes the inquirer is Ruskin\u2019s strong hostility\nto professionalism in religion, to payment for preaching. Against a\nseparate order of clergy, maintained for that object, and claiming a\ncertain position by reason of their ministration, he was the most\npoignant voice of his time, from inside Christianity. Letters XXXVIII,\nXLIX, and LXII of _Fors Clavigera_ are full of the most unrestrained\nexpression of this testimony. We will quote:\n\n\u201cThe particular kinds of folly also which lead youths to become\nclergymen, uncalled, are specially intractable. That a lad just out of\nhis teens, and not under the influence of any deep religious enthusiasm,\nshould ever contemplate the possibility of his being set up in the\nmiddle of a mixed company of men and women of the world, to instruct the\naged, encourage the valiant, support the weak, reprove the guilty, and\nset an example to all; and not feel what a ridiculous and blasphemous\nbusiness it would be, if he only pretended to do it for hire; and what a\nghastly and murderous business it would be if he did it strenuously\nwrong; and what a marvellous and all but incredible thing the Church and\nits power must be, if it were possible for him, with all the good\nmeaning in the world, to do it rightly--that any youth, I say, should\never have got himself into the state of recklessness or conceit,\nrequired to become a clergyman at all, under existing circumstances,\nmust put him quite out of the pale of those whom one appeals to on any\nreasonable or moral question, in serious writing.... There is certainly\nno Bishop now in the Church of England who would either dare in a full\ndrawing-room to attribute to himself the gift of prophecy, in so many\nwords; or to write at the head of any of his sermons, \u2018On such and such\na day, of such and such a month, in such and such a place, the Word of\nthe Lord came unto me, saying\u2019:--Nevertheless he claims to have received\nthe Holy Ghost himself by laying on of hands; and to be able to\ncommunicate the Holy Ghost to other men in the same manner. And he knows\nthat the office of the prophet is as simply recognized in the\nenumeration of the powers of the ancient church, as that of the apostle\nor evangelist or doctor. And yet he can neither point out in the Church\nthe true prophets, to whose number he dares not say that he himself\nbelongs, nor the false prophets, who are casting out devils in the name\nof Christ without being known by him.... But the word \u2018Priest\u2019 is one\nwhich he finds it convenient to assume himself, and to give to his\nfellow clergymen. He knows, just as well as he knows prophecy to be a\ngift attributed to the Christian minister, that priesthood is a function\nexpressly taken away from the Christian minister (as distinguished, that\nis to say, from other members of the Church). He dares not say in the\nopen drawing-room that he offers sacrifice for any soul there; and he\nknows that he cannot give authority for calling himself a priest from\nany canonical book of the New Testament. So he equivocates on the sound\nof the word \u2018Presybter.\u2019 ...\u201d[28]\n\n\u201cThis preaching of Christ has, nevertheless, become an acknowledged\nprofession and means of livelihood for gentlemen: and the simony of\nto-day differs only from that of apostolic times, in that, while the\nelder Simon thought the gift of the Holy Ghost worth a considerable\noffer in ready money, the modern Simon would on the whole refuse to\naccept the same gift of the Third Person of the Trinity, without a nice\nlittle attached income, a pretty church, with a steeple restored by Mr.\nScott, and an eligible neighbourhood.\u201d[29]\n\nAnd, in soberer vein: \u201cNo way will ever be found of rightly ordaining\nmen who have taken up the trade of preaching as a means of livelihood,\nand to whom it is a matter of personal interest whether they preach in\none place or another; only those who have left their means of living,\nthat they may preach, and whose peace follows them as they wander, and\nabides where they enter in, are of God\u2019s ordaining; and practically\nuntil the Church insists that every one of her ministers shall either\nhave an independent income, or support himself for his ministry on\nSunday by true bodily toil during the week, no word of the living Gospel\nwill ever be spoken from her pulpits. How many of those who now occupy\nthem have verily been invited to such office by the Holy Ghost may be\neasily judged by observing how many the Holy Ghost has similarly invited\nof religious persons already in prosperous business or desirable\nposition.\u201d[30]\n\nAnother passage from another place runs: \u201cTake the desire of\nteaching--the entirely unselfish and noble instinct for telling to those\nwho are ignorant the truth we know, and guarding them from the errors we\nsee them in danger of--there is no nobler, no more constant instinct in\nhonourable breasts; but let the Devil formalise it, and mix the pride of\na profession with it--get foolish people entrusted with the business of\ninstruction, and make their giddy heads giddier by putting them up in\npulpits above a submissive crowd--and you have it instantly corrupted\ninto its own reverse; you have an alliance against the light (saying)\n\u2018Light is in us only. Shut your eyes close and fast and we will lead\nyou.\u2019\u201d[31]\n\nIn another place he says the difficult question is not, why workmen\ndon\u2019t go to church, but--why other people do. He asks,[32] \u201cWhat\nScripture warrant there is for the offices and authority of the clergy,\nand defies anyone to find any.\u201d Their functions, he says, must depend on\nthe needs of the time. \u201cRobinson Crusoe, on his island, wants no Bishop,\nand makes a thunderstorm do for an evangelist. The University of Oxford\nwould do ill without its Bishop, but wants an evangelist besides, and\nthat forthwith.\u201d\n\nHe says that by yielding to the impression that the most sacred calling\nis that of the clergy, \u201cthe sacred character of the layman himself is\nforgotten, and his own ministerial duty is neglected,\u201d and so laymen\nwrongly \u201cdevote their whole time and energy to the business of this\nworld. No mistake can possibly be greater. Every member of the Church is\nequally bound to the service of the Head of the Church, and that service\nis pre-eminently the saving of souls. There is not a moment of a man\u2019s\nactive life in which he may not be indirectly preaching, and throughout\na great part of his life he ought to be directly preaching, and teaching\nboth strangers and friends.\u201d This is from the _Sheepfolds_ pamphlet of\n1851; at that time he nevertheless contemplates church officers of a\nsort, as organizers, deacons, or visitors, and thinks they may be\nmaintained for their special work, and includes religious instruction\nand exhortation among these duties. But this last advice he supersedes\nin _Fors_ of 1873 and later dates, when he places preaching on a purely\namateur basis, in the passages quoted already, and similar ones.\n\n\u201cAll good judging, and all good preaching, must be given gratis. Look\nback to what I have incidentally said of lawyers and clergy, as\nprofessional--that is to say, as living by their judgment, and sermons.\nYou will perhaps now be able to receive my conclusive statement, that\nall such professional sale of justice and mercy is a deadly sin. A man\nmay sell the work of his hands, but not his equity, nor his piety. Let\nhim live by his spade, and if his neighbours find him wise enough to\ndecide a dispute between them, or if he is in modesty and simplicity\nable to give them a piece of pious advice, let him do so, in Heaven\u2019s\nname, but not take a fee for it.\u201d[33]\n\nIn Letter XIII of _Time and Tide_ and in _Sesame and Lilies_ \u00a7 22 he\nexplains the sort of functions he would give to his Bishops, as\ndescribed in Chapter V.\n\nWe have incidentally alluded to Ruskin\u2019s teaching on the Priesthood of\nall Believers. He asserts that all members of the Universal Church are\nPriests,[34] that the exclusive priestly claim of the Clergy is\n\u201cblasphemous,\u201d and has no shadow of excuse, \u201cbecause it has been\nordained by the Holy Spirit that no Christian minister shall once call\nhimself a Priest as distinguished from his flock from one end of the New\nTestament to the other.\u201d\n\nSchools of religious thought are discriminated by nothing so decisively\nas by their attitude to the Bible. They are classed at once if they call\nthe Bible the Word of God. This bad and quite unauthorized habit has\nblinded many eyes. Ruskin attacks it again and again. \u201cThe error\nconsists, first, in declaring a bad translation of a group of books of\nvarious qualities, accidentally associated, to be the Word of God.\nSecondly, reading of this singular Word of God, only the bits they like,\nand never taking any pains to understand even those. Thirdly, resolutely\nrefusing to practise even the small bits they do understand, if such\npractice happen to go against their own worldly--especially\nmoney--interests.\u201d[35]\n\nCompare this severe passage with one from _The Ethics of the Dust_, V \u00a7\n59: \u201cThe way in which common people read their Bibles is just like the\nway that the old monks thought hedgehogs ate grapes. They rolled\nthemselves (it was said), over and over, where the grapes lay on the\nground: what fruit stuck to their spines, they carried off and ate. So\nyour hedgehoggy readers roll themselves over and over their Bibles, and\ndeclare that whatever sticks to their own spines is Scripture, and that\nnothing else is.\u201d[36]\n\nBut Ruskin is not satisfied with negative teaching on this great\nsubject. He tells us what the Word of God is, as well as what it is not:\n\n\u201cBy that Word, or Voice, or Breath, or Spirit, the heavens and earth,\nand all the host of them, were made, and in it they exist. It is your\nlife; and speaks to you always, so long as you live nobly; dies out of\nyou as you refuse to obey it; leaves you to hear, and be slain by, the\nword of an evil spirit, instead. It may come to you in books--come to\nyou in clouds--come to you in the voices of men--come to you in the\nstillness of deserts. You must be strong in evil, if you have quenched\nit wholly;--very desolate in this Christian land, if you have never\nheard it at all.\u201d[37]\n\nMuch may be gleaned from a man\u2019s use of the word Church. Is it a\nbuilding, or a select and limited outward community or more than either?\nRuskin, interpreting Scripture in his _Sheepfolds_,[38] finds a Low\nChurch divine giving the meaning of the word Church to be an \u201cexternal\ninstitution of certain forms of worship.\u201d He therefore suggests the\nfollowing emendations: \u201cUnto the angel of the external institution of\ncertain forms of worship at Ephesus write,\u201d and \u201cSalute the brethren\nwhich are at Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the external institution of\ncertain forms of worship which is in his house.\u201d\n\n\u201cI continually see subscriptions of ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand\npounds for new churches. Now a good clergyman never wants a church. He\ncan say all that his congregation essentially need to hear in any of his\nparishioners\u2019 best parlours, or upper chambers, or in the ball-room at\nthe Nag\u2019s Head; or if these are not large enough, in the market-place,\nor the harvest field. And until every soul in the parish is cared for,\nand saved from such sorrow of body or mind as alms can give comfort in,\nno clergyman, but in sin or heresy, can ask for a church at all. What\ndoes he want with altars? Was the Lord\u2019s Supper eaten on one? What with\npews?--unless rents for the pride of them? What with font and\npulpit?--that the next wayside brook, or mossy bank, cannot give him?\nThe temple of Christ is in His people--His order, to feed them--His\nthrone, alike of audience and of judgment, in Heaven: were it otherwise,\neven the churches which we have already are not always open for\nprayer.\u201d[39]\n\nHe suggests that we can decide \u201cwho are Christ\u2019s sheep, not by their\nbeing in any definite fold, for many are lost sheep sometimes; but by\ntheir sheeplike behaviour; and a great many are indeed sheep which, on\nthe far mountain side, in their peacefulness, we take for stones.\u201d[40]\nThis is a delightful expression of the feeling that you may be a child\nof God, without having heard of the Christian Revelation of Him.\n\nTo make Baptism a sign of admission into the visible Church he says is\nabsurd; \u201cfor we know that half the baptized people in the world are very\nvisible rogues. Also the Holy Ghost is sometimes given before Baptism,\nand it would be absurdity to call a man on whom the Holy Ghost had\nfallen, an invisible Christian.\u201d[41]\n\nOn the Sacrament he declared to a correspondent in 1888 that he would\ntake it from anybody\u2019s hand, the Pope\u2019s, the Queen\u2019s or a hedgeside\ngipsy\u2019s, and quoted Longfellow\u2019s lines:\n\n    \u201cA holy family, that makes\n     Each meal a supper of the Lord.\u201d\n\nHe is drastic in his rejection of all Prayer Books. Prayers out of a\nbook are no prayers to him; he cannot think that varying needs are met\nby routine prayer. These statements are in his _Letters to the Clergy on\nthe Lord\u2019s Prayer and the Church_ (1879), reprinted in _On the Old\nRoad_, p. 325, and he comments on the distrust in the efficacy of prayer\nlikely to be produced by having to ask one day \u201cthat the rest of our\nlives hereafter may be pure and holy,\u201d knowing that next day, or at\nleast next Sunday, we shall be expected to confess that \u201cthere is no\nhealth in us.\u201d He seriously suspects the effect of the Liturgy on the\ntruthfulness of the English mind.\n\nWhen he discusses the vital problem of the seat of Authority in religion\nhe declares that it ultimately resides within, not in an outward Church\nor Book. He is absolutely uncompromising about this.\n\n\u201cThere is, therefore, in matters of doctrine, no such thing as the\nauthority of the Church. We might as well talk of the authority of a\nmorning cloud. There may be light in it, but the light is not of it; and\nit diminishes the light that it gets; and lets less of it through than\nit receives, Christ being its sun. Or, we might as well talk of the\nauthority of a flock of sheep--for the Church is a body to be taught and\nfed, not to teach and feed; and of all sheep that are fed on the earth,\nChrist\u2019s sheep are the most simple,\u201d likely to die in the bramble\nthickets; \u201cbut for their Shepherd, who is for ever finding them and\nbearing them back, with torn fleeces and eyes full of fear.\u201d[42]\n\nThere is also an interesting passage in _The Eagle\u2019s Nest_ (p. 135) on\n\u201cThe Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.\u201d\n\nBy way of Church discipline he advises a process of excommunication by a\njury of laymen.[43]\n\nWhat of religious decorative art? Surely here the great art critic and\napostle of the Beautiful will be found on the ritualist side? Not so. He\nsays that Church art, pictures, images, and so on, \u201cmake us believe what\nwe would not otherwise have believed; and, secondly, make us think of\nsubjects we should not otherwise have thought of, intruding them amidst\nour ordinary thoughts in a confusing and familiar manner.\u201d \u201cThis art,\u201d\nhe says, \u201cis misapplied, and in most cases, very dangerously so. Our\nduty is to believe in the existence of Divine, or any other, persons,\nonly upon rational proofs of their existence; and not because we have\nseen pictures of them.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I nevertheless believe that he who trusts much to such helps (as\n\u2018Rafaelesque and other sacred paintings of a high order\u2019) will find them\nfail him at his need; and that the dependence, in any great degree, on\nthe presence or power of a picture, indicates a wonderfully feeble sense\nof the presence and power of God. I do not think that any man, who is\nthoroughly certain that Christ is in the room, will care what sort of\npicture of Christ he has on its walls and, in the plurality of cases,\nthe delight taken in art of this kind is, in reality, nothing more than\na form of graceful indulgence of those sensibilities which the habits of\na disciplined life restrain in other directions. Such art is, in a word,\nthe opera and drama of the monk. Sometimes it is worse than this, and\nthe love of it is the mask under which a general thirst for morbid\nexcitement will pass itself off for religion. The young lady who rises\nin the middle of the day, jaded by her last night\u2019s ball, and utterly\nincapable of any simple or wholesome religious exercise, can still gaze\ninto the dark eyes of the Madonna di San Sisto, or dream over the\nwhiteness of an ivory crucifix, and returns to the course of her daily\nlife in full persuasion that her morning\u2019s feverishness has atoned for\nher evening\u2019s folly. And, all the while, the art which possesses these\nvery doubtful advantages is acting for undoubtful detriment, in the\nvarious ways above examined (in a previous passage), on the inmost\nfastnesses of faith; it is throwing subtle endearments round foolish\ntraditions, confusing sweet fancies with sound doctrines, and enforcing\nfalse assertions with pleasant circumstantiality, until, to the usual,\nand assuredly sufficient, difficulties standing in the way of belief,\nits votaries have added a habit of sentimentally changing what they know\nto be true, and of dearly loving what they confess to be false.\u201d\n\n\u201cHas there then (the reader asks emphatically) been no true religious\nideal? Has religious art never been of any service to mankind? I fear,\non the whole, not.\n\n\u201cMore, I think, has always been done for God by few words than many\npictures, and more by few acts than many words.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd for us all there is in this matter even a deeper danger than that\nof indulgence. There is the danger of Artistical Pharisaism. Of all the\nforms of pride and vanity, as there are none more subtle, so I believe\nthere are none more sinful, than those which are manifested by the\nPharisees of art. To be proud of birth, of place, of wit, of bodily\nbeauty, is comparatively innocent, just because such pride is more\nnatural, and more easily detected. But to be proud of our sanctities; to\npour contempt upon our fellows because, forsooth, we like to look at\nMadonnas in bowers of roses, better than at plain pictures of plain\nthings; and to make this religious art of ours the expression of our own\nperpetual self-complacency--congratulating ourselves, day by day, on\nour purities, proprieties, elevations, and inspirations, as above the\nreach of common mortals, this I believe to be one of the wickedest and\nfoolishest forms of human egotism.\u201d[44]\n\nThese clear-sounding testimonies form a coherent whole. Is there any\nreligious body in England which holds all, or even most of these\npositions? Remarkably enough, there is one which holds them all; indeed,\nwhose separate existence depends on holding just these positions,\npositive and negative alike. This one is the Society of Friends. We find\nto our surprise that, without knowing it, Ruskin was a real and very\ncompletely furnished Quaker.\n\nThe testimony against a paid or professional clergy, against all\nclerical claims, is the very heart of Quaker practice; and the _raison\nd\u2019\u00eatre_ of their separate meetings. The Priesthood of all Believers is\nat the heart of their official statements, and the implication in their\nministry. They say that there should be no laity among them, exactly as\nRuskin does. They decline all forms of fixed or routine prayer, and\nnever practise them. Their meeting houses are plain, and their worship\nis ascetically devoid of sensuous attraction in glowing glass or carven\nstone or in the odour of incense.\n\nIt is one of their central historical testimonies, dating from the\nseventeenth century, that the Bible should not be called the Word of\nGod. For this they were called atheists by the clergy of Charles II. The\ncontroversies of that time rarely avoided touching on this sore point.\nFor them, as for Ruskin, the seat of authority is The Light Within, and,\nlike Ruskin, they are willing to \u201cgive up Moses\u201d if history demands it.\n\nThe attitude of Ruskin to Baptism and the Lord\u2019s Supper is a thoroughly\nQuaker one. Both hold that they are unnecessary and have no \u201cValidity.\u201d\nThe only \u201cChurch\u201d they recognize is the Universal Church composed of all\nfaithful men everywhere; and as Ruskin speaks of sheep on distant\nmountains who look like stones, so Friends have always held that the\nheathen were or could be saints of the household of God, and that\nknowledge of the historical Jesus Christ was not essential to salvation\nhere or hereafter.\n\nThere is a remarkable omission too. So far as I know Ruskin never speaks\nof Hell, as an article of faith. Nor does it ever occur in Quaker\nministry.\n\nIt is almost uncanny that there is an agreement also on minor\ntestimonies which might appear accidental. Friends do not approve of\nmourning garments, though there is in this generation some weakness\nabout this. Ruskin thinks that \u201cthe people who really believe in\nimmortality must be few, else why the Church\u2019s singular habit of putting\non mourning for every one summoned to be with Christ, which is far\nbetter.\u201d[45]\n\nIt is well known that Friends refuse to take judicial Oaths, and gave a\nhandle thereby to hostile magistrates, when other handles slipped away.\nRuskin says plainly that Oaths are \u201cdisobedience to the teaching of\nChrist.\u201d[46]\n\nI believe we have now mentioned all the points of Quakerism, except the\ntestimony against all War. From Chapter VIII devoted to this, it is\nclear that Ruskin was generally, but not always, on Quaker lines. He\nwobbled somewhat, and felt puzzled, and I am afraid that a certain\nnumber of Friends have done the same at times of crisis.\n\nLastly, the Quaker simplicity of life, the avoidance of luxury and\nsocial pretensions, the fixing of attention chiefly on the things of\nthe spirit, are Ruskin\u2019s dearest delight, the subject of his most\nearnest pleas. Take one:\n\n\u201cThe uses, and the desire, of seclusion, of meditation, of restraint,\nand of correction, are they not passing from us in the collision of\nworldly interests, and restless contests of mean hope and meaner fear?\nThe Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?\u201d[47]\n\nFor a man who, in the name and for the sake of spiritual things, fought\nthe good fight of a reformer during two generations, Ruskin was but\nlittle brought into personal friendship with members of the Society of\nFriends. George Baker, of Bewdley, who was one of the early donors to\nthe St. George\u2019s Guild and was long one of its Trustees, and afterwards\nits Master, is the principal personal link he had with the Society.\nHenry Swan, formerly his curator at the Sheffield Museum, was a Friend.\n\nWhen the writer, as one of a party of Friends, was kindly shown over\nBrantwood by its owner in 1884, the only things he had to say to us\nabout Quakerism in the course of a forty minutes\u2019 talk, were a little\nhomily on sectarianism, contrasted with a church of \u201cGod-fearing\npeople,\u201d including Catholics and Turks--a little chaff about our\nfailing in the matter of usury to literally obey our Bibles, as he\nsupposed we thought we always tried to do--and an astonishing\npronouncement that \u201cYour early Friends would have carried all before\nthem, if they had not opposed that which is obeyed by the whole of the\nanimal creation--the love of colour.\u201d We must take this as one of the\ncharacteristic plunges into emphasis (some well-balanced people would\nuse a stronger term perhaps), which are a cause at once of his strength\nas a stimulating teacher, and of his insufficiency as an infallible\noracle, to be mechanically interpreted.\n\nThese three utterances, however, slight as they are, show a misreading\nof Quakerism. We are, I trust, the least sectional of little sects. The\nreligion of the Light Within is at the basis of all other religions too;\nit is the absolute religion, religion reduced to its simplest, and it\nbrings us into sympathetic connection with Evangelical, Ritualist, Jew,\nMohammedan and \u201cheathen,\u201d so far as these have the Divine Spirit shining\nthrough their particular forms of thought and practice. Also, of all\npeople, we are the least prone to unintelligent Biblical literalism, and\nare quite unlikely to be stumbled by the Mosaic regulations about\nusury. There is a measure of truth in his third statement about\n\u201ccolour,\u201d if by that he meant, in a comprehensive sense, those\nrecreations which relieve the strain of a severely ruled life. We have\nbecome less numerous, I doubt not, through our restrictions (now\nabandoned) on art, music, \u201cthe theatre and the ball-room.\u201d But there\nhave been compensations to those who have stayed under the discipline.\n\nRuskin, then, never understood the Society of Friends in the outward.\nThis was the mere result of circumstances. Brought up in the south of\nLondon, educated at Oxford, living much abroad, with local interests and\nacquaintances chiefly centering round Denmark Hill, Oxford and Coniston,\nhe had no great opportunity to meet Friends.\n\nHe never had any Quaker teaching in his youth. The voice of the Society\nof Friends was too faint to reach him. He never found his way across the\nhill from Brantwood to the ancient meeting house at Hawkshead, but his\nword has penetrated further than ours, and all unaware he has done our\nwork.\n\nHow marvellous is this series of harmonies, unintended, unrecognized on\nboth sides, between him and the Society of Friends! It looks as though\nQuakerism is not an arbitrary group of doctrines gathered up, as he\nfancied them, by George Fox, but a coherent system, all whose parts hang\ntogether as they all appear together when they rise up in Ruskin. It is\na strong confirmation of the coherence and validity of the religious\ndiscoveries of our Quaker forefathers in the seventeenth century, when\nwe find that they are repeated in the research of another emancipated\nbut devout thinker, a religious rationalist who was an expert in the\nthings of the soul.\n\n\n\n\n_CHAPTER IV_\n\n_RUSKIN AND MILL_\n\nA RECONCILIATION\n\n\nThe controversy between Ruskin and the orthodox Political Economists of\nhis time was central in his career, and has occupied a prominent place\nin the thought of the last sixty years. Either Ruskin\u2019s teaching or that\nof Mill and his colleagues, or that of both, has been clouded with\nuncertainty and so has lost force. If it should be found, as I shall try\nto show, that there was no real ground for the controversy at all--that\nit was all due to misapprehension, to mere ambiguity in a term, it will\nreinforce the conclusions of the economists in their modern revised\nform, add cogency to the teaching of Ruskin, and clear away storm clouds\nwhich have done great harm. The mistake arose through a wrong conception\nby Ruskin of the scope of Economics--of what its teachers were after.\n\nPolitical Economy has always been treated by careful writers as the\nscience of human action with regard to the acquisition and use of\nproperty. This is a pure science. It is a branch of applied psychology.\nIt measures motives, and analyses the action of buyers and sellers with\na view to finding out what men in business will normally do, and how\nvalues of land, labour, capital and commodities are determined. This\ndoes not open any question of right or wrong, any question of oppression\nor starvation, of luxury, vanity or pride. This is as cold-blooded, as\npurely intellectual and critical an inquiry as the study and measurement\nof electrical currents; what produces them, conducts them, wastes or\nscatters them. An electrician will show how a telephone may be made, he\nwill invent it, and he will explain it; but it is no business of his to\nask whether courtesy and good feeling or profanity and fraud will\ncharacterize the messages which will go over his instrument. That is not\nhis business as a scientist, though the use of his own telephone is his\nbusiness as a man.\n\nNow this is a perfectly intelligible, it may be a perfectly blameless,\nand, at first sight, a probably useful branch of inquiry. It separates\noff from the great mass of human actions a definite field; it omits the\nmotive of religion, the motive of love, and the motive of self-denying\nservice, outside service for the family for whom the man under\ndiscussion is economically responsible.\n\nConcerning it, we must ask three questions:\n\n1. Is this separation practicable, and in consequence are the results\ntrue or approximately true?\n\n2. Under what limitations is it useful to make such a separation, and\nwhat real guidance to conduct, if any, follows?\n\n3. Afterwards we will inquire to what extent the political economists\nhave rigidly confined themselves to theory, and having found that they\ndid not, when they went over into practical advice we will ask whether\nthey were deluded by the results they had reached within their limits,\nand whether they hastily assumed that they had found a more complete\nguide to human action than they had.\n\nIs then the separation of dealings which can be expressed in terms of\nmoney from the other dealings of life sufficiently possible to make a\nscience of those dealings? Are they predictable, given the\ncircumstances? Will like causes produce like results? Is the motive\nmeasured by money sufficiently separable from other motives, to be\ntreated by itself?\n\nWe must at once admit that such separation cannot be absolute; that\naffection, pity, charity, habit, ignorance, legislative restriction,\npublic spirit, prevent the individual from always acting according to\nhis economic interests. He does not always buy in the cheapest shop; he\ngrumbles but helps a struggling neighbour by his custom, and puts up for\nsome time with an inferior article. He goes on using old machinery for\nwant of knowledge or of a progressive mind. He keeps on an old hand for\nthe sake of the past. Still, in the long run, these qualifications to\nthe general law do not survive. In general, men in the large may be\ntrusted to do that which it is their economic interest to do, within\nsuch lines of honesty as are ratified by law, or of honour as are\nregarded by public opinion. Competition, that is, is the general rule in\nbusiness; and we shall not go far wrong in assuming it as the method in\nvogue in Europe and America, unless some special feature of monopoly or\nlegislative Protection or trade combination supersedes it.\n\nThis is not the same as saying that it is always right to follow the\nlines of pure competition. We must at all points check the tendency to\npass from the indicative to the imperative mood, from a science to an\nart; from what will raise our profits to what is our duty in our\nbusiness.\n\nSo we assert that there is a Theory of Value, and that it is an\napproximately verified theory under the present system of business.\nFurther, that in 1860, when business was less regulated than it is now,\nthe results were so much nearer verification by experience.\n\nThat business is carried on for self-interest on the whole, seems to me\na safe approximation to reality--and that the exceptions to it are not\nchemically explosive of its system as Ruskin says, but can be added to\nthe enquiry afterwards, like friction or the resistance of the air in\nmechanics.\n\nWhether this is desirable, or the last word of human organization, is\nquite another question; and the questions are better kept separate.\nMoral considerations are too important to come in as an incidental\nqualification to business motives. They should be the dominating\ninfluence, and it is better that economic results should not obtain a\nsort of sanction as being tinctured with righteousness, when only a few\ndrops of the tincture have been administered. It is better that\nEconomics should keep their place as a science of observed facts.\n\nAt the present moment when war is being diagnosed as the worst disease\nof society, there are many voices to point out its origin in economic\ngreed, and through rivalry in the exploitation of backward peoples.\nMilitary pomp and pride, the mere ambition of Emperors and Generals,\nmust bear their share of the blame, but greed and oppression are the\ntap-root of war, and Ruskin, it happens, was foremost in saying so, as\nis pointed out in a later chapter.\n\nThe economic motive is behind many actions where it is not avowed. Since\nthe elementary need of man is, and always has been, to make a living,\nand he tries to make it as pleasantly as possible, this must be so, and\nthe laws which govern production, distribution and exchange are of prime\nimportance for men in communities.\n\nWhen Ruskin touched on an economic law, on a doctrine of the science\nwhich he thus erroneously blasphemed, he was remarkably correct; he was\nan orthodox follower after all of much of the doctrine of Mill. He was\n\u201can utterly fearless and unscrupulous free trader.\u201d[48] His instinct,\nthe moral sanction to which he always looked--as Mill also did--as a\nguide to practice, told him that protection was a wicked action,\nforbidding to workers in other countries their right to earn their\nliving in the way by which they could produce the most. \u201cI mean by\nco-operation, not only fellowship between trading firms, but between\ntrading nations; so that it shall no more be thought (as it is now, with\nludicrous and vain selfishness) an advantage for one nation to undersell\nanother, and take its occupation away from it; but that the primal and\neternal law of commerce shall be of all men understood--viz., that every\nnation is fitted by its character and the nature of its territories for\nsome particular employments and manufactures, and that it is the true\ninterest of every other nation to encourage it in such speciality.\u201d[49]\n\u201cI do not admit even the idea of reciprocity. Let other nations, if they\nlike, keep their ports shut; every wise nation will throw its own\nopen.\u201d[50] He knew every point of the correct economic theory of free\ntrade. He realized foreign commerce as exchange or barter, with the\ndependence of exports upon imports. This dependence, showing the true\nnature of International Trade, follows from the correct doctrine of\ncurrency. Ruskin emphasized this doctrine repeatedly. He knew that\nevery fall in the supply of commodities made the gold currency of less\nvalue. He knew that inflation by paper money similarly sent prices up.\nHe was enthusiastic for a gold standard, not as being perfect, but being\nthe best available.[51] Mill\u2019s still valuable chapter on International\nTrade and all current economic doctrine on currency are Ruskinian\neconomy too. Also, when a disciple of the much depreciated Manchester\nSchool talked of _laisser faire_ he generally meant: \u201cLet Protection\nalone.\u201d His phrase was general, but in the days of Gladstone\u2019s\nchancellorships of the exchequer, the \u201cManchester\u201d man was thinking\nmainly of the removal of tariffs. It would not be in accord with human\npsychology if the principle had not been pushed too far, and by friends\nand opponents alike the principle of governmental abstention from\ninterference enlarged, and made universal. In calling for government\naction to determine wages and organize employment, Ruskin was simply\nuttering a need not yet felt. He was a twentieth century voice, heard\ntoo soon.\n\nBut we must always avoid the snare into which the earlier economists\nfell, of assuming that their conclusions were rigid and absolutely\ncorrect. There can be no mechanical infallibility about Economics; it is\nnot accurate enough to be mathematically true. It expresses tendencies.\nIn a word, it is a psychological, not a physical science. Its subject is\nnot wealth, simply, but human motive in regard to wealth.\n\nStudents of the Political Economy of Adam Smith, Ricardo, Bentham and\nJames Mill, find that these great founders of economic science, in whose\ndebt we shall ever remain, assumed too much mechanical uniformity in\nmen\u2019s actions, and did not give enough weight to the reaction of man\nupon his circumstances. They counted a man too much as a passively\nresponsive machine. This is what led them to the doctrines since so\nseriously modified--the existence of a fixed Wages Fund, the \u201cIron Law\nof Wages,\u201d the thesis that \u201cA demand for Commodities is not a demand for\nLabour.\u201d\n\nJohn Stuart Mill began life under these influences, and his _Principles\nof Political Economy_ contain them; but in later life he abandoned his\nWages Fund theory, gave greater weight to the human side, the variable\nand uncertain factor in economic problems, and under the influence of\nComte and of the Socialists doubted the accuracy of much of his economic\nargument. This change was published in his review of the work of his\nfriend Thornton, who had attacked the Wages Fund theory in 1869. It is\nin Mill\u2019s collected Essays.\n\nThe Political Economy which Ruskin attacked was that of Mill\u2019s\n_Principles_; and to judge fairly of the controversy we must treat the\nscience, not as it was left, in high universal abstraction, by Ricardo;\nnor as worked up with rich historical material, cautious and well\ninformed, as in Professor Marshall\u2019s writings, but (between these) as\nMill left it in his first edition of 1848.\n\nIn estimating the extent to which Ruskin\u2019s attack was excusable, we need\nto know whether Mill overstepped the bounds of theory, of pure\nscience--and became a political adviser and exhorter. This he certainly\ndid, quite often in his book, and he says in his preface that it was\npart of his purpose to do so.\n\nRuskin says that it is when he is thus inconsistent with his own theory,\nand strays into practical teaching, that he begins to take any interest\nin him; and certainly Mill gave, precisely because he was a\nphilanthropist and a social reformer, room for a critic to come in and\nsay: \u201cLo, you pretend to be a practical guide to conduct, and you are\nonly taking account of low and selfish motives; you are an unworthy\nexponent of human nature, if we are to regard you as taking it all for\nyour province.\u201d The chapters chiefly referred to here are those on \u201cThe\nAdvantages of a Stationary State,\u201d and on \u201cThe Futurity of the Labouring\nClasses.\u201d\n\nRuskin recognizes and admits this in a clever but naughty way:\n\n\u201cI should have regretted the need of pointing out inconsistency in any\nportion of Mr. Mill\u2019s work, had not the value of his work proceeded from\nits inconsistencies. He deserves honour among economists by\ninadvertently disclaiming the principles which he states, and tacitly\nintroducing the moral considerations with which he claims his science\nhas no connection. Many of his chapters are therefore true and valuable;\nand the only conclusions of his which I have to dispute are those which\nfollow from his premises.\u201d[52] Mill made the distinction between science\nand social reform quite plain in his chapters, and left no room for\nconfusion. Ruskin must have thoroughly understood this.\n\nFull in the face of this theoretical investigation comes Ruskin\u2019s\ndefinition of Political Economy, with which he begins _Munera Pulveris_:\n\n\u201cPolitical Economy is neither an art nor science, but a system of\nconduct and legislature, founded on the sciences, directing the arts,\nand impossible, except under certain conditions of moral culture.\u201d\n\nHere we have an entirely different object. This Economy aims at telling\nus what we ought to do for the enriching and purifying of life upon the\nearth, and what the state ought to do for the same end. This is\nuniversal politics and social amelioration: frankly and definitely, not\na science at all.\n\nThere need be no conflict between this comprehensive study of political\nethics, including religion, art, and education among its principal\ndepartments--and that science which might usefully come in as one of\nthose on which it is based. To be sure, both claim to be called\nPolitical Economy; but that is only a verbal rivalry. As to that,\nRuskin\u2019s Political Economy has by derivation the proper right to the\nterm--the State\u2019s Housekeeping. But it is not always wise to follow\nderivations; the scholastic Economy was in possession of the word,\nthough properly speaking it was not \u1f41\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u1f31\u03b1 nor was it \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u1fd1\u03c4\u1fd0\u03ba\u03ae.\nRuskin\u2019s weakness for playing with etymologies, often curious ones,\nhelped to maintain this rivalry in words.\n\nThere is room for both studies, the scholastic economies and the\nRuskinian economy. That is my thesis.\n\nHow differently the criticism of Carlyle and Ruskin might have been\nlaunched. Ruskin might have said that he admitted that in business\npeople must be assumed to follow their own interests, that is, that the\n\u201ceconomic man\u201d would stand as a general average in business relations.\nBut he might have said, after that, every word that he wanted to say,\nabout the insufficiency of this principle as a guide to conduct. He\nmight have dwelt on the strength of loyalties and affections, and on the\npowerful economic value of good relations between masters and servants.\nHe might have shown how misleading were economic results if acted on as\na complete handbook of conduct even in business. He might have written\n_Unto This Last_ with an introduction by John Stuart Mill, and\neverything positive or constructive left in it. The satire and\nsword-play might have been used for something else.\n\nMuch of his attack might have taken the form of entirely sound but\nfriendly criticism. Great play is made with a sentence of Ricardo\u2019s:[53]\n\u201cUtility is not the measure of exchangeable value, though it is\nabsolutely essential to it.\u201d This non-committal sentence does not carry\nus very far, and does not claim to be a definition, but is true as far\nas it goes. Ruskin makes hay of Ricardo\u2019s statement next following, that\nLabour was, in primitive abstraction at any rate, the sole regulator of\nprice. Neither he nor Ruskin had reached the modern theory of \u201cmarginal\nvalues\u201d which solves so many ancient puzzles and misunderstandings.\nPrice is fixed where Demand and Supply meet: and it measures two things.\nIt represents on one side the value in use of the last article produced;\nand on the other the cost in labour of the production thereof. Then both\nsides are satisfied--the buyer and the seller. But the price does not\nrepresent the utility of the earliest articles produced--the first\nloaves of bread would be quite priceless,--nor the cost of the\nproduction of the first few easily grown crops. Both values are \u201cfinal\u201d\nor \u201cmarginal.\u201d This simple and permanent plan of determining price,\nwhich nobody can or should alter, is, put shortly, the terrible law of\nsupply and demand, the very heart of economic theory, about which so\nmuch indignation is wastefully expended. If Ruskin\u2019s penetrating mind\nhad been devoted to helpful criticism of the gaps left by the\neconomists, they might have reached this theory much earlier. But Ruskin\nwrote in a state of noble rage--a bad state for the scientific temper.\n\u201cNothing in history,\u201d he wrote, \u201chas ever been so disgraceful to human\nintellect as the acceptance among us of the common doctrines of\npolitical economy as a science.\u201d[54] This was chiefly because it was\nsaid to be a systematic disobedience to the first principles of its\nprofessed religion, because it taught \u201cthe love of money\u201d and \u201cmammon\nservice\u201d; it was \u201ca science of becoming rich.\u201d Once accept so terrible a\nmisconception, and all the vials of the prophets\u2019 wrath are not too\nprofuse. \u201cTo this science and to this alone (the professed and organized\npursuit of money) is owing all the evil of modern days. I say all.\u201d[55]\nRuskin wrote in 1865 a letter to the _Daily Telegraph_ in which he says\npeople cannot get servants by political economy and the law of supply\nand demand--as though he had said they cannot be got by physics and the\nlaw of gravitation. To see his real attitude we must add a phrase of\n1883: \u201cWhile I admit there is such a thing as mercantile economy,\ndistinguished from social, I have always said that neither Mill, Fawcett\nnor Bastiat knew the contemptible science they professed to teach.\u201d[56]\n\nThis attitude is pure disaster, comparable to the great _odia\ntheologica_ which have cursed the world. It is not necessary nor wise to\ntake sides in an utterly baseless controversy. Let us rather examine the\nprogramme of the science.\n\nProf. Marshall gives the following list of the inquiries chiefly pursued\nby economic science[57]:--\n\n\u201cHow does economic freedom tend, so far as its influence reaches, to\narrange the demand for wealth and its production, distribution and\nexchange? What organization of industry and trade does economic freedom\ntend to bring about; what forms of division of labour; what arrangements\nof the money market, of wholesale and retail dealing, and what relations\nbetween employer and employed? How does it tend to adjust values, that\nis, the prices of material things, whether produced on the spot or\nbrought from a distance, rents of all kinds, interest on capital and the\nearnings of all forms of work, including that of undertaking and\nmanaging business enterprises? How does it affect the course of foreign\ntrade? Subject to what limitations is the price of anything a measure of\nits real utility? What increase of happiness is _prima facie_ likely to\nresult from a given increase in the wealth of any class of society? How\nfar is the industrial efficiency of any class impaired by the\ninsufficiency of its income? How far would an increase of the income of\nany class, if once effected, be likely to sustain itself through its\neffects in increasing their efficiency and earning power?\n\n\u201cHow far does, as a matter of fact, the influence of economic freedom\nreach, or how far has it reached at any particular time, in any place,\nin any rank of society, or in any particular branch of industry? What\nother influences are most powerful there? and how is the action of all\nthese influences combined? In particular, how far does not economic\nfreedom tend of its own action to build up combinations and monopolies,\nand what are their effects? How are the various classes of society\nlikely to be affected by its action in the long run? What will be the\nintermediate effects while its ultimate results are being worked out;\nand, account being taken of the time over which they will spread, what\nis the relative importance of these two classes of ultimate and\nintermediate effects? What will be the incidence of any system of taxes?\nWhat burdens will it impose on the community, and what revenue will it\nafford to the State?\u201d\n\nSuch then, is the subject matter of economic science spread out in some\ndetail. But behind all these there are practical questions which give\nthe chief motive to our interest in the subject; and though not within\nthe actual range of the science, it will be of interest to us to hear\nthe same authority state them. They vary very much from time to time.\nThe earlier economists were occupied with the need of removing\nrestrictions on free commerce, and government regulation generally, and\nthey glorified economic freedom. We ask with Marshall:\n\n\u201cHow should we act so as to increase the good and diminish the evil\ninfluences of economic freedom, both in its ultimate results, and in\nthe course of its progress? If the first are good and the latter evil,\nbut those who suffer the evil do not reap the good, how far is it right\nthat they should suffer for the benefit of others?\u201d\n\n\u201cTaking it for granted that a more equal distribution of wealth is to be\ndesired, how far would this justify changes in the institution of\nproperty, or limitations of free enterprise, even when they would be\nlikely to diminish the aggregate of wealth? In other words, how far\nshould an increase in the income of the poorer classes and a diminution\nof their work be aimed at, even if it involved some lessening of\nnational material wealth? How far could this be done without injustice,\nand without slackening the energies of the leaders of progress? How\nought the burdens of taxation to be distributed among the different\nclasses of society?\u201d\n\n\u201cOught we to rest content with the existing forms of division of labour?\nIs it necessary that large numbers of the people should be exclusively\noccupied with work that has no elevating character? Is it possible to\neducate gradually among the great mass of workers a new capacity for the\nhigher kinds of work, and in particular for undertaking co-operatively\nthe management of the businesses in which they are themselves employed?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat are the proper relations of individual and collective action in a\nstage of civilization such as ours? How far ought voluntary association\nin its various forms, old and new, to be left to supply collective\naction for those purposes for which such action has special advantages?\nWhat business affairs should be undertaken by society itself acting\nthrough the Government, imperial or local? Have we, for instance,\ncarried as far as we should the plan of collective ownership and use of\nopen spaces, or works of art, of the means of instruction and amusement,\nas well as of those material requisites of a civilized life, the supply\nof which requires united action, such as gas and water and railways?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhen Government does not itself directly intervene, how far should it\nallow individuals and corporations to conduct their own affairs as they\nplease? How far should it regulate the management of railways and other\nconcerns which are to some extent in a position of monopoly, and again,\nof land and other things the quantity of which cannot be increased by\nman? Is it necessary to retain in their full force all the existing\nrights of property, or have the original necessities for which they were\nmeant to provide, in some measure passed away?\u201d\n\n\u201cAre the prevailing methods of using wealth entirely justifiable? What\nscope is there for the moral pressure of social opinion in constraining\nand directing individual action in those economic relations in which the\nrigidity and violence of Government interference would be likely to do\nmore harm than good?\n\n\u201cIn what respect do the duties of one nation to another in economic\nmatters differ from those of members of the same nation to one another?\u201d\n\nIn fact, we have to deal with the problems of Socialism, of\nCo-operation, of Municipal action, of Luxury and of Trade Wars. He might\nhave added Pauperism and Old Age Pensions, Standard Wages and Hours, and\nNationalization of various kinds of property. There is a strong and\naudible echo of Ruskin\u2019s aims about these practical problems; and one\ndoes not yet see why we cannot make room in our own minds both for\neconomic science and the Ruskinian Economy to which these issues belong.\n\nThere are passages, too, in Mill, which Ruskin himself might have\nwritten, which look beyond Production and Distribution to the larger\nneeds and joys of man. He is considering the stationary state of capital\nand wealth, when economic progress has ceased, when people are not\nalways growing more numerous and more wealthy, a state dreaded by the\nolder economists, and ever to be held at arm\u2019s length. But Mill says he\nthinks it would be better than our present condition. \u201cI confess I am\nnot charmed with the ideal of life held out by those who think that the\nnormal state of human beings is that of struggling to get on, that the\ntrampling, crushing, elbowing and treading on each other\u2019s heels, which\nform the existing type of social life, are the most desirable lot of\nhumankind, or anything but the disagreeable symptoms of one of the\nphases of industrial progress. The northern and middle states of America\nare a specimen of this stage of civilization in very favourable\ncircumstances, having apparently got rid of all social injustices and\ninequalities, that affect persons of Caucasian race and of the male sex,\nwhile the proportion of population to capital and land is such as to\nensure abundance to every able-bodied member of the community who does\nnot forfeit it by misconduct. They have the six points of Chartism, and\nthey have no poverty; and all that these advantages do for them is that\nthe life of the whole of one sex is devoted to dollar-hunting, and of\nthe other to breeding dollar-hunters. The best state for human nature is\nthat in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor\nhas any reason to fear being thrust back by the efforts of others to\npush themselves forward.\u201d[58]\n\nThat is Ruskin without the eloquence; that is his advice to stay in the\nstation in which we have been placed, and not be always trying to get\nout of it. A little more from Mill:\n\n\u201cI know not why it should be matter of congratulation that persons who\nare already richer than any one needs to be, should have doubled their\nmeans of consuming things which give little or no pleasure except as\nrepresentative of wealth, or that numbers should pass over, every year,\nfrom the middle classes into a richer class, or from the class of the\noccupied rich to that of the unoccupied.\u201d\n\nThis reminds one of the well-known passage where Ruskin speaks of those\nwho try \u201cto advance in life without knowing what life means, who mean\nonly that they are to get more horses and more footmen and more fortune\nand more public honours and--not more personal soul.\u201d[59]\n\nAs some injustice has been done to Mill, particularly by us the pupils\nand friends of his eloquent antagonist, I will quote a little more from\nhim to show that though the laws of Nature were represented by him as\nhard, he was himself as Ruskinian as any of us. He suggests a limitation\nof the right of bequest, so that no one should receive by gift or\ninheritance more than a moderate independence, so that there might be \u201ca\nwell paid and affluent body of labourers; no enormous fortunes, except\nwhat were earned and accumulated during a single lifetime; but a much\nlarger body sufficiently at leisure to cultivate freely the graces of\nlife.\u201d Just so does Ruskin tell us that a man who dies rich dies\ndisgraced. Mill proceeds to express his dread of greater density of\npopulation, because it crowds out solitude, so needful for depth of\ncharacter, and takes away wild natural beauty. The whole passage might\nhave come from Brantwood.\n\nAs to machinery, Mill goes on in the very spirit of _Fors Clavigera_:\n\u201cHitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made\nhave lightened the day\u2019s toil of any human being. They have enabled a\ngreater population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment,\nand an increased number of manufacturers and others to make large\nfortunes.\u201d I am afraid that with posterity John Stuart Mill may suffer\nin reputation from being the object of so much invective, embedded in\npeerless English, and written under a mighty spirit of prophesying.\n_Fors Clavigera_ and _Unto This Last_ will be read much longer than\nMill\u2019s _Principles_, and future ages may describe him as a cold-blooded\nPhilistine, when really he was among the best and wisest of men. Certain\nStoics and Epicureans, of whom all we know is that they encountered\nPaul, have hardly had justice from the ordinary English reader of the\nActs. Mill obtained the verdict of contemporaries: but the future is the\ncharmer\u2019s.\n\nIn some ways these two protagonists, both of them among the princes of\nour race, were strangely alike in their history. Mill, born in 1806, was\nthe elder by thirteen years. Both children were extraordinarily\nprecocious, Mill with his Greek at two, Ruskin with his pencil and his\npoetry at seven. At sixteen Mill was writing in _The Traveller_ in\ndefence of his father and of Ricardo. From eighteen to twenty he\ncontributed to the _Westminster Review_ and other journals articles on\nthe Game Laws, the Corn Laws, the Law of Libel and on a Paper Currency,\nand reviews of books on Economics. At this age Ruskin\u2019s poetry was\nappearing in _Friendship\u2019s Garland_, and at twenty-four he came out with\nthe first volume of _Modern Painters_, with a fully developed style made\nin heaven, and an originality in his art criticism which made him a\npublic man at once. Each of them, after a long and famous literary life,\ngave the world an autobiography it would not willingly lose.\n\nThey were both only sons, brought up with unusual solicitude, close\nparental control and remarkably severe if loving discipline. Their\nattachment to and regard for their parents was a great power with both,\nall their lives. The gravity, earnestness, and deep sense of\nresponsibility taught in childhood never left either of them.\n\nBoth passed through the fires which try faith; and there are reasons for\nbelieving in both cases that what might have been a happy marriage was\nfrustrated by want of conventional orthodoxy. So that they both suffered\nfor the cause of truth in the hardest of all ways. Each of them had\nonly six or seven years of married life, and neither left any children.\n\nStrangely enough, also, Mill was forty-one when his _Principles of\nPolitical Economy_ was written, and Ruskin at forty-one brought out his\npapers in the _Cornhill_, under the title of _Unto This Last_, which are\nhis counterblast to Mill.\n\nEach of them found it necessary in later life to recant some of their\nearlier teaching, and each faithfully did so. Mill gave up the Wages\nFund Theory he had learnt from his father, and Ruskin scatters the later\neditions of his earlier works with notes denouncing the dogmatic\nevangelicalism which runs through them, which he had learnt from his\nmother.\n\nSo, in tragic conflict, these two men are before us. Not that Mill ever\nreplied. He died in 1872, and during his lifetime he could afford to\nignore the eccentricities of an unstable genius, at whom all sober\npeople smiled in pity. But now I would fain even for Mill\u2019s sake\nreconcile them. You have true tragedy, not when right meets wrong, the\nnoble the ignoble, but when two principles, both noble, are brought into\na conflict they cannot avoid--Mill, the Liberal, the rationalist, with\nhis watchwords of equality, liberty and a free chance for all--and\nRuskin the Conservative, the indignant enemy of mechanical progress,\nspeaking ever of order and obedience, reverence and graded ranks:--Mill,\na servant of present humanity, with but a faint critical hold on the\nUnseen; Ruskin, emotional and inspired, who not seldom would fain call\ndown fire from heaven on Mill\u2019s newly enfranchised citizens, because\nthey blasphemed.\n\nSo that I conclude that scholastic Economics is a reliable, useful\nscientific enquiry, forming a basis for the very same practical aims\nwhich Ruskin has set us striving for, and written by men who loved their\nfellows and were conspicuous examples of uprightness and benevolence,\ntruth-keeping and friends of their kind.\n\nWe know how unscrupulous men of business used their conclusions,\nparticularly those conclusions which have not stood the test of\ncriticism, as a sort of textbook of oppression, as giving a scientific\nnecessity for starvation, and so excusing hardness of heart. That this\nwas so, must be Ruskin\u2019s excuse for declaring war upon the economists.\nBut it was a war wholly unnecessary; it clouded his prophecy with\nconfused issues, and it laid the Master himself among the wounded.\n\nIt will be necessary, in order properly to express the scope of\nPolitical Economy, to examine more fully its definition of the two\nfactors whose action and reaction upon one another form the subject\nmatter of the science. These two factors are Man and Wealth. What is Man\nas an economic being? What is the \u201ceconomic man\u201d?\n\nHe is assumed by Mill and others[60] as a being who considers his own\nside of a bargain only, who in all contracts will do the best he can for\nhimself, and who, in the use of his capital, and the direction of his\nlabour, is influenced by an intelligent and passionless eye to his own\ninterests. He has no regard for custom, or public opinion, or\ncompassion, or resentment, or personal partiality, or class prejudice.\n\nMill does not pretend that this person actually exists; but that the\ntendency of things is as though he did exist; and that it is most easy\nto assume his existence, and after that recognize the qualifications\nwhich other parts of human nature require us to put in, just as in\nmechanics we calculate what would happen if surfaces were smooth, and\nthen allow for friction afterwards.\n\nRuskin\u2019s criticisms are not always fair. He writes:\n\n\u201cPolitical Economy, being a science of wealth, must be a science\nrespecting human capacities and dispositions. But moral considerations\nhave nothing to do with political economy (says Mill). Therefore, moral\nconsiderations have nothing to do with human capacities and\ndispositions.\u201d[61]\n\nPerhaps the logical fallacy is not very obvious, but it is there. Human\ncapacities and dispositions touch moral considerations on one side, and\nthey touch political economy on the other. But these two need not\ntherefore be connected. Because a man has two relations, as a citizen\nand as a father, and because the state does not bring up his children,\nand the two relations are separate, we must not argue that the man has\nnothing to do with his family, because the state, with which he is also\nconnected, has nothing to do with it. All this wrong criticism was\nproduced by the obvious remark of Mill, that the ethical character of a\ntaste for diamonds is not the economist\u2019s affair.\n\nIt is only as a first approximation, then, that economics postulates the\nmonster known as the economic man; cold, calculating, well informed,\nshrewd, selfish with the unthinking uniformity of a machine. It is\nperhaps clearer to say that it can take account only of such motives as\nare sufficiently regular and predictable to be worth so much in money.\nSome unselfish actions are of that kind, such as a man\u2019s service to his\nchildren, or if he be a Highlander to his third cousin; and we can\npredict certain of his regular subscriptions. The Law of Supply and\nDemand applies to ministers and missionaries and hospital nurses, though\ntheir payment is all from charitable gifts. To some extent the Charity\nFund is a steady sum in any nation. It could be predicted that when the\nnational War Fund was absorbing large sums, other charities,\nparticularly London charities, would suffer; and such has been the case.\nThe same phenomenon occurred to a less degree when General Booth was\nraising his Darkest England Fund. Here is a charitable motive steady\nenough to be measurable.\n\nIt is not assumed here, as so constantly asserted by Ruskin, that men\nare and must be treated as rogues. The argument of Ruskin was that the\nqualifications to be introduced into problems due to the fact that man\nis not an economic man, are not like allowances for friction, or other\nmechanical matters, but are organic and revolutionary. The right reply\nprobably is that sometimes this is so, but far more generally not so.\n\nWhen remarkable instances of unselfishness occur outside the family\ncircle, where the economist expects and allows for them, they are told\nas instances of the unexpected. When the newspaper boys near the Mansion\nHouse are found giving an undisturbed beat to a lame boy who could not\ncompete with them in running to customers, and refuse to sell a paper\nthere, the admiring customer concludes his beautiful and kindly story by\nasking how many business men round the Mansion House would leave a rival\nin possession because of his weakness?\n\nThe definition of Wealth must now be considered. Mill defines it as\nconsisting of \u201cAll useful and agreeable things which possess\nexchangeable value.\u201d\n\nHe decides to include in the wealth of a country such personal\nqualities, skill, energy, perseverance, as tend to make the man who\npossesses them industrially more valuable. A skilled cotton spinner is a\ngreater national asset than a labourer; a skilled medical man who can\nrestore to labourers their industrial efficiency, is also national\nwealth, a utility embodied in a person; but a gifted preacher, whose\nmessage may even make a man a less keen producer of wealth than he was\nbefore, would not be an instance of national wealth, unless he made, as\nhe might, a drunkard or a loafer into a regular wage earner. So the\nactor, or the singer, or the orator, unless their work ultimately\nproduces material goods, is not to be counted wealth in economics. There\nis evidently the usual difficulty about drawing the line.\n\nWhat is more, the most precious parts of character are excluded from\nnational wealth in the economic sense. Wealth, that is, is taken to mean\nproperty, and not, more generally, the means of true well-being. Again,\nthe most necessary things are from their abundance not wealth. Air,\nsunshine, and water are not wealth where and when they are given\nprofusely by nature; though they are the most needful supports to life.\nBut air which has to be pumped in by a ventilating fan has cost\nsomething, and is wealth; sunshine which has passed through a coal\nmeasure and is brought to our firegrates on a winter\u2019s night is wealth,\nwater turned on at our taps is wealth for which we pay a water-rate. We\nmay come to import oxygen into our halls and theatres and lecture rooms,\nperhaps even into our cellar workrooms, and then it too will have a\nprice and an economic value.\n\nThere is clearly room for much difference of opinion in detail here. And\nyet it will be plain to all that the subject matter of a science must be\nlimited; we must know when our studies begin and end. It is not\ndemoralization which makes an economist deny holiness to be wealth, it\nis a classification of sciences. Holiness is not matter either, nor\nelectricity, nor gas; it does not come into Physics any more than into\nEconomics. It comes into Ethics and Theology and practical Politics, and\nit is the most important thing in the world. It may be true, as Ruskin\nurges, that wealth is not any good to a miser or a spendthrift or a\nrogue; that it is often I11th rather than Wealth, if it makes its user\nsoft and slack and selfish, or proud and cruel. But nevertheless, it is\nan object of desire, of human motive; and that is enough for the\neconomist.\n\nThe mistake of the early economists before John S. Mill was in not\nrecognizing, however, the reaction of man\u2019s possession of wealth upon\nhis conduct as a producer; how high wages might be remunerative, if they\nincreased efficiency, and big fortunes wasted if they increased\nidleness. We really have to treat two factors, each of which is, in the\nlanguage of Mathematics, an implicit function of the other--or, if that\ndoes not make it more clear--each of which acts upon and is acted upon\nby the other. The early economists lived in the age when steam engines\nand electric telegraphs were great and new achievements, when Chemistry\nwas being reborn in the atomic theory, and Joule was proving the great\ngeneralization of the conservation of energy. They treated their\nsubject--man in business--as if he were matter; whereas he has\nbiological characteristics, and is modifiable and can modify his\nenvironment. Our age, on the contrary, is concerned with the\nmodification of characteristics under environment. It is the age of\nDarwin. Biological evolution is seen to govern the growth of men and\nsocieties; and these, in writings of the dominant school of thinkers\nsince Herbert Spencer, are seen to follow biological laws of growth. The\nEconomic man is no exception.\n\nJohn Stuart Mill begins his chapter defining wealth by remarking that\neveryone has a notion sufficiently correct for common purposes, of what\nis meant by wealth. This is not his definition; he reaches that later:\nit is a reasonable introductory remark. But Ruskin assumes that this is\nhis definition, and assails him for his lack of scientific precision and\nhis looseness of thought, as though an astronomer were to begin by\nsaying that everyone has a notion, sufficient for common purposes, of\nwhat is meant by a star. The criticism is the more unreasonable, when we\nfind the critic himself doing the very same thing in his famous chapter\non \u201cThe Nature of Gothic\u201d in _The Stones of Venice_, in which, at the\nopening, the remark occurs: \u201cWe all have some notion, most of us a very\ndetermined one, of the meaning of the term Gothic.\u201d Ruskin goes on to\nplay with the etymology of value;[62] from _valor_ and _valere_, meaning\nthat which avails towards life and health; and says true wealth is what\ntends to life and the increase of its powers, not pearls nor topaz, but\nair and light and cleanliness. \u201cTo be wealthy is to have a large stock\nof useful articles,\u201d say the economists. What, he asks, is to\n\u201chave\"--has the embalmed body of Carlo Borromeo the golden crosier and\nthe cross of emeralds on its breast? Has a gold-filled belt the man whom\nit drowns, or has he it? Does not \u201chaving\u201d depend on the vital power to\nuse? What, nextly, is \u201cuseful\u201d? Persons called wealthy may be inherently\nincapable of wealth, mere reservoirs in the stream of national produce,\nif not impediments in its course, and so causing \u201cillth\u201d rather than\n\u201cwealth.\u201d Therefore the aim and end of Political Economy is to develop\nmoral character and capacity for valiantly using valuables, and the\ngreat difficulty is that manly character is apt to suffer from\npossessing material wealth and also apt to cast it away. Wealth of\ncharacter and wealth of goods tend to undermine one another.\n\n\u201cIn a community regulated by laws of supply and demand but protected\nfrom open violence, the persons who become rich are, generally speaking,\nindustrious, resolute, proud, covetous, prompt, methodical, sensible,\nunimaginative, insensitive and ignorant. The persons who remain poor are\nthe entirely foolish, the entirely wise, the idle, the reckless, the\nhumble, the thoughtful, the dull, the imaginative, the sensitive, the\nwell-informed, the improvident, the irregularly and impulsively wicked,\nthe clumsy knave, the open thief, and the entirely merciful, just and\ngodly person.\u201d[63]\n\nWith one further piece of Ruskin\u2019s teaching on the nature of wealth, I\nthink that the subject will be clear.\n\n\u201c\u2018Rich\u2019 is a relative word implying its opposite \u2018poor\u2019 as positively as\nthe word \u2018north\u2019 implies its opposite \u2018south.\u2019 Men nearly always speak\nand write as if riches were absolute, and it were possible by following\ncertain scientific precepts (Ruskin\u2019s capital error turns up here), for\neverybody to be rich. Whereas riches are a power like that of\nelectricity, acting only through inequalities or negations of itself.\nThe force of the guinea you have in your pocket depends wholly on the\ndefault of a guinea in your neighbour\u2019s pocket. If he did not want it,\nit would be of no use to you; the degree of power it possesses depends\naccurately upon the need or desire he has for it--and the art of making\nyourself rich, in the ordinary mercantile economist\u2019s sense, is\ntherefore equally and necessarily the art of keeping your neighbour\npoor.\u201d[64]\n\nThis is all true; if by rich we understand, as the use of the word in\ncommon practice warrants, relatively wealthy. The possession of money is\nthe possession of an order upon labour; and it is of no use if there is\nno available labour needing it. Ruskin\u2019s illustration is that of a large\nlanded proprietor who could get no servants to feed his cattle, mine\nhis gold, plough his corn lands, because no one was in want of his\nwages. He must lead a life of severe and common labour to produce even\nordinary comforts, and live in the midst of a waste desert. Therefore,\nwhat is meant by making oneself rich is to produce the maximum\ninequality between ourselves and our neighbours.[65]\n\nRuskin is grievously unfair in saying that that is the object of\nmercantile (political) economy; that it is \u201cthe science of getting\nrich.\u201d Such a statement libels both the science and its expounders; and\nit contains, for Ruskin, an extraordinary looseness in the use of words.\nThere cannot be a science of getting rich, that is an art or a craft.\nScience is organized knowledge, not practical faculty to do anything or\nget anything.[66]\n\nHow wide is the range of Ruskin\u2019s Economy, how practical its objects,\nhow little of a science it is, how entirely an art, the art of practical\ngovernment and production, will be further clear from this statement:\n\n\u201cPolitical economy (the economy of a State or of citizens), consists\nsimply in the production, preservation and distribution, at fittest time\nand place, of useful or pleasurable things. The farmer who cuts his hay\nat the right time, the shipwright who drives his bolts well home in\nsound wood, the builder who lays good bricks in well tempered mortar,\nthe housewife who takes care of her furniture in the parlour and guards\nagainst all waste in her kitchen, and the singer who rightly disciplines\nand never overstrains his voice, are all political economists in the\ntrue and final sense; adding continually to the riches and well-being of\nthe nation to which they belong.\u201d[67]\n\nAll this is quite true; but not in any sense a rival study to scholastic\nEconomics. The great misfortune is that the atmosphere of controversy\nand revolt runs through all this glorious gospel, so strong and true in\nits teachings, so perverse in its criticisms. The sum of the whole\ndoctrine is put in memorable words near the close of _Unto This Last_:\n\n\u201cThere is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of\njoy and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the\ngreatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest\nwho, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has\nalso the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his\npossessions, over the lives of others.\u201d[68]\n\nAll railing accusation is out of place. The business of the man whom\nRuskin calls the \u201cvulgar economist\u201d is to theorize, his is to edify. The\none is the theoretical engineer and surveyor for the house of the state;\nhis part in the \u1f41\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u1f31\u03b1 is that of a professional consultant.\nRuskin is the actual builder; round his guidance sound the clang of\nhammer and anvil, the actual stonemasons\u2019 and plumbers\u2019 tools; under his\neye grow in time the ivy and the flowers; but it is not the business of\nthe architect or surveyor or sanitary engineer to know all about these,\nstill less to keep a supply of them in his office.\n\nThe vastness of the task Ruskin had undertaken is now plain to us and\nwas pathetic for him. _Munera Pulveris_ contains the definitions of the\nnew science. No more of it has ever appeared in systematic scientific\nform. It is touching to find the inspired artist reformer stopped again\nand again in his great attempt to write a complete guide to public\naction, by some subject needing special research. \u201cI will treat of this\nwhen I come to\u201d coinage or education, or whatever it might be; ever\npromising, ever hoping, if so be by a _tour de force_ of genius he might\nstorm the city of Mansoul; whereas, it needed all the corps of economic\nresearchers, mining here and there into truth, making a breach here and\nthere into the wall of the unknown, working on Parliamentary Returns and\ntables of statistics, on records of public registrars and clearing house\nreports, by patient inquiry to achieve a little at a time. Ruskin wrote\nfor thirty years after the epoch-making date of 1860; and it is even now\nour task to systematize, if we can, his scattered contributions to\npractical Economy.\n\nWe may be glad, in John Ruskin\u2019s case, as in that of lesser prophets,\nthat the greatness of men is measured, not like chains, by their weakest\nlink, but rather like tides, by the highest they reach.\n\n\n\n\n_CHAPTER V_\n\n_RUSKIN\u2019S RECONSTRUCTION_\n\n\nThe teaching of Ruskin is generally piecemeal and unsystematic, but,\nhappily, there is one exception to this. In collecting his _Cornhill_\npapers for publication as _Unto This Last_ he wrote a Preface\nsummarizing his practical proposals at their \u201cworst.\u201d They are as\nfollows:\n\n1. Government Schools, in certain cases compulsory, wherein a child\nshall be taught\n\n  (_a_) The laws of health, and healthful exercises.\n\n  (_b_) Habits of gentleness and justice.\n\n  (_c_) The calling by which he is to live.\n\nCompulsory popular education was established ten years after this\ndemand, and it was long overdue. It was quite central in Mill\u2019s\nprogramme and in that of the school of Cobden and Bright. Only Herbert\nSpencer, in obstinate and inflexible individualism, disapproved of State\nSchools, and only the Anglican and Catholic Churches, in their own\ninterest, blocked the way. As to what is taught there, we are slowly\nlearning Ruskin\u2019s lessons about physical and moral training, and in the\ncontinuation schools and the technical schools are advancing to trade\ninstruction also; though we are far behind Munich and other German\ncities in this regard. More will be found on this on pp. 175-8 in Chap.\nVI. The recent orders of the Board of Education distinctly recognize\nsome difference of subjects for urban, rural and sea-side children.\n\n2. Government workshops for all articles, in fair competition with\nprivate ventures, and turning out nothing that was not genuine and of\ngood quality.\n\nBroadly speaking, this has not matured. Concerning it we may use\nRuskin\u2019s own words on the whole scheme: \u201cIt is only possible to answer\nfor the final truth of principles, not for the direct success of\nplans.\u201d[69] The right attitude, I would suggest, is to develop on\npractical lines of utility, and have work done by whatever agency does\nit most effectively. This is Ruskin\u2019s drift. It looks as though\nmunicipal milk and beer, municipal houses and coal, as well as heat and\nlight, municipal theatres and opera, and government transport and\nelectrical power, were already with us in idea, if not yet in\nrealization. The method is one for gradual application. Every step will,\nvery properly, be contested. The experience of the transaction of\nbusiness by Government during the Great War has just now strongly\nreinforced faith in private enterprise. We should keep an open mind. No\nhigh or final principle comes in, and dogma and prejudice are out of\nplace.\n\nHitherto Government has controlled and inspected, rather than itself\ncarried on the businesses of the country. Very few things are now left\nwholly to perfectly free competition. Later on Ruskin gave up Government\nworkshops in favour of businesses owned and managed by Trade Gilds, thus\nanticipating the sequence of public thought in later years. See below in\nthis Chapter.\n\n3. The unemployed to be taught, or employed at fixed wages, or medically\ntreated, or coerced to painful labour, according to the need of each\ncase.\n\nThis close pastoral care by public authority has never yet been\nrealized. It has been left to private philanthropy, guided at one time\nby the Elberfeld system as practised in the industrial towns on the\nRhine. As in manufactures the State has guided and inspected business,\nrather than conducted it, so its Labour Exchanges and its unemployment\nallowance and Insurance against sickness have done much to ease and\ndiminish the pain of unemployment. But, of course, this is only a stage\nin our progress. And the comprehensive lines of Ruskin\u2019s case for the\norphans of Great Business may well be earnestly remembered as a standard\nto work towards. We have at any rate left behind us mere reliance on the\nterrors of starvation and death as the only spur to industry in the\nGreat Society, as the present world of vast production and exchange has\nbeen called.[70]\n\n4. Comfort and home for the old and destitute, free from the slur of the\nPoor Law.\n\nThis has been provided by Old Age Pensions.\n\nThus Ruskin\u2019s schemes are being or are on the way to be realized, in\nquite remarkable detail. How much, uttered by leading writers in 1862,\nremains so fresh as these in 1920? Ruskin proclaimed some truths too\nearly for his peace of mind, but not for the service of men. The\ncharacteristic novelty of the proposals was that they were social, not\npolitical, though written in a period when political reforms occupied\nthe forefront of progressive thought. They were no doubt a necessary\nstage. We should not belittle them in disappointment. For without a\ndemocratic franchise no social reforms could have been achieved.\nRuskin\u2019s proposals are also extremely moderate, and essentially\nconservative. He declares his disbelief in \u201cthe common Socialist idea of\nthe division of property,\u201d[71] though, as land is to be in the hands of\nthose who can use it best, there was to be much compulsory purchase, a\npractice with which we are increasingly familiar, for housing, for\nallotments, and for small holdings. Nationalization of railways is\ndefinitely part of the programme, as we should expect.[72]\n\nThe most radical change concerned Wages. Ruskin declared that wages\nshould be fixed and steady under the responsibility of either the\nGovernment or the Craft Gilds, and should be independent of the number\nof people competing for work. As usual, he blamed the economists because\nthis was not so in nature, as though physiologists were to blame for\nindigestion. But, as mere economics, he understood the doctrine, and\naccepted its truth. He says that the cheapening of bread under the\nabsence of the Corn Laws would cause wages \u201cto fall permanently in\nprecisely the same proportion.\u201d[73] That is, he accepted the \u201csupply\nprice\u201d of wages--being the maintenance which the labourer under\ncompetition would accept.\n\nThe great issue for human welfare was then, and is now, whether there is\na supply price for wages above the merest starvation line. Labour, so\nfar, like commodities, has its price determined by the reciprocal action\nof the buyers and sellers of it. On the side of demand the buyers cannot\ngive more than the value of the product of the last labourer they\nengage. On the side of supply the labourer would change his trade, or\nnot have children, or not bring up his children to that trade, or he\nwould starve and die, unless he received what he considered a\nmaintenance. This is the supply price. And in any given trade, wages are\nfixed at the point where demand and supply are both satisfied. Enough\nlabourers are employed to make the least valuable worth the required\nmaintenance and no more. Now the economists, arguing from the phenomena\nthey saw believed, with Malthus, that there was no decent supply price\nfor labour in practice, that people would multiply to the very limit of\nsubsistence. Hence they deduced the terrible doctrine of the Iron Law of\nWages, that wages tend to a starvation level, because they thought first\nthat food,[74] and afterwards that capital,[75] was fixed at any time,\nor increased very slowly. Finally, J. S. Mill taught that fluid capital\nor the Wages Fund, that famous centre of controversy, being fixed, the\ntotal capital available for wages had to be divided between an ever\nmultiplying number of wage earners, some of whom were therefore always\nstarving.\n\nThis treatment of Labour as governed by the same law of supply and\ndemand as commodities, is the only way it can be treated as subject\nmatter of a science dealing with the production, distribution and\nexchange of wealth. But no one would stop there, shutting his eyes to\nthe fact that behind the labour stands the labourer, a human being, with\nall the spiritual and emotional gifts and needs of a man. Only military\nauthority treats men so. Even an economist, writing on labour as a\ncommodity, proceeds to explain how it differs from material\ncommodities--how slow is its reaction on the side of supply--how high\nwages up to a point produce a still higher quality of labour, and so\nforth. Business management, also, is a commodity subject to the same\nlaw, but I have never heard that the General Managers of Railway\nCompanies feel degraded for that reason to the mere level of slaves.\n\nUnluckily the economists, influenced by the poverty that followed the\nlast great war, which ended in 1815, concluded that the unskilled\nlabourer would multiply till his children starved. They saw in fact\nstarvation rampant in England.\n\nThis was why Political Economy was called by Carlyle the Dismal Science.\nBut the economists were no more responsible for it than theologians are\nfor the Judgment Day, perhaps much less so. Ruskin believed and hated\nthe doctrine, and so, in fact, was an orthodox Millite. And both he and\nMill had their remedies. Mill recommended education, emigration and\nsmall families. Ruskin appealed to the state or the gilds. In time Mill\ncame to the same point of view, and died a Socialist. He was able to do\nthis because he was persuaded by Thornton that the Wages Fund theory did\nnot hold; that in fact workers produced their own wages, with the help\nof some capital to oil the wheels, that is, to fill the gap in time\ncaused by distribution under the machinery of payment. This occurred in\n1869 after _Munera Pulveris_ had been published in _Fraser\u2019s Magazine_\nin 1862 and 1863, but before it came out in book form in 1872; and it is\ngrievous that these two men did not consciously co-operate. Ruskin\u2019s\nmethod of controversy, possibly drove Mill to silence.\n\nThe central blast of Ruskin\u2019s attack was against this--ultimately\nabandoned--doctrine of hopelessness. I do not mean that we may be quite\ncheerful about free competition in wages; for there are departments of\nlabour so helpless that they cannot obtain a decently living wage.[76]\nTo meet this, choice of employment is necessary, but cannot always be\nfound for physically weak or mentally ill-qualified people. The nation\nhas decided to carry out in specified trades the Ruskinian principle of\nthe fixed living wage, enforced by the Sweated Industries Acts. Under\nthese more and more trades may and will come. The economic storm of the\nwar has broken down the equable course of free competition, and has\ncaused regulation of wages and prices on all sides. We must not speak as\nif this were a normal development either of socialism or of competition.\nWe have suffered under it as part of the evil of war. The benefits of\ncompetition require time, and a fair field for all forces. There will\nstill be much done by provision of alternative employment on the land,\nby the investment of capital in developing local industries, and\nindirectly, by housing, education and temperance reform, to diminish the\nremnant of the helpless victims of sweating. Behind these the nation\nwill probably soon stand, committed to a national minimum in wages and\nin hours. Above these government minima stand the various Trades Union\nfixed rules. All are Ruskinian,[77] and Mill would rejoice in them too.\n\nA generation ago a national minimum wage had the support of Socialists\nof the school of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and of J. A. Hobson.[78] For\na long time it was not orthodox. I remember hearing a Professor of\nPolitical Economy speaking on this subject twice, at an interval of\nabout ten years. The first time he summed up against it, pointing out\nhow a minimum tended, in Australian experience, to become a maximum,\nwith certificates of invalidism or incapacity easily obtainable to\nauthorize a lower wage. The second time he was for a minimum wage, as\nwhat progressive thinkers hoped for. The steps have, of late, become\nrapid. Miners had their wages fixed by the Government after the Coal\nStrike of 1912, and again, after the Sankey Commission in 1919. The\nRailway and Transport Workers are also under Government protection. An\ninternational Labour Charter is part of the Peace of Versailles, which\nmust lead to an international minimum. It will be a delicate undertaking\nto work it out with any completeness. Within a nation the cost of living\nvaries from place to place; the value of money rises and falls as\ngeneral prices fall or rise. Internationally, between San Francisco, New\nYork, London, Constantinople, and Yokohama, the differences forbid\nuniformity of wage. Nobody can compel an employer to employ anybody\nwhose work results in no profit. Some people exist who are not worth a\nminimum wage, unless it is too low to be acceptable. There will have to\nbe provision for these. Pensions for Old Age and invalidity will assume\nlarger proportions. The race will have to worry out this complex tangle\nof man with his environment. What is clear is that we have reached the\nRuskinian standpoint about it.\n\n_Fors Clavigera_ is the most remarkable of the writings of Ruskin. He\nwho has read _Fors_, or a large part of it, knows Ruskin, and if he\nloves and reveres the author, has become a Ruskinian. But without\nreading _Fors_ no man or woman can become a Ruskinian. In it you become\nintimate with the man. He talks to you like a friend, button-holes you\nvery much as Socrates did, invites you to laugh with him, and join in\nlaughs at himself, tells you all his troubles, and the causes of the ups\nand downs of his spirits, tells you of his loneliness and his hopes and\nintentions, shows you his accounts every month, tells you where he has\nlost money, and to whom he has given it away, lets you see his letters\nand his replies to them, and holds you, by the personal power of him,\nwhile he pours vials of prophetic denunciation upon Society only to be\nequalled in the pages of the Hebrew Prophets; and then clinches it all\nwith \u201cMind you, I mean every word of it; no exaggeration here.\u201d\n\n_Fors_ is a book--a message:--it is often playful in style, the matter\nall scattered. The subject changes from page to page; nothing in it can\nbe referred to without that Queen of Indexes which accompanies it: but\nthe unity of its subject is in the unity of the author. You carry on an\nidea, cropping up under all sorts of irrelevancies and chance\nillustrations--and you carry on certain jokes too, or humorous\nallusions, as we all do in common life. This miscellany, I am persuaded,\nwill attract readers longer than the stately symmetry of _Modern\nPainters_, or the laborious detail of the _Stones of Venice_. Who but\nRuskin could have brought thus out of his treasury things new and old?\n\nWe shall look in vain for a completely worked out system of business and\nlegislation in Ruskin\u2019s writings. His Utopia is delightfully worked up\nhere and there in detail, but it has great gaps; it often seems to raise\nmore difficulties than it settles; and it is not always consistent with\nitself.\n\nIndeed, one could not expect completeness or real mastery of the\nproblem, either from the man or from the nature of the subject. From the\nman, because the prophet and the practical administrator are rarely\ncombined. Comte went into detail, and we do not much value the\nPositivist detail. The prophet is the man with the clear vision and hot\nheart. The practical administrator must sit on committees and keep\nsecretaries, and meet deputations; he must check accounts and hold\ndinner parties. What we desire is that practical men should give ear to\nthe prophet.\n\nSecondly, the subject is too vast and complicated for complete\ntreatment. Great as has been the volume and secure the conviction of the\nattacks on our present social system, how very little in the way of\nstable fabric exists to-day in confessed substitution for it. Socialist\nand Communist colonies have failed through their principles being in\nadvance of the practice of the men who had to pioneer their course. Of\nthe thirty or forty whose history has been collected, most have broken\nup, a few with profit to the members, but most with loss. Religious\ncommunities have, of course, shown the greatest tenacity. The Shakers\nare now diminishing and discouraged, though they own some of the richest\nland in America, and are commercially connected with a valuable property\nbesides, known as Mother Siegel\u2019s Syrup. The Doukhobors from Russia now\nsettled in the far West of Canada, have saved themselves by their\ncommunism under persecution. They again are bound by a mighty religious\nbond. But many are being absorbed by the society around, and their\nprimitive faith in their leader Peter Verigin as an incarnation of God,\nwill hardly survive Canadian education. We will not, then, expect to see\na complete reconstruction of society. Ruskin\u2019s is most fully worked out\nin _Time and Tide_: but _Fors_ is thickly scattered with it too.\n\nRoughly, then, and in the large, Regulation and Co-operation, rather\nthan Competition and Economic freedom, are to be the guiding principles.\nThat is, Ruskin is a Socialist. But he is no revolutionary nor divider\nup of property. He desired all things to be gradual, and was too wise to\nsuppose that anything sweeping could be done at once, or indeed very\nmuch of any kind for a long time. To his private correspondents in\n_Fors_ the advice was always given to stay where they were, and do as\nwell as they could what they had in hand. Ruskin, again, is a Socialist\nof the aristocratic variety. He believed in graded ranks, and in people\nstaying in the class they were born in. He did not say that everybody\nwas equal. He was also of the earnestly religious type of Socialist.\nWhen I add that he considered that he and Carlyle were the only two\nConservatives left in England, and that he was a Tory of the type of\nScott and Homer, I may perhaps have succeeded in leaving my readers\nfairly confused in mind: as every one who tries to classify Ruskin will\nbecome.\n\nAs to Wealth, Ruskin proposes that there shall be a legislative upper\nlimit to a man\u2019s property; and that those whose superfluity is skimmed\noff by law should have titles instead and be employed in public service.\nAs noted again in the chapter on Usury later, there are various ways of\nsecuring this: by steeply graduating the Income Tax and the Death Duties\nat the upper end, or by limiting the legal right of bequest, either by\nsaying that you must not bequeath more than a certain sum to one person,\nor that a person must not inherit more than a certain total sum from all\nsources. These startling innovations would no doubt put an effective\ncheck on accumulation, if the State succeeded in fighting the ingenuity\nof the lawyers.\n\nAll interest on money he entirely forbids. This I deal with in Chapter\nVII.\n\nAll land is to be bought by the State from the landlords, and the\naristocracy, living on the Government annuities thus created, are to\nbecome the legislators and leaders of the people. I don\u2019t know whether\nhe knew them very well. At any rate these annuities appear to me to be\nof the nature of interest.\n\nWar is to be managed by personal encounters between some of the military\naristocrats and the aristocrats of the enemy, to save butchery of\npeasants and much needless devastation. A kind of international Rugby\nfootball match without referees might meet the case--where the honour of\nEngland was really at stake. It is a simple suggestion; but soberly\nRuskin loathed war--particularly wars for conquest and all modern war by\nmachinery and for the benefit of capitalists. This is shown in Chapter\nVIII.\n\nOur factory system and the crowding into towns he detested; though he\ngives us no practical suggestions towards ending it except that most\nsteam power should be abandoned--not quite all. There is a curious\nprophecy too about electricity superseding steam and smoke. We are\nbeginning on hopeful lines here with Mond gas, central electrical power\nstations, and Garden Cities--if only we could and would compel our\nfactories to stop making smoke, the greatest curse of the landscape.\nThis is treated more fully in Chapter IX.\n\nOur Government must also take heed to all means of keeping our\npopulation in the country.\n\nPopulation Ruskin deals with fantastically by permitting marriages only\nto young men and young women after passing a suitable examination in\nbusiness or domestic qualifications. He would provide them, on marriage,\nwith an income for seven years from the State. If they had a private\nincome beyond this minimum it must accumulate; so that all young couples\nstart life on the same standard of expenditure. This is the most drastic\nof his regulations, and the most out of reach.[79]\n\nUnder land tenure from the State each person was to hold no more than he\ncould properly make use of--a system of permanent peasant proprietors,\nthat is, at a quit rent;--the land inalienable in title, and to descend\nby primogeniture.\n\nWe have also the somewhat obscure remark[80] that bread, water, and the\nroof over his head must be tax (i.e. rent) free to every man. Methods\nof administration are to be left to settle themselves. Also, \u201cevery man\nis to build his own house to his mind, and to have a mind to build it\nto.\u201d\n\nAs a system this leaves large gaps. What are to be the exact duties of\nthe aristocratic annuitant landowners, and who are they to be? There is\nan echo of Plato\u2019s \u201cGuardians\u201d in their position and duties: indeed they\nseem very like in their functions to those hierarchical beings. It may\nhave been from Plato too that Ruskin learnt to emphasize the degradation\nof continuous mechanical work, particularly that which is connected with\nthe mechanical use of fire.\n\nThe Church is, as we have seen in Chapter III, to be exactly on the\nQuaker model. No one is to be paid for preaching. The preachers are to\nearn their living like other men; and the distinction between clergy and\nlaity is to be absolutely done away. \u201cOf clergymen\u2019s usual work,\nadmonition, theological demonstration, and the like I shall want very\nlittle done indeed, and that little done for nothing! for I will allow\nno man to admonish anybody, until he has previously earned his own\ndinner by more productive work than admonition.\u201d The lesson on humility\nto religious persons in _Time and Tide_ is very amusing.[81]\n\nTurning to the business world, the deadliest war of Society would be\nagainst occult stealing, by making bad goods, by adulteration, and\npassing off sham articles. These practices would be guarded against by\nthe formation of trade guilds. Ruskin enumerates in Letter LXXXIX of\n_Fors_ twenty-one trades. The men of each trade are to form themselves\ninto a guild, buy land and buildings, regulate prices and qualities, and\nbecome, in fact, capitalist employers. Retail dealers are to be salaried\nofficers under the guild. Such is the proposal of _Fors_ of 1879, and\n_Time and Tide_ of 1867. In _Unto This Last_ of 1860 the Government is\nto have the workshops, not private guilds. Ruskin began to think his\nlater plan of private guilds more possible as years went on. Also, and\nalways, property is to be acquired by the guilds by honest payment and\nvoluntary bargains. It is very striking how prophetic these schemes are\nof the proposals now known as Guild Socialism, treated in the next\nchapter, at present the most popular form of socialistic reconstruction.\nThey are, indeed, a sketch of the very thing.\n\nCompetition, outside the guilds or Government shops, is always\nallowed--\u201cas a safety valve for outlet of irrepressible vice.\u201d He\nbelieved in the cutaneous and curable eruption of such, rather than in\nforcing it into the system of the body politic--a wise and cautious\nidea, in no way that of a blind optimist. Another reason for this\npermission of outside competition was to provide scope for erratic\ningenuity and original genius, and to conserve individual initiative;\nalso to protect the rights of foreigners trading here. There is also\nmuch other sensible elasticity of arrangement hinted at. Honesty,\ntruthfulness, freedom from oppression, some plan by which all the good\nnational elements could become availing instead of being neglected and\nchoked off, these are the objects of his trade guilds. The difficulty of\nforeign competition at low prices he does not touch, except to\nanticipate for a far future a similar international guild system.\n\nOne can easily see that increased facilities for combination are putting\nit into the power of combines and trusts to fix qualities and prices in\na way the men of 1867 would never have expected. Is it beyond hope that\nwhat combinations of capital and management can do, labour combinations\nmay do, for more public ends? Then indeed out of the eater will have\ncome forth meat. \u201cThe lion and the bear shall feed,\u201d and the capitalist\nshall dine like the labourer. \u201cThey shall not hurt nor destroy\u201d in all\nmy holy workshops and markets.\n\nOne of the most startling, but at the same time, most thought-compelling\nproposals for the ideal State are Mr. Ruskin\u2019s Bishops. The \u03ad\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2 of\nthe New Testament was an Overseer, a man who looked after the members of\nthe Early Church, the agent of their relief, and the supervisor of their\nconduct. This order of men Ruskin proposes to declericalize and to\nmunicipalize. The preaching, we shall remember, is to be separated from\npastoral care, and to be done gratuitously by unofficial ministers. This\nleaves no link between the State and the family; even the action of the\nFatherland as a father, now afforded by the State clergy, being done\naway with. Therefore, over every fifty or a hundred families there is to\nbe elected, for life, a Bishop, who is to be a friendly counsellor, and\nto keep a record of all notable events--a much extended public\nregistrar. All exceptional treatment which special circumstances may\nrender desirable, any mitigation of ordinary law, is arranged through\nhim. Where law is to be so pervasive, some cushion for its impact would\ncertainly be necessary. He bears to the Government the relation which\nthe Charity Organisation Society bears to the Poor Law Guardians, or an\nInebriate Home to the Jail, or (in theory) Equity to Common Law. Thus\nthe terrible loneliness and neglect of the poor, and haunts of\nundiscovered vice, would no longer be possible. The whole episcopal\naction was to be elastic, the methods patient, gentle, not compulsory,\nand not intrusive. The Bishops were to be paid officers, and they had to\nreport to a higher officer called a Duke (_Time and Tide_, XIII).\n\nWe now approach the question of national leadership. So great was\nRuskin\u2019s distrust of the People, his hatred of Liberty and Equality,\nthat he fell back upon our Aristocracy, commonplace as he knew it to be,\nfor the power of governance. He is not so far out of our current\nnational habit. We know well that any good, hardworking peer, baronet or\nlanded magnate of good family, has at once a favourable hearing, and\npossesses by birth an open door to the confidence of the people; and he\nhas only to show that he deserves it, to maintain it with ease. We\ndemocrats love a lord. So the Home Office and police work, also the\nJudgeships and the officering of the citizen army are to be the work of\nthe present landed gentry; the careful husbanding of the nation\u2019s\nresources in a glorified Board of Trade is to be the work of the present\nkings of business. The Education Department and the now nonexistent\nArtistic Department, the Board of Works, together with the few necessary\nDoctors, and the Musicians, are the third department of upper-class\nwork, to be undertaken by the professional classes. It will be\nremembered that there are to be no hired soldiers or clergy and very few\nlawyers.\n\nFor the realization of this Utopia, no violence is to be used. As a\nprophet with an ethical gospel he entirely distrusted methods of\nphysical force, as leaving you in reality just the men you were before,\nonly damaged by the conflict in mind and person and estate. Nor did he,\nas a Conservative and a believer in continuity, look with favour or hope\non a general confiscation bill, abolishing rent and interest. The whole\nthing had to be done by converting the upper classes, those classes\nwhose glory is in living in comfort and pride served by the labour of\nothers, and whose alienation from the multitude is graven deep into\ntheir characters by every one of their cherished habits. We have seen\nthat the landlord would become an annuitant, the parson transformed, the\nsolicitor and the barrister nearly wiped out. Many merchants, most\nbankers and stockbrokers and all shareholders in banks, if and when\ninterest is abolished, would find themselves without the profits on\nwhich, it is to be feared, much of their happiness depends. Some of\nthese persons would become public officers, living on salaries and\nearning them. Manufacturers would become profit sharers, and be invited\nto join a Guild. Doubtless the liquor interest would find that it had a\nstern master, though but little detailed allusion to it is made, and\nprohibition is not intended.\n\nIf you have ever tried to convince a man by some highly abstruse, or at\nany rate, long and intricate process of thought, of truths or proposals\nwhich upset his whole career, blighted his interests, and wrote him down\na useless and pernicious person--if, for instance, you have explained\nthe wickedness and folly of Protection to a friend from Pennsylvania, or\nthe theoretical righteousness of Home Rule to a friend from Belfast, or\nthe innate errors of Vivisection to a physiologist, or discoursed on\nHom\u0153opathy to your own medical man, you will be able to foresee the\nblank look of polite indifference with which Ruskin\u2019s schemes would be\nlikely to be received by the Marquis of B. or by the distinguished\ndirectors of your bank. Why am I not to make cotton look like silk? will\nbe asked by certain very excellent Lancashire firms. Is shoddy not to\ncontinue its useful, if humble career? is the cry of certain parts of\nthe West Riding; and some of the metallic business of Birmingham would\nbe a cause of much searching of heart. And there is not a retired old\nlady living in her bower of roses from the Lake District to Penzance\nwhose peace of mind and perhaps nourishment of body would not, if\ninterest were truly abolished, cease. I always notice that reformers who\nwould abolish interest do not explain what they would do with the large\nclass of ladies of all ages, and the smaller class of elderly men who,\nafter all, do constitute the greater part of the technically idle class,\nand who are totally unable to earn a living; since neither the arts of\ndress nor of graceful conversation have a market value.\n\nIt must be plain to us that any wholesale conversion and sudden\nawakening of the social conscience in Ruskin\u2019s direction is not to be\nexpected. Neither the intellectual conviction, nor the moral power to\ncarry it out if formed, will be produced except in a few instances, here\nand there. The astonishment and delight with which we hear of the doings\nof exceptional employers show how rare they are. Every year, of recent\nyears, has seemed darker and darker to some of us, in noting the\ntreatment of public affairs by the wealthy, and the extent to which\n\u201cThings are in the saddle, and ride mankind.\u201d\n\nNor is it possible to an employer, even if intellectually convinced and\nmorally sound, to raise his wages much above the rate paid by his\ncompetitors, to avoid drawing from the business wherewithal to pay\ninterest on capital, nor, generally, to improve quality, with or without\nimproving price.\n\nWe must fall back on legislation, on democratic conviction expressed by\nthe organ of the national will, to bring about any portion of this\nscheme. We shall have to move all together, if we move at all. Take a\ncomparative trifle, trifling compared to these large proposals--the\nweekly half-holiday. This can only be taken by all or none of a given\ntrade in a given town; or take the Bank Holidays, popular benefits only\nto be won on the floor of the House of Commons, and which cost so much\neffort that a certain worthy banker has been canonized for his labours\nin obtaining St. Lubbock\u2019s Day. Yet I am of Ruskin\u2019s mind thus far--that\nany growth of an enlightened moral sentiment will most easily permeate\nthe voting masses from individuals of the educated classes.\n\nRuskin cherished no delusions about it. He says: \u201cYou need not think\nthat even if you obtained a majority of representatives in the existing\nParliament, you could immediately compel any system of business, broadly\ncontrary to that now established by custom. If you could pass laws\nto-morrow, wholly favourable to yourselves, as you might think, because\nunfavourable to your masters, and to the upper classes of society, the\nonly result would be that the riches of the country would at once leave\nit, and you would perish in riot and famine. Be assured that no great\nchange for the better can ever be easily accomplished, or quickly; nor\nby impulsive ill-regulated effort, nor by bad men; nor even by good men,\nwithout much suffering.\u201d[82]\n\nThe scheme as a whole has never been systematized, nor worked out in\ndetailed proposals. Still less has it been hinged on to our present\nsocial structure. It is a prophetic forecast, an inspiration of genius;\nit is a bow of glorious hue set in the clouds. When Ruskin wrote his\neconomics the view was that by each man doing the best for himself the\ngeneral good was automatically best advanced--an unseen hand behind\nhuman activities arranged the world\u2019s welfare with nothing but\nindividual selfishness to do it with.\n\nWe no longer accept this as a complete account of the matter. We\nrecognize that that would be a wild-wood kind of a cosmic order; and\nthat under it human affairs would be left to the same kind of governance\nas that of the forest and the jungle. The wolf pack and the wild bramble\nare all very well in their scale and their place; but for humanity this\nunrestrained individual luxuriance, with its terrible cost and waste, is\nnow felt by us to be only a first approximation to society. It is the\npoint whence we begin, not the goal we aim for. It is safe and stable as\na foundation; it cannot be upset or overthrown, for it is actually\nitself the ground; and there is nothing to overthrow. Guilds,\nMonopolies, Trusts, also Governments and Charities are built upon it to\nregulate it; and they grow, and in time may decay and die, leaving the\njungle of free competition to overrun once more the painful clearings.\nBut out of the wilds men have in fact made their lawns and gardens,\ntheir orchards and their fields of wheat; they have built them palaces\nand cities which are permanent and stable enough, though not\neverlasting. The higher law of civilization is successfully holding at\nbay the wild tendencies. The millions of stray seeds, the storms of wind\nand crackings of frost, if let alone, would in time reduce a watering\nplace like Scarborough to a green cliff side; still Scarborough exists\nand will exist, and justify its existence. Similarly there are\nlimitations, orderly arrangements, which may be put upon the wild nature\nof economic freedom; and we may make a better world thereby. We all know\nhow much is accepted already in the way of civilized restraint. When\nParliament is free to attend to home affairs almost every Act is a\nregulation or limitation of individual freedom, or it is the taking up\nby Government of what had been previously left to the individual. The\nlong list of municipal and imperial activities must be too familiar to\nneed repetition here. We are indeed rushing rapidly in that direction.\nCan we go no further? Are we necessarily at the end just here?\n\nI will try to outline in the following chapter a few ways in which we\nmay. That is, we will test Ruskin by the changes of the last half\ncentury and those which are looming near; and see how much of his\nteaching abides our question.\n\n\n\n\n_CHAPTER VI_\n\n_RUSKIN\u2019S ECONOMICS TO-DAY_\n\n\nIt is well known that none of the proposals in the Preface to _Unto This\nLast_, summarized above, nor all of them together, satisfy the ideas of\nthe most vigorous reformers of the moment. Nothing less than the\nabolition of all production and distribution for individual profit is\nbelieved by many earnest and experienced men to go to the root of our\nsocial diseases. On the other hand, State Socialism has fallen into\ndiscredit. The experience of Government officials in war time has taken\nall the gas out of that particular experimental balloon.\n\nGuild Socialism is now the favourite form. Under this the government of\nthe country is to be twofold, from top to bottom. Guilds of producers\nare to own and run businesses, having eliminated the capitalist as such,\nand are to be organized into local, county, and national guilds of the\nworkers in that business. Then all the national guilds unite in a\nParliament of producers, who govern wages, and, I presume, the import\nand export trade. Over against this stand our present geographical\nconstituencies and our present Parliament, which is the nation organized\nas consumers. The State, represented by the present geographically\nelected Parliament, is to remain supreme, is to be the ultimate owner of\nthe property used by the Guilds, with the right to tax it, by a quit\nrent. The Guilds are to be the taxable units.[83]\n\nRent, interest and profits are to be abolished. No provision for\ncompensation is part of the proposal; but no doubt that would depend\nupon circumstances, and upon what could be arranged. It would also give\nrise to much difference of opinion among the advocates of the new order.\nAnd much would depend on whether it came gradually and peacefully, by\nconsent--or after a revolutionary general strike--or, again, after civil\nwar. One hears of an intention to respect life interests, but no more.\nClearly this issue will subject our people to a political test which\nmay be beyond their strength, and may, if we are not guided by justice\nand mercy, lead to a generation of violence and the ruin of many hopes.\n\nThe ideals behind the movement are noble--to give the workman a\nproprietary interest in his work, to break down the pernicious\ndistribution of wealth which economic freedom has brought about, to\nbring up a healthy and well-bred race, not a well-bred class only, to\nput public service in place of profit as the motive for labour; to\nbanish the wretched insecurity of unemployment, and take away the bored\nlife of the idle rich; to use the surplus wealth of industry for the\neducation of the whole people and for a full life for all. Nothing less\nthan this is the guerdon of success.\n\nIf the Guild is to guarantee a wage to all its workers, well and ill,\nunder good trade and bad, in defiance of changes in demand due to\nfashion or invention, or to changes in weather or to foreign imports,\nthere will certainly have to be great powers in the Guild for the\ntransfer of labour from where it is not wanted to where it is. Also,\nseeing that only a certain number of workers are wanted in the\npleasanter occupations, some authority in the guilds will have to\nassign their duty to all labourers, instead of leaving the choice to\ncompetition with the sharp tooth of hunger behind it.\n\nThe coercion of the idle workman will be quite a large task; for\nslackness cannot be summarily dealt with as now by dismissal. It is such\nrocks of human frailty that will be the danger to the navigation of any\nordered system. Are all childless women to be made to work for guild\nwages? Are married and unmarried men to be paid alike? Is any saving to\nbe permitted? What machinery will determine prices, when demand and\nsupply are denied their free play? It is not the place of this book to\nanswer these questions or to pronounce a final opinion. It is enough to\nsee that opinion is strongly tending in this direction, and that it is\nin the sequence of _Fors Clavigera_.\n\nThat this is, however, the direction of advance, one is led to believe,\nfrom the existence of a halfway house. There is in every movement always\nthe moderate mass and the progressive vanguard, and they sometimes turn\ntheir guns heartily upon one another. The moderate proposal, the rival\nto Guild Socialism, is that of the Whitley Councils for bringing in the\npresent capitalist employers and their workmen as collaborators in the\nconduct of businesses, and as joint constituents of a trade Parliament.\n\nThe Builders\u2019 Parliament,[84] or \u201cIndustrial Council for the Building\nIndustry,\u201d was the forerunner of the Whitley Councils, but is on more\nthoroughgoing guild lines. Mr. Malcolm Sparkes, a young director of a\ncarpentry and cabinet-making business in Willesden, was mixed up as an\nemployer in a disastrous building strike in 1914. Hopeless of any\nsolution by hostile and suspicious bodies of organized masters and\norganized men, never meeting except as opponents, and working by warfare\nand the balance of power, he conceived the idea of combined councils,\nrepresenting both sides, meeting periodically to consider the well-being\nof the industry. Such bodies were not to deal with disputes, but could\noften avoid them and remove their causes. Above all they would provide a\nfriendly atmosphere. He persuaded the men\u2019s organizations first, and\ninduced them to approach the masters, who responded willingly; and after\ndue debates, and two years\u2019 permeation of opinion in all the bodies\nconcerned, the Builders\u2019 Parliament was constituted. At its sixth\nquarterly meeting in August, 1919, it passed by an overwhelming majority\na report, called the Foster Report, under which masters would become\npaid officials and capitalists would receive a fixed interest. Mr.\nSparkes and the builders, therefore, are using their united organization\nto prepare the way for the Guild arrangement, and are favourable to it.\nThey have offered the labour to build some thousands of houses to the\nCorporation of Manchester, if the latter will supply the capital and\ntake the business risk. But the Whitley Council movement has had a wider\ndevelopment, if a less advanced one.\n\nMr. J. H. Whitley, Chairman of Committees in the House of Commons, and\nChairman of a Government Sub-Committee on the relations of employers and\nemployed, read an article by Mr. Sparkes on his scheme in the _Venturer_\nfor December, 1916, and asked him to prepare a memorandum for him in\ndetail, and to record his progress to date. This memorandum became the\nbasis of the Whitley Report. The Government adopted it and organized\nunder it the Whitley Councils. The day after Mr. Sparkes\u2019s memorandum\nreached the printers the author was sent to prison as a conscientious\nobjector to military service. He was a Quaker; he had refused an\nexemption as a works manager in a controlled business; he had resigned\nhis directorship rather than do war work; and now in defiance of an Act\nof Parliament which granted exemption, the blind hand of the Tribunals\nand the War Office could do nothing better with this young patriot than\nto keep him in gaol for two years. He was liberated a little before the\nothers because the King happened to ask for the author of the Whitley\nReport. This kind of thing gives pause to one\u2019s hopes of better times\ncoming out of the action of the present militarist states. To all these\nproposals Ruskin ought to be recognized as the idealist forerunner. His\nguilds of craftsmen, though differently founded, are very much like Mr.\nCole\u2019s. The same social message which Oxford sent through Ruskin from\nChrist Church and Corpus, she now sends through a Fellow of Magdalen. As\nthe consummation of the idealist approaches, it becomes necessary to\nwork the ideas out, and people will listen to the details, indeed will\nfiercely question them, and demand something practical. But in the\nhistory of economic thought, should these ideas become ultimately\nfruitful, a greater place should be found for the author of _Fors_ than\nhas yet been awarded to him by our writers on Economics. The chief\ndifferences between the modern scheme and that of forty years ago is\nthat Ruskin would confiscate nothing, and would not demand, would even\nobject to, a labour monopoly in the hands of the Guilds, which Mr. Cole\ndeclares to be a necessity, without which a Guild is not a Guild. It\nwill be for our successors fifty years hence to say on which side wisdom\nlay.\n\nOn one point the age has gone beyond Ruskin. For good or evil we know we\nhave nothing to trust to but Democracy. From the ugliness and\ngullibility of the democracy the secluded artist shrank, living in\nbeauty and luxury at Oxford or Venice or by the Lake of Coniston. There\nwas excuse, and there is still much excuse, for men of little faith. The\ndemocracy can be played upon and excited to war: its ruling puppets dare\nnot take the drink from it even in war time. It has \u201cdemanded,\u201d as\neconomists say, our conscienceless and sensational newspapers, and it\nloves to read them. It needs much education, and particularly it needs\nwhat Ruskin hoped for from Education--character and conduct; first,\ngrace and health and beauty of life; and, as chief intellectual prize,\na relentless love of truth. Would that everybody would refuse to buy\nagain a paper that had once deceived them, or to vote for a politician\nonce proved untrustworthy.\n\nReformers, forgetting the dead weight they have to shift, turn their\nguns on one another. Socialists seem to be most scornful of Liberalism,\nand particularly of those employers who are generous and\npublic-spirited.\n\nIt must be emphasized that Ruskin was an aristocrat in temperament. In\nfact he repudiated the idea of an equality which did not, he declared,\nexist. His sections in _Munera Pulveris_ against equal voting and on\n\u201cnatural slavery\"--I suppose learnt from Aristotle\u2019s _Politics_--are\nclear on this.[85] He did not support negro slavery, but his interests\nwere chiefly taken up with opposing economic slavery at home, or\nreserving it for the fit people. The whole passage must be read to be\nunderstood.\n\nIt is now in 1920 nearly fifty years since _Fors Clavigera_ began to\ncome out, and the outlines of St. George\u2019s Guild were drawn. Those who\nin that decade found a new inspiration and delight in discipleship to\nhim, are now growing elderly; the glory of the early time when Ruskin\u2019s\ngenius was irradiating the pages of _Fors_ with the hope of a kingdom of\nGod to be raised within the kingdom of this world, was in the days of\nyouth, in the spring of aspiration and a not easily bounded hope. We\nnourished our hearts on godlike food; and we owe our Master an\ninextinguishable debt. It is often doubtless a thought full of sadness\nthat the tender grace of a day that is dead will never come back to us,\nin the sober light of long experience in the realm of the commonplace.\nOur task now is, to gather up in our maturity that which abides; for our\ndays are passing, and though the growth of the kingdom has not been all\nthat we might have hoped, its spirit must still be handed on, and fixed,\nso far as we can fix it, in the permanent habits of man.\n\nWe Ruskinians are often called sentimental. But it is not sentimental to\nkeep sentiment in its proper place and to have a sane and well directed\nemotion at our beck when something has to be done. \u201cSentiment\u201d means\nill-directed emotion which slops over. Loyalty is not inconsistent with\ncriticism. It is essential that that which is merely temporary or\nfanciful in the instructions which run through the pages of _Fors_\nshould not be insisted upon for ever. Those pages contain many quaint\ndirections untested by experience.\n\nThe Guild of St. George was intended to be a company of people who would\nbind themselves to live in a healthy way, doing harm to no man and no\nlandscape, cultivating land by hand or water power, and contributing to\nthe public and educational work of the Guild, at first, one-tenth of\ntheir income; but as this was too much for most people, the amount was\nleft elastic.[86]\n\nThe Creed of St. George is a noble document. It had to be signed by\nevery member of the Guild.[87]\n\n1. I trust in the Living God, Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and\nearth, and of all things and creatures, visible and invisible.\n\nI trust in the kindness of His Law and the goodness of His work.\n\n2. I trust in the nobleness of human nature, in the majesty of its\nfaculties, the fulness of its mercy, and the joy of its love.\n\nI will strive to love my neighbour as myself, and even when I cannot,\nwill act as if I did.\n\n3. I will labour, with such strength and opportunity as God gives me,\nfor my own daily bread: and all that my hand finds to do, I will do with\nmy might.\n\n4. I will not deceive, nor cause to be deceived, any human being for my\ngain or pleasure; nor hurt, nor cause to be hurt, any human being for my\ngain or pleasure: nor rob, nor cause to be robbed, any human being for\nmy gain or pleasure.\n\n5. I will not kill or hurt any living creature needlessly, nor destroy\nany beautiful thing, but will strive to save and comfort all gentle\nlife, and guard and perfect all natural beauty upon the earth.\n\n6. I will strive to raise my own body and soul daily into higher powers\nof duty and happiness; not in rivalship or contention with others, but\nfor the help, delight and honour of others, and for the joy and peace of\nmy own life.\n\n7. (On loyalty to the laws.)\n\n8. (On loyalty to the Guild.)\n\nAs an organization this little realm within the realm came to very\nlittle. It needed advertisement, propagandism, somebody to preach it,\nand to organize it. The prophet at Brantwood wrote about it to the then\nvery limited audience of _Fors_, and there propaganda ended. There were\nabout forty-two Companions of St. George altogether at one time; and the\nMaster was autocratic and irregular through ill health. Some land at\nAbbeydale, Sheffield, was taken, and a settlement of Socialists\nattempted without success. George Baker presented a woodland tract of\nfifteen acres at Bewdley; Mrs. Talbot some cliff-like land and cottages\nat Barmouth; and a small holding on the Yorkshire coast at Claughton,\nnear Whitby, was acquired. The land cultivation came to very little.\n\nThe land at Abbeydale is now a successful market garden with a\nresidence, let to a tenant in the usual way. A house has been built\nwithin recent years on the land at Bewdley, and part, if not all, of it\nis at last in cultivation by a Liverpool couple tired of town life. Mrs.\nTalbot\u2019s representative manages the cottages at Barmouth on the lines of\nan ordinary good landlord. We have sold the bit of Yorkshire moorland,\nlong troublesome. After delays and legal difficulties, George Baker, a\nQuaker alderman of Birmingham, who had been co-trustee of the\nproperties, and had borne much of the business burden of it from the\nbeginning, was made Master, and a few new members were enrolled by\ninvitation. The Guild has held of late years a number of annual\nmeetings, at Oxford, Coniston, Sheffield, Bewdley, London, Manchester,\nLiverpool and Birmingham, which were delightful social occasions, and\nwhich transacted the business of the properties, and made grants from\nthe income, which, apart from subscriptions, is between one and two\nhundred pounds a year, mostly representing Ruskin\u2019s own gifts. The\ngrants go as a rule to literary, agricultural or other purposes on the\nMaster\u2019s lines. On the death of Mr. Baker the Mastership was accepted by\nMr. George Thomson, of Huddersfield, the forerunner, under Ruskin\u2019s\nguidance, of the profit-sharing movement in this country. He resigned,\nthrough failing health, in 1920, and Mr. H. E. Luxmoor, of Eton, was\nappointed. Mr. William Wardle, of 4 Olive Lane, Wavertree, Liverpool, is\nthe Hon. Sec. Two members represent the Guild on the Committee of the\nSheffield Corporation which has charge of the Ruskin Museum in\nMeersbrook Park. This Museum is the property of the Guild on permanent\nloan to the Corporation of Sheffield who maintain it. It is indeed among\nthe Guild properties the one really valuable concrete survival of the\nlabour and enthusiasm of the founder. It is one of the very lovely\nthings of the whole world, with its concentrated charm and delicate\nfineness.\n\nThese details about the present day of small things, about this remnant\nof an ancient hope, are not themselves important, but may not be without\ninterest to some of the many thousand readers of _Fors Clavigera_. Those\nletters are full more of promise and of postponement than of achievement\nor permanently established method; and the rather wilful and fantastic\nadventures of a mind that was seldom at rest, often overflow into the\nmonthly budget without as much repression as a sober systematizer would\nhave exercised, but with endless delight.\n\nIn the early hopeful days, when there floated before Ruskin\u2019s\nimagination the conception of an influential and numerous body of\nCompanions of the Guild, comprising the moral and intellectual\naristocracy of the country, he laid his plans on large lines. In the\nMaster\u2019s Report for 1881 he wrote that he expected \u201cthe Guild to extend\nits operations over the Continent of Europe and number its members\nultimately by myriads\u201d; which in the mouth of a Greek scholar means\naccurately by tens of thousands. He instructed the Companions to read no\nnewspapers until he should be able to found a newspaper fit for them to\nread, an instruction which his most devout follower has never obeyed.\nMoreover there was to be an authorized list of books which alone might\nbe read, of which _Bibliotheca Pastorum_ was the first part. This is\nperhaps the most erratic of all the proposals which crossed his mind.\n\nHe also criticized the coinage of the country, and insisted that there\nshould be under the rule of St. George sovereigns called ducats, of pure\ngold, a metal which is of itself quite unsuited for use as coinage, and\nneeds to be hardened by alloy before it is fit for the purposes of the\nmint. Then the shilling was to be called a florin and was to be divided\ninto ten pence. This copying of the coins of Florence in the middle\nages, which as Ruskin once said to me, gave her merchants credit in the\ntime of Edward I, cannot be considered seriously; indeed, these fanciful\ncommands can only be matter for regret. There can be but one coinage in\na country, even if the Guild of St. George had become a large\ninstitution. So late as 1884 Mr. Ruskin told a party of us at Brantwood\nthat the St. George\u2019s Company was going to issue coins of pure gold.\n\nRents, payable of course to the State, were to be one-tenth of the\nproduce. Now rents cannot with any justice be settled that way. The\nfarmer who farms poor land should be as well off and get as good a\nreturn for his labour as he who farms rich land. Under ordinary\ncompetition things turn out that way. All farmers in theory, and\napproximately in practice, receive the same return for labour and\ncapital applied to land, and the margin goes to the landlord as rent.\n\nRuskin\u2019s system is known as the metayer system, only that half, not\none-tenth of, the profits usually go to the landlord. It is an\nold-fashioned, primitive, and uneconomic system, and is used in Italy,\nPortugal, on the Danube, in Russia, and over about one-seventh of\nFrance. At the time of the French Revolution, Arthur Young found\nseven-eighths of France managed in this way. It is suited for small\nholdings; but it discourages intensive culture, for it would be no use\nfor a metayer tenant to spend \u00a31 in increasing his product by \u00a32, if\nhalf of the \u00a32 went to the landlord. Ruskin liked it because it made a\nfriendly co-operation between landlord and tenant. There was never any\nclash of interests, and the tenant was never under real hardship. It is\nmorally a much more attractive plan. It bars any keen competition\nbetween tenants and it leads to permanency of tenure.\n\nThroughout Ruskin\u2019s proposals for reform we shall nearly always find in\neach something fanciful and dainty, but impracticable--a sort of pretty\ndecoration tacked on in gaiety of heart, in the spirit of Gothic\nornamentation. But if we knock off his little pinnacles, and deny\nourselves the glow of his stained glass windows, we shall generally find\na commodious and serviceable erection of constructive reform left. In\nfact, he turns out to have been on the main stream of progress, though\npleading all the time that he was harking back to a happier past. His\nagricultural and business proposals contained fruitful elements,\nappearing ahead of their time; events from many sides have proved how\nilluminating his suggestions were.\n\nRuskin, as we have noted, would limit all incomes at the top by slicing\noff the superfluity and giving a title instead. In occult ways,\nunfortunately, peerages and baronetcies and knighthoods do come about by\nthe sacrifice of cash; and in more open and creditable form the\ngraduated income tax, the super-tax, and the steeply rising death\nduties are partial measures in the same direction.\n\nThere is perhaps nothing more fanciful in Ruskin\u2019s reconstruction of\nSociety than his marriage regulations, laid down in _Time and Tide_, and\nmentioned in the last chapter. We have not yet put Cupid into harness to\nthis extent, but the popular interest and concern about the propagation\nof the unfit and the feeble-minded, and in general the attention which\nis being paid to heredity and the interest in eugenics, are all in the\ndirection laid down by Ruskin in a thorough-going shape, fearless as the\nschemes of childhood. By feeding school children and by doctoring them\nthe State supplements the weakness of the homes. In many unfamiliar\nforms the work of St. George goes on.\n\nBut in his day thought and practice in Social Reform were comparatively\nuninstructed by experience. One is reminded of his own phrase about\nCimabue and Giotto. They uttered \u201cthe burning messages of prophecy by\nthe stammering lips of infants.\u201d He goes straight for his object without\nfear or hesitation, as an inexperienced child will toddle across a\ncrowded street, unfearing because unknowing about the motor cars.\nRuskin, for instance, would set the unemployed to reclaim waste lands.\nTo which of us has not that thought come? Here are the men wanting work;\nhere is the land wanting workers. Let us put them together. But\nexperience has shown that the dour nature of the unoccupied land, and\nthe frequently dour nature of the unoccupied men, render such schemes\ngenerally hopeless, and at times even scandalous, failures. Land and men\nare unoccupied because they are hard to occupy, and by putting together\nwaste land and waste men you only double the difficulty of the task.\nWhen good workers might make something of bad land, or bad workers of\ngood land, bad workers on bad land are hopeless. Some years ago in the\nHouse of Commons in the debate on the Right to Work Bill, Mr. Burns\nexplained amid general agreement the complete failure of relief works,\nand their tendency rather to increase the evil and waste public\nresources. Why is the land out of cultivation? For no other reason than\nthat it does not pay to cultivate it. The return will not give a\nmaintenance and pay taxes. We may leave rent out, for landlords would\nrather have their lands cultivated for no rent than let them lie a waste\nof weeds. And why are the men not at work? Because in normal times\nabout 40 per cent. of them are unemployable, the degenerates who are\nsuch a cause for alarm and concern to the nation. Of the rest, most are\nunsuited to agricultural work, and only a moderate proportion can be\nhelped in that way. That some tolerable land can be so cultivated, and\nsome industrious unemployed so maintained is true, but it requires the\nspiritual amalgam of the Salvation Army, or some such body of patient\nand capable enthusiasts, to solve the difficult problem, for a selected\nminority of the submerged, on their farm colonies. They are doing the\nwork of St. George.\n\nAbove these stricken ones comes the ordinary farm labourer, who is\nunfortunately migrating to the towns. Him Mr. Ruskin hoped to settle on\nland. Such a scheme of small holdings, if backed by sufficient capital,\nworked by experts, and favourably situated for a market, might even in\nthe seventies have succeeded. Of course it would not have had about it\nall the moral excellences, the grace of character and the charm of\nnature and art, which delight us so in the St. George\u2019s lands of the\nfuture which we read about in _Fors_. However, Ruskin never concentrated\nupon it, but spent most of his time and of the resources of the Guild\non the Sheffield Museum instead. He did what he found he could do the\nbest. He knew he was leaving great gaps for others to fill up. He says,\ntouchingly, in the Preface to _Love\u2019s Meinie_ in 1881: \u201cIt has been,\nthroughout, my trust that if Death should write on these plans of mine\n\u2018What this man began to build he was not able to finish,\u2019 God may also\nwrite on them, not in anger, but in aid, \u2018A stronger than he cometh.\u2019\u201d\n\nBut with labour and patience and against strong hostile political\nforces, the Small Holdings Act has been for some years at work. The\nobstruction of the squires still renders it useless in many counties,\nand there can be no more true task for St. George than to support\nagencies such as the Small Holdings Association. By its means, as a\nmatter of fact, the peasantry is being restored to the land on a proper\nbusiness basis. Tasks of this magnitude require organization on a large\nscale, and the payment of proper returns. No social benefit is given by\nletting some individual hold land at less than its value. The County\nCouncils since the war are engaged upon it. We are now again on the eve\nof a large settlement of returned soldiers on the land, and of an\nattempt to brighten the villages.\n\nSt. George, again, ordered that the homes of workpeople should be\ncheerful, that they should have gardens and flowers and sunshine, that\nthe long miserable rows of uniform cottages should be of the past. These\nthings, largely under the inspiration of Ruskin, are being done, in\nFirst Garden City at Letchworth, and in such model villages as\nBournville, New Earswick, Port Sunlight, the Hampstead suburb, and\nsimilar suburbs at Manchester and Hull. But it is all on far too small a\nscale. The true task of St. George to-day is to strengthen these\nprogressive movements. The growth of the towns since 1871 has made this\nurban problem the most urgent of all. How many rows of dreadful box\nhomes have been built. The country is being choked by the spreading\ntowns. Purely agricultural colonies are good, but towns cannot be\nfounded without the help of the manufacturers who make a town.\n\nAgain, the intention of St. George was to have a happy body of\nworkpeople, loyally co-operating with a superior type of employer, and\nbanishing greedy competition. The surviving remnant of the Guild of St.\nGeorge has very little in its own power in this way, but amongst the\nemployers who have built these model villages there exists just this\nkind of relation in manifold ways. And again, it pays. When in the\nBritish Association at York the firm of Rowntree and Co. was being\ncommended for the benefits they are giving their workpeople, Mr. Seebohm\nRowntree, whose whole heart is in the work, made a speech insisting that\nit paid them. He did this in order to induce other people to do the\nsame, and to show that it was feasible for the ordinary manufacturer.\n\nBroadly speaking, we may say that what we are all striving for is being\ndone, in ways more wholesale and more complicated than could have been\nworked out in the seventies. Two generations of social pioneers,\nthinkers, and experimenters, have been grappling with the problems since\nthen, so that we should not expect precisely the same prescription to be\ngiven by the social physician to-day as was given by one of the great\npioneers of healing nearly fifty years ago.\n\nThe agricultural settlement seems the furthest from practical politics.\nNevertheless, a series of enactments since 1881 have established in\nIreland that very arrangement of a peasant proprietary paying a fixed\nrent to the State, which is the essence of Ruskin\u2019s proposal; except\nthat the Irish rents under the Land Purchase Acts are terminable after a\nperiod of years; and so rather more easy than Ruskin\u2019s. Presumably, if\nfound successful, the system could be extended. It will certainly occupy\nthe minds of reformers very much during the immediately coming years.\n\nEducation was naturally a chief concern with St. George, and it occupies\nLetter XVI of _Time and Tide_.[88] His schools were to be in the fresh\nair of the country, and with large playing fields securely their own.\n\u201cThe Laws of Health and exercises enjoined by them\u201d are the first\nfeature of the curriculum; and riding, running, all the honest personal\nexercises of offence and defence, and music, are to be included under\nthis head. Then come \u201cthe mental graces of reverence and compassion,\nwhich are to be developed by deliberate and constant exercise,\"--which\nmeans, doubtless, that there is to be no girding at passers-by in the\nstreets, and no rat-catching for amusement. Then, as the bond and\nguardian of reverence and compassion, comes \u201cthe truth of spirit and\nword, of thought and sight--truth earnest and compassionate, sought for\nlike a treasure, and kept like a crown.\u201d This is to be taught chiefly\n\u201cby pressing for close accuracy of statement, as a principle of honour\nand as an accomplishment of language.\u201d There is much sound advice about\nthis in Letter XVI. Then, for the actual curriculum, there come, first,\nhistory; and then natural science and mathematics. But there are to be\nthree alternative curricula, one for city children, one for country\nchildren, and one for seafaring children. The city children are to study\nmathematics and the arts, country children, natural history and\nagriculture, and the future sailors, astronomy, geography, and marine\nnatural history. A beginning of variety of just this kind now exists in\nthe elementary schools, as noted in the last chapter.\n\nAfter this, all children are to be taught the calling whereby they are\nto live.\n\nThe curious whimsical paradox that reading and writing are to be\noptional subjects, does not, after such a curriculum, amount to much. It\nis part of a petulant reaction against merely inferior literary\nexercise, by a chief craftsman in it; as a professor of music is the\nfirst to tell you that it is no use teaching music to those who will do\nno good with it. Ruskin says that the teaching of the three R\u2019s is of no\nuse to people who will only read rubbish and write falsehood, and, put\nthat way, one is bound to agree.\n\nNo school of St. George has ever been begun, though there are schools\nwhich have kindred aims. Such schools are away in the country with farm\nand garden, with little pressure of outside examinations, a varied\ncurriculum, great attention to athletic exercise, to natural science and\nhistory, with classics and the study of grammar practically shelved, and\nthe prime concern of the school management the inculcation of reverence\nand truthfulness and gentleness. The Natural History, the Arts and\nHandicrafts, the reading aloud and the committing scripture and poetry\nto memory would be after his own heart.\n\nWe recognize in this luminous and suggestive treatment of education that\nthe right note is struck--the basal idea is that \u201cyou have not educated\na boy when you have taught him to know what he did not know, but to be\nwhat he had not been, and to behave as he had not behaved.\u201d And, with\nthe present stiff system and starved appliances, human and material,\nwith which we educate the citizens of the future, what a glorious vision\nRuskin\u2019s is, of what that education might so easily be. His protest\nagainst the three R\u2019s is merely a humorous outcry against their\ninsufficiency, their mechanical character, and their commercial end. How\nthat much, and that much only, of mental outfit has worked, is printed\nlarge in the circulation of _Illustrated Bits, Scraps_, all sensational\nevening papers and the Bottomley, Harmsworth and Hulton presses. But\nclerks and pupil teachers are cheap.\n\nRuskin\u2019s actual work as a University Professor was notable; and many are\nthe men, now old or gone, whom he influenced at Oxford. To be one of the\ninfluences at Oxford or Cambridge is a worthy use of gifts of the\nhighest kind. The present Drawing Schools at Oxford are a monument of\nhis labour and his liberality.\n\nIt is easy indeed for the Philistine to laugh at the pageantry of the\nvision of the England of St. George. There were to be \u201cMarshals\u201d with\ngreat districts subject to them, \u201cLandlords,\u201d men of fortune devoting\ntheir gifts to the service of the Guild, and owing their lordship to the\nfact that \u201cthey could work as much better than their labourers, as a\ngood knight than his soldiers.\u201d These were all to be called _Comites\nMinistrantes_; under them the _Comites Militantes_ were the rank and\nfile of the workers on the Company\u2019s lands. Finally the _Comites\nConsilii_, the only class who have materialized, were the companions\ncontributing, but not residing on St. George\u2019s lands.[89]\n\nTo sum up, then, the present public duty of a good Ruskinian:\n\nHe will support the labour colonies of the Salvation Army and Small\nHoldings Associations. He will invest in the stock of Garden City or\nother Garden Suburbs; he will work for the Minority Report on the Poor\nLaw, and for all plans for strengthening and humanizing Education, for\nTown Planning and Smoke Abatement. He will labour to extend among the\nlaity the duties of the clergy, and among the clergy the spirit of the\nlayman, he will help all Peace Societies, and labour to promote good\nunderstanding with other countries through the League of Nations. He\nwill clip the wings of capital seeking to use the British Flag as a\nbusiness asset, and he will do this by a capital levy, the super-tax and\nthe Death Duties. He will be a mild and reasonable Socialist, so far as\nto extend the scope of municipal action as it may be found practicable.\nHe would support the principle of a minimum wage, co-operative\npartnerships, and collective bargaining; and he would probably give\ncautiously some power to segregate the feeble-minded. He would provide\nArt Galleries and Museums housed in noble buildings, and would\nreligiously preserve the surviving beauty of the country side. Two\npossible changes may be treated at greater length.\n\nI. The higher professional activities may be still further removed from\ncompetition and put under salaried service. There will be competition\nfor posts; that is right; but if medical men and lawyers did not depend\nupon fees, we should be rid of many abuses; and the work would gain in\ndignity. I believe clergymen, professors and public schoolmasters do as\ngood work as those who follow callings more directly dependent on the\ncasual payments and goodwill of customers. With regard to education,\nthere would be danger of loss as well as of gain, if private schools and\nprivate tutors were abolished. They should remain available for those\nwho desire them. There will always be people who demand a special\nreligious atmosphere or who wish to make experiments. And there will be\npupils who from bad health, or neglect of early training, could not\nproperly benefit from the schools of the State. It is not necessary that\nthe public body in control should be either the State or the\nMunicipality. In my view, neither the universities nor the public\nschools would benefit by such a change. Nevertheless, it is becoming\nincreasingly agreed that the nation should shoulder a larger part of the\nexpense, and guarantee the quality of the teaching, more widely and\nliberally than it does at present. In this connection it is all the more\nnecessary that the State should clear itself of militarism. For if\nmilitary training were to become compulsory in schools, as is seriously\nthreatened, the nation would be once more as acutely divided about it,\nas it has been, so long and so disastrously, over denominational\nschools. We should have conscientious objectors in permanence.\n\nNor can we proscribe the private practitioner, for the wealthy, if there\nwere any, or for the medically heterodox. Yet, how much bad pretentious\nwork, how much humbug and servility, would be spared to their profession\nif most of them became public officials, only doctors know.\n\nI am not qualified to say whether the legal profession should be\nnationalized, nor how much. But things could hardly be in worse case\nthan they are at present, when the worthy members of a necessary\nprofession are regarded by many as little better than birds of prey.\n\nIt may be said that modest State salaries would not attract able men\ninto the professions so organized. But if the profits of trade were\nsocialized as proposed, or divided among guild members, there would not\nbe that golden alternative lure.\n\nII. In those matters which are left to the adjustment of free\ncompetition, it is necessary that everyone should be in a fair position\nto bargain, so that there may be no compulsion due to sheer starvation.\nThis requires to be done so carefully that an actual maintenance at a\ntolerable standard, and permanently available without work, should not\nbe offered to the able-bodied. Two suggestions have been made which are\nwell worth considering.\n\nAlfred Russel Wallace proposes that a daily dole of bread, enough to\nsustain life, should be easily available to the indigent or the out of\nwork. Tickets should be accessible at all Post Offices, Police Stations,\nand from magistrates, clergymen and others, on making out a claim of\nneed. Thus actual starvation would be warded off.[90]\n\nA more elaborate proposal is that to whose advocacy my friend Mr. Dennis\nMilner and his wife are devoting their lives. He proposes that everyone,\nrich and poor, from birth to death, should be the recipient of a certain\npension, to be provided by a four shillings in the pound Income Tax, on\nall incomes great and small, to be deducted at the source. Thus,\none-fifth of everyone\u2019s income would be redistributed on a flat rate, as\na capitation grant. It would provide on pre-war incomes about four\nshillings and threepence per week per head. So that a family of five,\nreceiving twenty-one shillings and threepence a week, or \u00a355 a year,\nwould also pay \u00a355 Income Tax, if their other income was \u00a3220. They\nwould neither lose nor gain. Every family of that size receiving a\nsmaller income would gain by the scheme; everyone above that limit would\nlose. It would thus encourage marriage and the raising of families, by\nconstituting a tax on the unmarried. The man of a thousand a year, with\na wife and three children, would pay \u00a3200 and receive \u00a355--reducing his\nincome to \u00a3855. One great advantage to the poor would be that it would\nsave them from most or all of the insurance premiums they pay, of all\nsorts. The scheme is attractively expounded in pamphlets.[91]\n\nClearly its greatest difficulty is due to the fact that we are likely to\nhave so great an Income Tax to pay for war, that to pay also for welfare\nmay be beyond the willingness of the public.\n\n\n\n\n_CHAPTER VII_\n\n_USURY_\n\n\nRuskin\u2019s attack upon the taking of interest for capital is the part of\nhis doctrine which goes deepest into our business system. It has in\nconsequence weakened his influence, and has not, even by himself, been\nput into practice in this country. But he spent much of his strength\nupon it in his later years. In _Munera Pulveris_, written in 1862, we\nfind him stating[92] that Usury is \u201cmerely taking an exorbitant sum for\nthe use of anything\"--\u201cthe essence of the usury being that it is\nobtained by advantage of opportunity or necessity, and not as due reward\nfor labour,\u201d and he therefore includes high profits for middlemen under\nthe term: but in later editions he adds a footnote to say that Mr. W. C.\nSillar[93] has since shown him that the payment of any interest at all\nis unjustifiable, and is real usury.\n\nIt is well to distinguish carefully between Interest and Profits. The\nbusiness man who exploits foreign concessions, and who stimulates wars,\nmay or may not be a capitalist. He may be using other people\u2019s capital.\nHe makes his profit as reward for his work, his luck, his enterprise,\nand an often risky responsibility. The capitalist, properly so called,\nis, on the other hand, an investor who simply takes his interest. Often,\ndoubtless, one man fills both parts, but in general theoretical\ndiscussion they should be kept separate.\n\nInterest, even if unavoidable, tends to increase the inequalities of\ndistribution, and beyond a certain point it becomes a social danger, and\nmay even become a disease in the body politic. It is one of the least\ndesirable consequences of the system of private property; but it is, I\nfear, an inherent part of it--to be got rid of only under a communal\nsystem where private property does not exist.\n\nHis new convictions did not take an absorbing hold on Ruskin\u2019s mind for\nsome years. In September, 1872, he writes in _Fors_, Letter XXI, \u00a7\u00a7 18,\n19, in reply to a remonstrance from Mr. Sillar: \u201cI am very careless\nabout such minor matters as the present conditions of ... banking. I\nhold bank stock simply because I suppose it to be safer than any other\nstock, and I take the interest of it because, though taking interest is,\nin the abstract, as wrong as war, the entire fabric of society is at\npresent so connected with both usury and war, that it is not possible\nviolently to withdraw, nor wisely to set example of withdrawing, from\neither evil.\u201d\n\n\u201cDenunciations of interest are much beside the mark unless they are\naccompanied with some explanation of the manner in which borrowing and\nlending, when necessary, can be carried on without it.\u201d There is a\npassage to the same effect in the notes to _Fors_, Letter XLIII, written\nin July, 1874.\n\nIt is easy to show why interest is both just and unavoidable, if we\naccept the justice of private property in general. By advancing capital\nwe enable the borrower to carry on profitable operations which will pay\nhim after he has given us somewhat for the advance. It pays him to\nborrow. He obtains an immediate order upon labour from the lender who\npostpones using it for his own pleasure. It is this element of Time\nwhich constitutes the whole reason for interest. Ready money, that is an\nimmediate order upon labour for which nothing has yet been given, has a\nprice depending upon the action of those who have it and those who want\nit, under the same law of Supply and Demand as governs the price of\nother commodities. The current rate of interest, after taking off the\nvarying payment for risk, represents both the reward for which the\ncapitalists will save the last portion of fluid capital which is saved,\nand the \u201cfinal\u201d utility of the last dose of money available to\nborrowers. The capitalist needs an investment as much as the borrower\nneeds capital. The advantage is not all on one side. Bankers desire\neagerly to grant overdrafts to safe people. The whole process is\nessential to production on a large scale, and to public activity, and\nthere is not necessarily any oppression in it, in our present state of\nsociety, though it is, like everything else, liable to abuse.\n\nBut to a man who has enough already \u201cabstinence\u201d is no hardship. Time is\nhis friend. Hence a measure of government interference to stop great\nfortunes is just and necessary, whether by a heavy income tax or a\ncapital levy, or by death duties, all steeply graduated. Another drastic\nextension of these duties would be found in the limitation of the right\nof bequest, fixing a maximum amount which a man may receive, or may\nleave, by inheritance or bequest. Bequest is not a natural, it is a\nstrictly legal, right; and the law may regulate it.[94] This would check\nthe worst of the evil of vast fortunes, which are a curse to their\nowners, and the other side of the poverty shield. They are rarely made\nin one generation. Bacon says: \u201cUsury bringeth the treasure of a realm\ninto few hands; for the usurer trading on a certainty, and other men on\nuncertainties, at the end of the game all the money will be in the box.\u201d\n\nWe will now put Ruskin\u2019s argument, from the one place where he wrote it\nout at length. It is the well-known passage on \u201cthe position of William\u201d\nin the first letter of _Fors_, January, 1871.\n\nThe following is there quoted from Mrs. Fawcett\u2019s _Political Economy for\nBeginners_. She translated it from the French of Bastiat:\n\n     There was once in a village a poor carpenter, who worked hard from\n     morning to night. One day James thought to himself, \u201cWith my\n     hatchet, saw, and hammer, I can only make coarse furniture, and can\n     only get the pay for such. If I had a plane, I should please my\n     customers more, and they would pay me more. Yes, I am resolved, I\n     will make myself a plane.\u201d At the end of ten days James had in his\n     possession an admirable plane, which he valued all the more for\n     having made it himself. Whilst he was reckoning all the profits\n     which he expected to derive from the use of it, he was interrupted\n     by William, a carpenter in the neighbouring village. William,\n     having admired the plane, was struck with the advantages which\n     might be gained from it. He said to James:\n\n     \u201cYou must do me a service; lend me the plane for a year.\u201d As might\n     be expected, James cried out, \u201cHow can you think of such a thing,\n     William? Well, if I do this service, what will you do for me in\n     return?\u201d\n\n     W. \u201cNothing. Don\u2019t you know that a loan ought to be gratuitous?\u201d\n\n     J. \u201cI know nothing of the sort; but I do know that if I were to\n     lend you my plane for a year, it would be giving it to you. To tell\n     the truth, that was not what I made it for.\u201d\n\n     W. \u201cVery well, then; I ask you to do me a service; what service do\n     you ask me in return?\u201d\n\n     J. \u201cFirst, then, in a year the plane will be done for. You must\n     therefore give me another exactly like it.\u201d\n\n     W. \u201cThat is perfectly just. I submit to these conditions. I think\n     you must be satisfied with this, and can require nothing further.\u201d\n\n     J. \u201cI think otherwise. I made the plane for myself, and not for\n     you. I expected to gain some advantage from it. I have made the\n     plane for the purpose of improving my work and my condition; if you\n     merely return it to me in a year, it is you who will gain the\n     profit of it during the whole of that time. I am not bound to do\n     you such a service without receiving anything in return. Therefore,\n     if you wish for my plane, besides the restoration already bargained\n     for, you must give me a new plank as a compensation for the\n     advantages of which I shall be deprived.\u201d\n\n     These terms were agreed to; but the singular part of it is that at\n     the end of the year, when the plane came into James\u2019s possession,\n     he lent it again; recovered it, and lent it a third and fourth\n     time. It has passed into the hands of his son, who still lends it.\n     Let us examine this little story. The plane is the symbol of all\n     capital, and the plank is the symbol of all interest.\n\nThus far Bastiat: Ruskin comments:--\n\n\u201cIf this be an abridgment, what a graceful piece of highly wrought\nliterature the original story must be! I take the liberty of abridging\nit a little more.\n\n\u201cJames makes a plane, lends it to William on 1st January for a year.\nWilliam gives him a plank for the loan of it, wears it out, and makes\nanother for James which he gives him on 31st December. On 1st January he\nagain borrows the new one; and the arrangement is repeated continuously.\nThe position of William therefore is, that he makes a plane every 31st\nDecember, lends it to James till the next day, and pays James a plank\nannually for the privilege of lending it to him on that evening. This,\nin future investigations of capital and interest, we will call, if you\nplease, \u2018the Position of William.\u2019\n\n\u201cYou may not at the first glance see where the fallacy lies: (the writer\nof the story evidently counts on your not seeing it at all).\n\n\u201cIf James did not lend the plane to William, he could only get his gain\nof a plank by working with it himself, and wearing it out himself. When\nhe had worn it out at the end of the year, he would, therefore, have to\nmake another for himself. William, working with it instead, gets the\nadvantage instead, which he must, therefore, pay James his plank for;\nand return to James what James would, if he had not lent his plane, then\nhave had--not a new plane, but the worn-out one. James must make a new\none for himself, as he would have had to do if no William had existed;\nand if William likes to borrow it again for another plank, all is fair.\n\n\u201cThat is to say, clearing the story of its nonsense, that James makes a\nplane annually, and sells it to William for its proper price, which, in\nkind, is a new plane. But this arrangement has nothing whatever to do\nwith principal or with interest.\u201d\n\nI fear Ruskin is wrong. He forgets a sinking fund for depreciation. His\nerror lies in supposing that a plane can be used for a year, and worn\nout, for no return but a plank. If planes only last a year and are of\nadvantage, their value in use is equal to that of the cost of a plane\nplus a plank, plus some more. That is, the cost of making a plane is\nless by a plank and more than the benefit a workman can get out of it\nbefore it is worn out, after paying for his labour. The benefit in a\nyear to the user is more than plane plus plank, or William would not go\non. That is the point of the service of all capital, intelligently\nused.\n\nWilliam has to pay his tax of a plank per annum because he is not\nbeforehand with his needs. He gets the advantage of the plane every year\ntwelve months before he can afford to make it; and the advantage of\nbeing in advance of his needs goes to James. The element of Time is\neverything. A plane at the beginning of a year is of more service than a\nplane you have to wait for till the end. Ruskin begins his sequence of\ntime on December 31st of the first year, avoiding the whole point. And\nthe position of William is therefore not unfair; though it is one to be\navoided.\n\nThere is little to be added of the nature of argument; though _Fors_ is\nscattered over with allusions to the subject, and discussions with many\ncorrespondents are printed in full.[95]\n\nThese, and many other shorter passages,[96] consist largely of intuitive\nprophetic assertion of the sinfulness of interest, even the slightest.\nMuch space is occupied by criticisms of the author\u2019s own practice in\nliving on the proceeds of Bank Stock, and his very cogent replies\nthereto. They amount to an admission that the doctrine does not fit the\npresent time. There are impressive accounts also of the miseries of\nusury-ridden countries like India, and of the folly of borrowed capital.\nBut there is no light thrown on how business is to be conducted without\nit: there is nothing immediately practical.\n\nThe array of authority against usance for money is weighty and of\nancient date.\n\nLev. xxv. 35-37: \u201cAnd if thy brother be poor and powerless with his\nhands at thy side, thou shalt take his part upon thee, to help him, as\nthy proselyte and thy neighbour; and thy brother shall live with thee.\nThou shalt take no usury of him, nor anything over and above, and thou\nshalt fear thy God. I am the Lord, and thy brother shall live with thee.\nThou shalt not give him thy money for usury; and thou shalt not give him\nthy food for increase.\u201d (J. R. translated from LXX.) Exodus xxii. 25 and\nDeuteronomy xxiii. 19 are similar in purport. Psalm xv. refers to the\nman \u201cwho putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against\nthe innocent\u201d; as being a fit person to abide in the Lord\u2019s tabernacle,\nand dwell in His holy hill. Here we have the taking of interest running\nparallel with the corruption of the high trust of the judicial bench.\nEzekiel xviii. 8, 13, 17 is contemporary with Leviticus, and is\npractically the same voice, representing Jewish opinion on the\nresettlement of the State after the Captivity. Here usury is classed\nwith every abominable wickedness.\n\nIn these Jewish passages it was the taking of interest from a brother\nHebrew that was forbidden. This limitation to the profitable use of\ncapital may have early led the Jew capitalist to the permitted Gentile\noutlet; and have caused him, in lending to the outside world, to carry\nwith the act a spice of uncharitableness and conscious ill-will. These\npassages are a testimony to the extraordinary cohesiveness and patriotic\nconsciousness of the restored nation. Such a proviso of itself is both\ncause and consequence; it leads to further isolation from others.\n\nIn the parable of the Talents, the king who was made to say, \u201cThou\nknewest that I was an hard man,\u201d is also made to say, \u201cThou shouldest\nhave given my money to the bankers that at my coming I should have\nreceived mine own with usury.\u201d But I dare not deduce anything from\nthis. The Parables never apply all round; they only teach one lesson at\na time. He who taught the duty of prayer by means of the Parable of the\nunjust judge, and the duty of using present opportunity by the Parable\nof the unjust steward, might easily teach the duty of the use of the\ngifts of God, without implying that God was either a \u201chard man\u201d or a\nusurer. All these stories may have been accompanied by some such\naddition as this, that if even with unjust and hard men this teaching\nholds, will it not be far more worth while to pray to God and to\nfaithfully use His opportunities and His gifts?\n\nThere is, however, one passage, not in the four Gospels, but well based\non tradition:--\u201cBe honourable bankers\u201d; and it certainly does seem\nstrange, if the whole business of money-dealing were wrong, that that\nillustration of the use of spiritual capital should have been selected.\nThe fact that usury was denounced by the Early Church may have led to\nthe non-inclusion of this dubious text in the Canon.\n\nDenunciations of usury are commonplaces among the Fathers of the Church.\nIt was wholly forbidden to the clergy and sometimes to the laity. Many\nhave been the sermons, of the fiercest character, delivered against it\nby the Bishops of the Catholic and Anglican Churches. John Wesley told\nhis followers \u201cto die sooner than put anything in pawn or borrow or lend\non usury.\u201d His rule on the subject was, however, explained later on by\nhimself as being against \u201cunlawful interest\u201d; upon which Ruskin remarks:\n\u201cDoubtless his disciples know what rate of interest is lawful, and what\nnot; and also by what law it was made so; and always pause with pious\naccuracy at the decimal point whereat the excellence of an investment\nbegins to make it criminal.\u201d Nevertheless, Wesley was right.\n\nTurning to the Greek world we find usury condemned by Solon and\nLycurgus, Plato and Aristotle (\u201cmoney sterile by nature\u201d); and a Roman\nvoice comes from Cato. From Arabia is heard the word of Mohammed. And,\nof great Englishmen, we find Lord Bacon, and perhaps Shakespeare,\nteaching the same. Concerning these it is to be noted, that being before\nthe days of joint company ownership, their testimony was solely against\nprivate money-lending; and the one authority, John Wesley, who lived in\nthe early days of modern business, was not against interest as such in\nhis later years. Nor again, did these authorities attack Rent, which\nRuskin is consistent in also reprobating. The landowning aristocracy,\nwe shall remember, are to be the recipients instead of a Government\nannuity, as wages for their work of governing their inferiors. Amongst\nan agricultural, noncommercial people, the usurer is a sinister figure.\nThis must have been the case in Palestine, and in agricultural England.\nTo-day he is the curse of India, whose cultivators are enslaved by the\nmoney-lenders under English law. In short, we may conclude that it\nrequires a fair field and genuine commercial habits to make interest a\npublic benefit.\n\nThe change from the earlier to the later John Wesley is most\nsignificant. It represents the change to modern business on a large\nscale, which occurred during his lifetime. It is noticeable that since\nhis time the attack on Interest has ceased, but for Ruskin, among\nreligious teachers. As a counsel of ultimate perfection in a communist\nState, of course, Interest would be abolished; but most Socialists admit\nthat it is an essential part of the institution of private property, and\nmust stand or fall with it.\n\nThere may yet be great revolutions in our sense of duty. We may come to\nextend kindness to animals to the extraordinary length of not eating\nthem. That excessive toil and numbing poverty should exist around us,\nmay some day become a reproach to us, as we feed on the roses and lie on\nthe lilies of life, which are often provided for us by the said\nlabourers. By the time, then, that we come to love our neighbours as\nourselves, we shall probably not be anxious to take advantage of our\nposition of being a little beforehand with the world, of having money to\nlend; and may even sink the time advantage thereby at our disposal; and\nnot take interest. But we shall be different then; and so will the world\nwe live in. It is a kind of altruism which absolutely needs a fit\nenvironment. If the cessation of income from investments belongs to the\nChristianity which is to come, before this faith shall have been\nrealized we shall have pooled our property into a common store, and the\nquestion of private investment will have fallen to the ground. Only\namong the Doukhobors has this kind of Christianity yet notably realized\nitself, and great is their well-being. But we must go on like Ruskin and\ntake our Interest for the present.\n\nThe real trouble is not in the interest, but in the great fortunes. That\nan upper limit for wealth would be a blessing to the rich, and a solid\ngain to the nation at large, has long been my conviction. Ruskin says it\nis also his \u201clong fixed conviction that one of the most important\nconditions of a healthful system of social economy, would be the\nrestraint of the properties and incomes of the upper classes within\ncertain fixed limits. The temptation to use every energy in the\naccumulation of wealth being thus removed, another and a higher ideal of\nthe duties of advanced life would be necessarily created in the national\nmind. By withdrawal of those who had attained the prescribed limits of\nwealth from commercial competition, earlier worldly success, and earlier\nmarriage, with all its beneficent moral results, would become possible\nto the young; while the older men of active intellect, whose sagacity is\nnow lost or warped in the furtherance of their own meanest interest,\nwould be induced unselfishly to occupy themselves in the superintendence\nof public institutions or furtherance of public advantage. And out of\nthis class it would be found natural and prudent always to choose the\nmembers of the legislative body of the Commons; and to attach to the\norder also some peculiar honours, in the possession of which such\ncomplacency would be felt as would more than replace the unworthy\nsatisfaction of being supposed richer than others, which to many men is\nthe principal charm of their wealth. And although no law of this purport\nwould ever be imposed on themselves by the actual upper classes, there\nis no hindrance to its being gradually brought into force from beneath,\nwithout any violent or impatient proceedings.\u201d[97]\n\nAs a type of Ruskin\u2019s satirical humour in controversy we will indulge\nourselves with an extract from his argument with the late Bishop of\nManchester on usury. Ruskin publicly challenged Dr. Fraser to the\nencounter. The Bishop had somewhat sensibly remarked that religious\nsanctions ought not to be imposed in cases which they never originally\ncontemplated, referring to Leviticus on usury. Ruskin replies:\n\n\u201cI do not know whether by the phrase, presently after used by your\nLordship, \u2018religious sanctions,\u2019 I am to understand the Law of God which\nDavid loved and Christ fulfilled, or whether the splendour, the\ncommercial prosperity, and the familiar acquaintance with all the\nsecrets of science and treasures of art, which we admire in the City of\nManchester, must in your Lordship\u2019s view be considered as \u2018cases\u2019 which\nthe intelligence of the Divine Lawgiver could not have originally\ncontemplated. Without attempting to disguise the narrowness of the\nhorizon grasped by the glance of the Lord from Sinai, nor the\ninconvenience of the commandments which Christ has directed those who\nlove Him to keep, am I too troublesome or too exigent in asking from one\nof those whom the Holy Ghost has made our overseers, at least a distinct\nchart of the Old World as contemplated by the Almighty, and a clear\ndefinition of even the inappropriate tenor of the orders of Christ; if\nonly that the modern scientific Churchman may triumph more securely in\nthe circumference of his heavenly vision, and accept more gratefully the\nglorious liberty of the free thinking children of God?\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_CHAPTER VII_\n\n_WAR_\n\n\nThe fact that War is the commonest and the most pernicious way of using\nlarge masses of capital leads us naturally from Usury to War. Ruskin\nconnects the subject with Capitalism thus:[98]\n\n\u201cCapitalists, when they do not know what to do with their money,\npersuade the peasants, in various countries, that the said peasants want\nguns to shoot each other with. The peasants accordingly borrow guns, out\nof the manufacture of which the capitalists get a percentage, and men of\nscience much amusement and credit. Then the peasants shoot a certain\nnumber of each other, until they get tired; and burn each other\u2019s homes\ndown, in various places. Then they put the guns back into towers,\narsenals, etc. in ornamental patterns (and the victorious party put also\nsome ragged flags in churches). And then the capitalists tax both\nannually, ever afterwards, to pay interest on the loan of the guns and\ngunpowder.\u201d\n\nThe horrors of the Franco-German war of 1871, relatively small as they\nnow appear, were a nightmare to him, and cloud the first volume of\n_Fors_, which records his current thoughts in that year.\n\nHis most prominent utterance is his lecture on \u201cWar\u201d delivered to the\nstudents at the Engineering College at Woolwich in 1865 and printed in\n_The Crown of Wild Olive_. It appears, throughout, to be in praise of\nwar. But we shall see that great deductions are to be made. Nevertheless\nit begins appallingly enough by stating that all fine arts have been\nfounded in war, and can only be practised by warlike nations. He gives\nas instances, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The instances are all fallacious,\nparticularly those of the peace-loving people in the Nile Valley, and\nthe very inartistic Romans. Nor is there any proof that war either\ncaused or aided the artistic faculty of the Greeks. How can there be?\nThe characteristic warrior city--Sparta--was as inartistic as Woolwich.\nHe goes a step further to please his audience of young warrior-students\nby the strange assertion that \u201cwar is the foundation of all the high\nvirtues and faculties of men\u201d: and that, in History, we find coupled\ntogether \u201cpeace and sensuality, peace and selfishness--peace and death.\u201d\n\u201cI found that all the great nations learned their truth of word and\nstrength of thought in war: that they were nourished in war, and wasted\nby peace; taught by war and deceived by peace; trained by war, and\nbetrayed by peace; in a word that they were born in war, and expired in\npeace.\u201d[99]\n\nSuch is the rash and partial generalization of the rhetorician, based on\nthis much of historic truth that the early years of a nation\u2019s life have\noften been occupied in conflict for safety or empire, and its later,\nmore peaceful and more prosperous years are marked sometimes by the\nweakening influences of wealth, and end in decay. But it is hard,\nindeed, impossible I venture to say, to show that the motives or the\nmethods of war are not, from beginning to end, retrograde and barbaric,\na harking back to the life of the beast; and not the source of any of\nthese good things named.\n\nBut now comes the antidote; after such an exordium, what manner of peace\naddress might he not give to those Woolwich men and they listen?\n\nFirst he excepts from his approval \u201cthe rage of a barbarian wolf flock,\u201d\nand the \u201chabitual restlessness or rapine of mountaineers,\u201d and \u201cthe\noccasional struggle of a strong, peaceful nation for its life\"--a\nstrange exception that--and the \u201ccontest of merely ambitious nations for\nextent of power\"--a wide exception that. It leaves him three kinds of\nbeneficial war: war for exercise or play, out of mere high spirits and\nunused energies of the upper classes--war for aggression against\nsurrounding evil--and wars for defence of noble institutions and pure\nhouseholds.\n\nI. As to wars for pastime, we find that they are to be fought somewhat\nin the manner of duels or tournaments by the officers; by the idle young\nmen who are too proud for peaceful business, and whose arms and legs\nwant play. There is to be no gathering of peasants to fire into one\nanother; and Carlyle on the thirty peasants from Dumdrudge is helpfully\nquoted, from _Sartor Resartus_. The man who could quote that to Woolwich\nstudents could do most things with an audience. We next have a little\nparagraph thrown in on Arbitration. \u201cGrant,\u201d he says sarcastically,\n\u201cthat no law of reason can be understood by nations; no law of justice\nsubmitted to by them; and that, while questions of a few acres and of\npetty cash, can be determined by truth and equity, the questions which\nare to issue in the perishing or saving of Kingdoms can be determined\nonly by the truth of the sword, and the equity of the rifle.\u201d[100] I\ndoubt if any one has ever had the ear of that audience of thoughtless\naspiring soldier students to an Arbitration argument, before or since.\nHe proceeds to wash his hands wholly of modern war.\n\n\u201cIf you have to take masses of men from all industrial employment,--to\nfeed them by the labour of others,--to provide them with destructive\nmachines varied daily in national rivalship of inventive cost; if you\nhave to ravage the country which you attack--to destroy, for a score of\nfuture years, its roads, its woods, its cities and its harbours; and if,\nfinally, having brought masses of men, counted by hundreds of thousands,\nface to face, you tear those masses to pieces with jagged shot, and\nleave the living creatures, countlessly beyond all help of surgery, to\nstarve and parch, through days of torture, down into clots of clay--what\nbook of accounts shall record the cost of your work--what book of\njudgment sentence the guilt of it?\u201d[101]\n\nMethinks it sounds not unlike a Peace Address.\n\nII. We pass next to wars of aggression against evil--and the lecturer\nspends powerful pages on the selfishness and faithlessness of ambitious\nwarlike kings; on the common degradation of the idea of power; and on\nthe need for concentrating all our energies on home reforms. We are\nwarned against supposing that a big nation is a strong one, bade to aim\nat union of hearts rather. \u201cOnly that nation gains true territory which\ngains itself.\u201d \u201cA nation,\u201d he proceeds, \u201cdoes not strengthen itself by\nseizing dominion over races whom it cannot benefit.\u201d \u201cWhatever apparent\nincrease of majesty and of wealth may have accrued to us from the\npossession of India, whether these prove to us ultimately power or\nweakness, depends wholly on the degree in which our influence on the\nnative race shall be benevolent and exalting.\u201d[102]\n\nHe nevertheless believes that the rule of England is for the good of the\nsubject races, is a national duty and a piece of self-sacrifice and\nworld service, the English white man\u2019s burden. He has an eloquent\npassage on this subject in his Inaugural Lecture at Oxford, beginning\n\u201cReign or die.\u201d His hostility to the Manchester School comes out in his\ncharacteristic style. \u201cI tell you that the principle of\nnon-intervention, as now preached among us, is as selfish and cruel as\nthe worst frenzy of conquest, and differs from it only by being not only\nmalignant, but dastardly.\u201d \u201cWithin these last ten years, we English\nhave, as a knightly nation, lost our spurs: we have fought where we\nshould not have fought, for gain; and we have been passive, where we\nshould not have been passive, for fear.\u201d[103] I am indeed much afraid\nthat this, spoken in 1865, has generally been the case throughout our\nhistory.\n\nIII. As to wars for defence: Ruskin principally devotes himself to\nattacking the essential slavery of military obedience: he will have no\nmercenary standing armies, only unprofessional citizen armies for\ndefence.\n\nSo he ends with fatherly counsel to his hearers to be industrious and\nserious minded, not to bet, to be pure and honourable, and reverent\ntowards all women; and the ladies present he exhorts to wear black\nwhenever there is war, that so, by their influence, there may be no more\nwars.\n\nThere you have a summary of the famous lecture on War in the _Crown of\nWild Olive_, which has weakened Ruskin\u2019s influence with many of his\nfriends, and done undoubted harm. But I call it on the whole a peace\naddress given by a man who combined with his hatred of violence and ruin\na certain attachment to picturesque medi\u00e6valism. The wars of Arthur or\nRoland were his ideal. He recognized the heroism and self-abandonment of\nsuch soldiers as he had read about all his life in Homer and Scott. But\nour modern wars include everything he hated; they are wars for trade and\nfor gain, sordid and financial in origin and sordid and financial in\nresults.\n\nRuskin explains his attitude quite clearly in the Appendix to the _Crown\nof Wild Olive_, at the beginning of his notes on the Political Economy\nof the Kings of Prussia.\n\n\u201cI am often accused of inconsistency; but believe myself defensible\nagainst the charge with respect to what I have said on nearly every\nsubject except that of war. It is impossible for me to write\nconsistently of war, for the groups of facts I have gathered about it\nlead me to two precisely opposite conclusions.\n\n\u201cWhen I find this the case, in other matters, I am silent, till I can\nchoose my conclusion: but, with respect to war, I am forced to speak, by\nthe necessities of the time; and forced to act, one way or another. The\nconviction on which I act is, that it causes an incalculable amount of\navoidable human suffering and that it ought to cease among Christian\nnations; and if therefore any of my boy-friends desire to be soldiers, I\ntry my utmost to bring them into what I conceive to be a better mind.\nBut, on the other hand, I know certainly that the most beautiful\ncharacters yet developed among men have been formed in war--that all\ngreat nations have been warrior nations--and that the only kinds of\npeace which we are likely to get in the present age are ruinous alike to\nthe intellect and the heart.\n\n\u201cThe last lecture in this volume, addressed to young soldiers, had for\nits object to strengthen their trust in the virtue of their profession.\nIt is inconsistent with itself, in its closing appeal to women, praying\nthem to use their influence to bring wars to an end. And I have been\nhindered from completing my long intended notes on the economy of the\nKings of Prussia by continually increasing doubt how far the machinery\nand discipline of war, under which they learned the art of government,\nwas essential for such lesson; and what the honesty and sagacity of the\nFriedrich who so nobly repaired his ruined Prussia, might have done for\nthe happiness of his Prussia, unruined.\n\n\u201cHow far, in the future, it may be possible for men to gain the strength\nnecessary for kingship without either fronting death, or inflicting it,\nseems to me not at present determinable. The historical facts are that,\nbroadly speaking, none but soldiers, or persons with a soldierly\nfaculty, have ever yet shown themselves fit to be kings; and that no\nother men are so gentle, so just, or so clear-sighted. Wordsworth\u2019s\ncharacter of the Happy Warrior cannot be reached in the height of it but\nby a warrior; nay, so much is it beyond common strength that I had\nsupposed the entire meaning of it to be metaphorical, until one of the\nbest soldiers of England[104] himself read me the poem, and taught me,\nwhat I might have known, had I enough watched his own life, that it was\nentirely literal.\u201d\n\nBy extending his soldierly qualification to \u201cpersons with a soldierly\nfaculty,\u201d he gives the case away. For that can only mean the faculty of\ncourage, organization and command. These qualities a peaceful ruler\nlike William Penn possessed in striking measure. The whole passage is\nthe record of a swaying contest between sentiment and conviction;\nbetween the glamour of the glowing haze of distant tradition and actual\nfacts, only too closely pressing upon mankind to-day.\n\nTruly the question of the effect of war on character is vital. I had\nwritten here, in pre-war days, some observations upon it; but they seem\nto me now faint and platitudinous. We have had since then such\nwidespread experience of the play of character faced with the dread\ncalamity of the world-war, that it is too complicated to treat briefly.\nWe are all saddened and wearied. So I leave it to the experience of the\nmillions who know more about it from their own experience than I do.\n\nWe need not wait for war to harden our fibre and stiffen our backs.\nSurely this can be done without wholesale demoralization and\ndestruction. Are there not national evils to be fought? privations to be\nendured here in fighting vice, ugliness and disease, or in voluntarily\nparticipating in poverty? There is courage needed to stand against\npublic opinion and to lead it, to sacrifice wealth and social repute if\nrequired. These things are what we must turn to for the exercise of the\ncourage and unselfishness of the soldier. We want more strenuous\nasceticism of a form not so essentially unreasonable and destructive as\nwar.\n\nIt would entirely overload this chapter to give any idea of the vigour\nand number of the passages in _Fors_ which storm against\nwar:--\u201cstorming\u201d is generally the method, varied, as usual with this\nmaster of fancy and emotion, with stinging sarcasm and mocking raillery.\nThe burden of his plea throughout is that \u201cthe game of our nobles and\nthe gain of our usurers\u201d is war.[105]\n\n\u201cWhen you have got the Devil well under foot in Sheffield, you may begin\nto stop him from persuading my Lords of the Admiralty that they want a\nnew grant, etc., etc., to make his machines with.... The fiend sees that\nhe can blind you, through your lust for drink, into quietly allowing\nyourselves to pay fifty millions a year, that the rich may make their\nmachines of blood, and play at shedding blood.\u201d[106]\n\n\u201cIn this contest (of poor and rich) assuredly, the victory cannot be by\nviolence; every conquest under the Prince of War retards the standards\nof the Prince of Peace.\u201d[107]\n\nHe quotes[108] from the _Daily Telegraph_ the following from its\ndescription of the capture of Paris: \u201cEach demolished house has its own\nlegend of sorrow, of pain, and horror; each vacant doorway speaks to the\neye, and almost to the ear, of hasty flight, as armies of fire came--of\nweeping women and trembling children running away in awful fear,\nabandoning the home that saw their birth, the old house they loved--of\nstartled men seizing quickly under each arm their most valued goods, and\nrushing, heavily laden, after their wives and babes, leaving to hostile\nhands the task of burning all the rest. When evening falls, the wretched\noutcasts, worn with fatigue and tears, reach Versailles, St. Germain, or\nsome other place outside the range of fire, and there they beg for bread\nand shelter, homeless, foodless, broken with despair. And this,\nremember, has been the fate of something like a hundred thousand people\nduring the last four months. Versailles alone has about fifteen thousand\nsuch fugitives to keep alive, all ruined, all hopeless, all vaguely\nasking the grim future what still worse fate it may have in store for\nthem.\u201d\n\nThe following passage is interesting, however feeble it may appear in\nview of our recent developments of war:--\n\n\u201cWe fight inelegantly as well as expensively, with machines instead of\nbow and spear; we kill about a thousand now to the score then, in\nsettling any quarrel--(Agincourt was won with the loss of less than a\nhundred men; only 25,000 English altogether were engaged at Cre\u00e7y; and\n12,000, some say only 8,000, at Poictiers); we kill with far ghastlier\nwounds, crashing bones and flesh together; we leave our wounded\nnecessarily for days and nights in heaps on the fields of battle; we\npillage districts twenty times as large, and with completer destruction\nof more valuable property; and with a destruction as irreparable as it\nis complete; for if the French or English burnt a church one day, they\ncould build a prettier one the next; but the modern Prussians couldn\u2019t\neven build so much as an imitation of one; we rob on credit, by\nrequisition, with ingenious mercantile prolongations of claim; and we\nimprove contention of arms with contention of tongues, and are able to\nmultiply the rancour of cowardice, and mischief of lying, in universal\nand permanent print; and so we lose our tempers as well as our money,\nand become indecent in behaviour as in raggedness.\u201d[109]\n\n\u201cThe first reason for all wars and for the necessity of national\ndefences, is that the majority of persons, high and low, in all European\nnations, are Thieves, and in their hearts, greedy of their neighbours\u2019\ngoods, land, and fame. But besides being Thieves they are also fools,\nand have never yet been able to understand that if Cornishmen want\npippins cheap, they must not ravage Devonshire--that the prosperity of\ntheir neighbours is in the end, their own also; and the poverty of their\nneighbours, by the communism of God, becomes in the end, their own.\u201d\n\u201cAnd the guilty Thieves of Europe, the real sources of all deadly war in\nit, are the Capitalists--that is to say, people who live by percentages\non the labour of others, instead of by fair wages for their own.\u201d[110]\n\n\u201cThere is no physical crime at this day, so far beyond pardon--so\nwithout parallel in its untempted guilt, as the making of war-machinery,\nand invention of mischievous substance. Two nations may go mad, and\nfight like harlots--God have mercy on them:--you, who hand them carving\nknives off the table, for leave to pick up a dropped sixpence, what\nmercy is there for you?\u201d[111]\n\n\u201cThe men who have been killed within the last two months, and whose\nwork, and the money spent in doing it, have filled Europe with misery\nwhich fifty years will not efface, had they been set at the same cost to\ndo good instead of evil, and to save life instead of destroying it,\nmight by this 10th January, 1871, have embanked every dangerous stream\nat the roots of the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Po, and left to Germany,\nto France and to Italy, an inheritance of blessing for centuries to\ncome--they and their families living all the while in brightest\nhappiness and peace. And now! Let the Red Prince look to it: red\ninundation bears also its fruit in time.\u201d[112]\n\nHe calls War \u201cthe moral organization of massacre, and the mechanical\nreduplication of ruin.\u201d[113] \u201cAll the cruellest wars inflicted, all the\nbasest luxuries grasped by the idle classes, are thus paid for by the\npoor a hundred times over\u201d (in interest on debt).[114]\n\nThus Ruskin is to be found among the Peace advocates--uttering indeed\nthe characteristic refrain of Christianity, and saying emphatically in\n_Fors_, in so many words, that we are not to avenge injuries. Yet he was\naltogether out of sympathy with the ordinary channels of such advocacy.\nLiberalism he loathed, democracy he utterly disbelieved in, John Bright\nwas the object of his occasional angry or contemptuous reference;\nanything that savoured of Manchester was condemned as tainted with\npolitical economy; the British aristocrats, the present ones, not ones\nselected on new principles of excellence, but even the ones we have,\nwere to be the leaders of a regenerated England, and fathers of the\nFatherland. Liberty was a red rag to him; he preferred the servitude of\nthe shepherd dog to the freedom of the buzzing gnat:--and so he\nexperienced the awkwardness felt by those who, having on some issue\njoined the party of reaction, have yet within them their old reforming\nzeal: for in reality Ruskin was an enlightened Socialist philanthropist.\n\nFor these reasons I fear that his peace influence has been very much\nneutralized and wasted; and therefore I have had peculiar pleasure in\nbringing it out in this chapter.\n\nAll these extracts make it clear that the writer\u2019s hatred of modern war\nwaged by multitudes of conscript or other soldiers, machine guns, and\nchemical explosives, was a constant horror to him; and that his\nsentimental admiration for the feudal and Greek chivalry was an academic\nand otiose emotion, figuring appropriately as a propitiatory exordium to\nthe young warriors of Woolwich, but otherwise not an influential part of\nhis thoughts.\n\nNevertheless Ruskin was a devotee of the nobler type of imperialism. He\nlived before the sordidness of \u201cEmpire,\u201d and its taproot in High\nCommerce and Finance, had become as plain as they are to-day; and before\nthe series of wars of Empire-building had culminated in the struggle for\npower in the Near East, power whose pursuit formed the principal motive\nfor the Great World War. The Inaugural Lecture at Oxford is the central\nexpression of this imperialism, in its concluding paragraphs. There are\nkindred passages in _The Crown of Wild Olive_.[115] _A Knight\u2019s Faith_,\nthe Life of Sir Herbert Edwardes of the Punjab, is written in the\nnoblest imperialist vein. In this, though not in his economic teaching\nin general, Ruskin falls under the sentimental glamour of popular\nphrases, and loses touch with reality.\n\n\n\n\n_CHAPTER IX_\n\n_MACHINERY_\n\n\nRuskin, as we have seen, was both a Conservative and a constructive\nSocialist. He hated the industrial developments which he saw around\nhim--that which was called progress he saw to be full of evil, and he\nwanted to undo it. That made him a Conservative. But he had his own line\nof development, which was an idealized feudalism. What is there for us\nto learn now from either of these teachings, the negative Conservative\ncry against steam power and railways and bicycles, the positive advance\ntowards Guild Socialism?\n\nThe pastoral happiness of peasant life Ruskin thought he found in\nBavaria, in Savoy, in Tuscany. He never really lived among the\npeasantry, nor was he, the shy visitor to the best hotels, with his\ncourier and his portfolio, accustomed to familiar intercourse,\nparticularly on money matters, with the worthy sons and daughters of\ntoil whose industrious and quiet lives he admired. Neither in England,\nScotland, Ireland, nor the Continent can the \u201cmerrie England\u201d ideal of\npeasant life ever have existed.\n\nIn Switzerland or France, where there have been since the Revolution no\nfeudal landlords, it had a good chance; and also among the \u201cstatesmen\u201d\nof Cumberland and Westmorland while they survived. The Canton Bern is\nto-day to the tourist\u2019s eye a happy and prosperous land, and the other\nProtestant cantons resemble it. But we know most about our own northern\n\u201cstatesmen\u201d; the Swiss or French small proprietor\u2019s life must have been\nmuch the same as theirs. It was a hard, narrow life, absorbed in \u201cmoney\ngrubbing,\u201d which was in their case no fault but a chief virtue, being\nnecessary to survival. If a statesman was of a large and genial nature,\nthe public-house was his common resort; and most of the stocks of\nstatesmen came to grief by the recklessness or misfortunes of one\ngeneration. The estate was first mortgaged and then foreclosed and sold.\nA succession of steady cultivators, careful of the pence, hardly ever\nsucceeded in making a family well to do or even comfortable, with\nreserves to meet disaster. I speak here of my own forbears. The holdings\nwere too small. They worked all day and every day, in all weathers,\nlived and slept in quarters not conducive to delicate sensitiveness of\nfeeling. A big attic, separated by a curtain into two, was the sleeping\nplace of the children and servants, if there were any.[116] Books,\neducation, travel, were denied them. On a lower level is the life of the\npeasants of the Rhone Valley, in dirt and hopelessness and overwork. It\nmakes for degradation. But where feudal landlords exist, as they do in\nmost places, the case is worse. The condition of the peasantry of\nEastern Europe has been brought before us since the War in the daily\npapers so vividly that none can miss it. The system has broken down in\nrevolution. It appears to an astonished English public, that the mass of\nthe people have lived under local tyranny and very near the margin of\nmaintenance, in Russia and her border states, in Roumania, Poland,\nHungary, Prussia, and in the Balkan lands. This is what we find before\nindustrial development comes in. There is no need to dwell on the\nsqualor, on the diseases, on the recurring famines, on the contempt of\nthe proud. It transpires that the peasants to whom the land has now come\nby revolution, are described as so covetous, narrow and selfish--their\ntrade their politics--that Socialists and idealists are baffled by\nthem. They will starve a city like Buda-Pesth or Petrograd, when their\nsupplies are abundant. They do not seem capable at present of a national\nor international consciousness, nor of any true democracy larger than\nthe village.\n\nIn England, too, the rustic life which the Industrial Revolution\noverthrew, was, in the landlord counties, servile and suffering. The\nwages and the politics of the South of England until recent times are\nsurvivals of the system.[117]\n\nWe are bound to conclude that to this system we ought not to recur. With\nall their faults and disadvantages the people of the industrial\ndistricts are the most educated, the most independent, the most virile.\nNumerous economic writers have destroyed, like a sentimental mirage, our\nview of the old English village, with its homely comfort and peaceful\nindependence. We think more now of its toils, its diseases, its infant\nmortality, its lost Commons.\n\nIt was natural for Ruskin, with his love of white thatched cottages and\nleafy lanes bordered by neglected wasteful hedges full of wild\nflowers--with his wealthy upbringing, and ignorance of the value of\nmoney and of the direness of most people\u2019s need of it, it was natural\nand inevitable that he should loathe the dreadful new mining\nvillages--rows of cheap insanitary brick houses--and the belching smoke\nof the colliery chimney. He preferred Coniston to Barrow. But there is\nno practical guidance in that revolt, except indeed the revolt itself;\nand that was a message to his time, and is still a message to ours.\n\nThere is nothing particularly elevating about farm work, in spite of\nCorydon and other shepherds described by the town bred makers of\nfantasies. Sheep are the most unpleasant creatures to look after, the\ndirtiest and the stupidest. Their scab, fluke, ticks and footrot need\nmuch attention. Apart from their diseases, the scene of the shepherd\u2019s\nhappy labours will be in winter a turnip field, the crop being eaten off\nby sheep. The dirt and squalor of the dung and the animals and the\nturnips, the cold and damp, the sleet and the mud and the smells--these\nthings are not good subjects for poetry. The farmer\u2019s calling is to make\nhis living out of the death of his animals, and out of their sufferings\nwhen alive, their castration and imprisonment, and their labour. He\nmeasures them by a purely economic test. It is not for us who live on\nmeat and milk, butter and cheese, and the products of the pig-sty, to\nblame farmers for this. They do it for us. But it is not particularly\n\u201cimproving\u201d; it approaches the calling of the butcher, which is equally\nnecessary. Why the world is thus built is not, luckily for me, the\nsubject of this book.\n\nThe rest of the labours of the farm are a struggle with the earth--with\nweeds and with weather. It is all primitive and built into the bone and\nmarrow of the race; but it is not more moralizing, nor more romantic, in\npractice than working at looms or ledgers. The labourer does not go to\nthe land as to a leisurely summer home. Hitherto, no way has been found\nin England for inducing young people to stay in the villages. We ought\nto try to succeed in this. If we do it will be in a new kind of village,\nand it will be effected by cheap and rapid transit, and by widely\nscattering the ownership or holding of land. Then Ruskin\u2019s aims will be\nrealized, but not by the only methods he could see in his day. In fact,\nrailways and domestic machinery would be essential.\n\nDivision of Labour goes with the factory system. It was early hailed as\none of the great economies obtained by production on a large scale. It\nwas found that by constantly keeping a man or a child to one\noccupation, an extraordinary degree of sure accuracy and readiness was\nobtained. Without the necessity for thinking, and so without risk of\nthinking wrong, the nimble fingers repeated hour by hour their appointed\ntrick, the practised eye ever followed the same mechanism and stopped it\nat the same point, the same tool in the same place was ready to the same\nhand. Physiologically we believe that all this means that there is\nestablished a rut for the tracks of the brain wheels, a habitual nervous\nconnection between certain sensory centres and certain motor centres,\nwithout the need for every piece of news to be transmitted by the\nsensory centre to the central thinking apparatus in the cerebrum, and a\ncorresponding order sent down from the central control to the motor\ncentre.\n\nWhen we learn to write, the fashion and shape of every _a_, _b_ and _c_\nhave to be thought over; the hands learn painfully to follow an order\nsent down from the central thinking power in the cerebrum, sent down on\ninformation derived through the sensory centres behind the eye, of the\nshape of the copy. But in ordinary life we could copy pages of\nmanuscript and talk and think about something else the whole time.\nThere is a direct line of nerve flow between the reading apparatus\nbehind the eye and the writing apparatus behind the hand; and thought is\nnot required. We have become so far automatic; we have created a\nconvenient writing machine within us, which works for us and leaves us\nfree to do other things.\n\nSo that if we spend our nine hours a day at working a printing machine,\nor stitching leather or silk, or boring holes, or driving in nails, or\nsharpening a tool\u2019s edge, or wrapping boxes, or counting or piecing\nthreads, we are really doing the work of a machine. We do not think: to\nthink would interfere with the sure regularity of our work.\n\nNow the growth of this division of labour has been quite irresistible.\nIts advantages have been such that no manufacturer or nation of\nmanufacturers could stand without it. The social organism has become\nmore complex, and with that the differentiation of function has become\nmore marked. It is a necessary accompaniment of an elaborate social\nstate; and whether it tends or not to the welfare of the individual it\ngreatly extends the productive power of the industrial organism, and so\nstrengthens the organism itself viewed as industrial simply. Thus the\nhighly differentiated organism has survived, though it may have\nsacrificed the individual worker, regarded as a human being. Is there,\ntherefore, any means whereby we can modify the work of the monotonous\nmechanical labourer so as to give him some pleasure in it, and afford\nexercise to his other faculties besides that one called out by the\nsingle narrow function he has learnt to repeat day after day? If we can\ngive scope for his higher faculties, his judgment, his invention, his\nknowledge, we shall be avoiding the present waste by which faculties\nwhich might aid production in better ways are wasted on routine.\n\nThe greatest cure hitherto found is inherent in the system itself. For\nwhen the work is such that it is done by a human machine, the step is\nnot far distant when a machine will be actually invented, with a surer\ngrip of the material, a readier tool for piercing, a straighter edge for\ncutting. This process is going on in every department of manufacture.\nBoards are planed, picture frames carved, table legs made, mouldings cut\nby machinery. Watches and sewing machines are made of interchangeable\nparts, each the product of a machine. The only limit to the taking over\nof every manufacture by machines seems to be that a large output is\nnecessary to make it pay to invent and manufacture and sell costly\nmachines. So great have been the triumphs of many-fingered machinery\nthat we are not inclined to limit them. Thus, most of the monotonous,\nand most of the physically laborious work is done by the man of steel.\nFor every textile operative in the country rather more than one horse\npower is provided by steam; which is equal to the strength of ten adult\nmen. Self-feeding furnaces are similarly saving of human flesh and\neyesight. Thus our manual workers have largely become makers and minders\nof machines. To help to make a machine, to watch and repair it, and take\ncare of it--even to understand it and to feed it, is a not unworthy form\nof labour. To care for a complex machine requires intelligence and a\nwide-awake sense of responsibility. It is much better, at any rate, than\nhand-loom weaving was, or than nail-making by hand, or match-box-making\nis. Even so mechanical a task as working a sewing machine, poor as it\nis, may be a trifle less soul-destroying than working with a needle at\nplain sewing all day. And though minding looms is monotonous, yet they\nturn out so much more cloth per operative, that the evil of monotony of\nwhich we speak is probably a very small percentage per yard produced,\nof what it was when weaving was done in the weavers\u2019 cottages by hand.\n\nIt is therefore in extending machinery for all articles which have no\nindividual artistic value that we shall get rid of most of the lower and\nmore degrading forms of labour--machinery for ploughing, sowing,\nreaping, binding, thrashing, dairying, laundry work, baking, cooking,\ncutting straight and smoothing clean, grinding and polishing, and for\nthe processes of printing. These are true friends of man.\n\nIt is to be noted that every increase of the gross output which\nmachinery enables man to produce, increases the demand for the more\nskilled portions of the work, for those which require judgment and\ncharacter. The multiplication of the printing output of the country has\nincreased the number of writers, of reporters, of proof-readers, of\noverlookers, and of men who can tastefully arrange a title page. It has\nalso multiplied the demand for men who can draw, can photograph, or can\nreproduce illustrations. Similarly the \u201chands\u201d who work the machines on\na farm are fewer but are probably more intelligent than the agricultural\nlabourer in a backward country.\n\nIt will be observed that this inquiry has left untouched and\nunaffected--\n\n1. The skilled artistic crafts where a sense of the beautiful and a\nspecial value in human thought goes to each article.\n\n2. The mass of unskilled and unspecialized labour at the bottom of the\nsocial ladder which division of labour and machine production leave\nlargely untouched.\n\nTo the cleansing, quieting, moralizing of machinery, then, not to its\nextinction or supersession, social reformers should apply themselves. To\nthe compulsory consumption of smoke, to sanitary factories and\nworkshops, to the substitution of gas or electricity for steam, we must\nlook with hope.\n\nTherefore, out of the industrial hurly-burly, we must look forward, not\nback--accept the industrialization of the world which marked the\nnineteenth century, and go on to find a home for humanity in it. It is a\nworld phenomenon, and it is the result of one thing, the exploitation of\ncoal.\n\nIt is in the abuse of this very coal, on which all manufacturing and\ntransport depends, that the most obvious wrong has been done to\nhumanity. The first condition of human happiness to-day is to be found\nin the abolition or sufficient abatement of smoke, so keeping our skins\nand clothes clean.\n\nThis is all on Ruskin\u2019s lines; very central to the preservation of all\nhe loved. How pervasive was this enemy he did not fully see fifty years\nago. He noted the deterioration of climate in England, during his\nlifetime, in two lectures on _The Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth\nCentury_. They were much derided at the time; and they contain curious\npassages in which the lack of light, the restless ugly clouds, the\nchoppy breezes, the cold gloomy summers, were put down to the wrath of\nheaven for the sins of the people. They had in fact one simple\nexplanation--Smoke. A man of Ruskin\u2019s power of perception, constantly\nadmiring beauty of landscape, could hardly have been wrong in his\nimpression, fortified by his diaries, that there had been a change for\nthe worse in the air and skies during his lifetime. The production of\nmanufacturing smoke over a third (say) of England covered that period.\nOver all our coal fields solid particles embarrassed the air currents,\nand darkened the sky, and the oily products adhered stickily to the\nclouds and to the rain. The weather was, in truth, nature\u2019s punishment\nfor the haste, the greed, the popular carelessness, which tolerated the\nfactory and furnace chimneys, and the ill-regulated firesides of\nthirty-five millions of people in the British Isles.[118]\n\nCoal ought not to be burnt raw, any more than meat should be eaten raw.\nIt should be made into gas, coke, tar and sulphate of ammonia--and all\nof it be used. A smokeless domestic fuel made of half coked coal could\nbe made in all gas works, and should be used everywhere, to economize\nour now costly coal. Electric power stations, smokelessly operated,\nwould save much wasteful private production of power. More rigid and\nconscientious smoke inspection, abandoned as unpatriotic on a short view\nduring the war, should be restored. The law should be amended and its\nloopholes fastened up.[119] There are many beautiful inventions ready to\nbe used to make an end of this most gratuitous of our evils, which\nrenders life in the industrial districts dark, dirty and ugly to the\nbest and cleanest of the workpeople. Most municipalities in England\nimpose an extra rate on those who use gas and electricity by taking\nmoney for the rates from those departments.\n\nWe condemn the town cottage housewife to ceaseless toil, with her dirty\ndoorstep and window sills, her kitchen floor, her children who play in\nthe street, and her intolerably swollen laundry. The glorious light of\nthe country summer is never seen through the smoke haze of the\nindustrial districts. Look down any long straight town street on any\nday, and note the limit of visibility. Fogs are often caused and always\naggravated and prolonged by smoke--and after every long fog the death\nrate from lung diseases goes steeply up. Among the many signs of\ngovernment incompetence, of narrow popular apathy, and lack of a true\npolitical sense, the present riotous licence of the makers of smoke is\nconspicuous. And the reform is all on Ruskin\u2019s lines.\n\nAfter dirt, drink. They are not unconnected; for the dull grey street,\nthe worried wife, the ill-tempered children, all tend to tempt a man to\nthe cosy blaze of the bar-room, and to the excitement of a shilling on\nthe next race. Men and women will make life interesting somehow, and if\nthey are denied the sound pleasures appropriate to their natures they\nwill find others.[120]\n\nWe will now hear the Prophet on our machine civilization. The passages\nare in the famous chapter on _The Nature of Gothic_ in the Second Volume\nof _The Stones of Venice_ \u00a7\u00a7 XI, XII, XIII and others. These passages\nare among Ruskin\u2019s earliest social writing. He was led from the\nexamination of the characters of Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance\narchitecture, to inquire into the character of their builders; and so\nwas led from Art to Man as the subject matter of his life-work. This is\nan important transition passage, written about 1850, ten years before\nthe decisive year when he became an economist always and an Art\nProfessor at intervals.\n\n\u00a7 XI. \u201cThe modern English mind ... intensely desires in all things, the\nutmost completion or perfection compatible with their nature. This is a\nnoble character in the abstract, but becomes ignoble when it causes us\nto forget the relative dignities of that nature itself, and to prefer\nthe perfectness of the lower nature to the imperfection of the higher;\nnot considering that, as judged by such a rule, all the brute animals\nwould be preferable to man because more perfect in their functions and\nkind, and yet are always held inferior to him, so also in the works of\nman, those which are more perfect in their kind are always inferior to\nthose which are, in their nature, liable to more faults and\nshortcomings. For the finer the nature the more flaws it will show\nthrough the clearness of it; and it is a law of this Universe, that the\nbest things shall be seldomest seen in their best form. The wild grass\ngrows well and strongly, one year with another; but the wheat is,\naccording to the greater nobleness of its nature, liable to the bitterer\nblight. And therefore, while in all things that we see or do, we are to\ndesire perfection, and strive for it, we are nevertheless not to set the\nmeaner thing, in its narrow accomplishment, above the nobler thing, in\nits mighty progress; not to esteem smooth minuteness above shattered\nmajesty, not to prefer mean victory to honourable defeat; not to lower\nthe level of our aim, that we may the more surely enjoy the complacency\nof success. But, above all, in our dealings with the souls of other men,\nwe are to take care how we check, by severe requirement or narrow\ncaution, efforts which might otherwise lead to a noble issue; and, still\nmore, how we withhold our admiration from great excellences, because\nthey are mingled with rough faults. Now, in the make and nature of every\nman, however rude or simple, whom we employ in manual labour, there are\nsome powers for better things: some tardy imagination, torpid capacity\nof emotion, tottering steps of thought, there are, even at the worst;\nand in most cases it is all our own fault that they _are_ tardy or\ntorpid. But they cannot be strengthened, unless we are content to take\nthem in their feebleness, and unless we prize and honour them in their\nimperfection above the best and most perfect manual skill. And this is\nwhat we have to do with all labourers; to look for the thoughtful part\nof them, and get that out of them, whatever we lose for it, whatever\nfaults or errors we are obliged to take with it. For the best that is in\nthem cannot manifest itself, but in company with much error. Understand\nthis clearly: You can teach a man to draw a straight line, and to cut\none; to strike a curved line and to carve it; and to copy and carve any\nnumber of given lines or forms, with admirable speed and perfect\nprecision; and you find his work perfect of its kind: but if you ask him\nto think about any of those forms, to consider if he cannot find any\nbetter in his own head, he stops; his execution becomes hesitating; he\nthinks, and ten to one he thinks wrong; ten to one he makes a mistake in\nthe first touch he gives to his work as a thinking being. But you have\nmade a man of him for all that. He was only a machine before, an\nanimated tool.\u201d\n\n\u00a7 XII. \u201cAnd observe, you are put to stern choice in this matter. You\nmust either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him. You cannot\nmake both. Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to\nbe precise and perfect in all their actions. If you will have that\nprecision out of them, and make their fingers measure degrees like cog\nwheels, and their arms strike curves like compasses, you must unhumanize\nthem. All the energy of their spirits must be given to make cogs and\ncompasses of themselves. All their attention and strength must go to the\naccomplishment of the mean act. The eye of the soul must be bent upon\nthe finger point, and the soul\u2019s force must fill all the invisible\nnerves that guide it, ten hours a day, that it may not err from its\nsteely precision, and so soul and sight be worn away, and the whole\nhuman being be lost at last--a heap of sawdust, so far as its\nintellectual work in this world is concerned; saved only by its Heart,\nwhich cannot go into the form of cogs and compasses, but expands, after\nthe ten hours are over, into fireside humanity. On the other hand if you\nwill make a man of the working creature, you cannot make a tool. Let him\nbut begin to imagine, to think, to try to do anything worth doing; and\nthe engine-turned precision is lost at once. Out come all his roughness,\nall his dulness, all his incapability; shame upon shame, failure upon\nfailure, pause after pause: but out comes the whole majesty of him also;\nand we know the height of it only when we see the clouds settling upon\nhim. And whether the clouds be bright or dark, there will be\ntransfiguration behind and within them.\u201d\n\n\u00a7 XIII. \u201cAnd, now, reader, look around this English room of yours, about\nwhich you have been proud so often, because the work of it was so good\nand strong, and the ornaments so finished. Examine again all those\naccurate mouldings, and perfect polishings, and unerring adjustments of\nthe seasoned wood and tempered steel. Many a time you have exulted over\nthem, and thought how great England was, because her slightest work was\ndone so thoroughly. Alas! if read rightly, these perfectnesses are signs\nof a slavery in our England a thousand times more bitter and more\ndegrading than that of the scourged African or helot Greek. Men may be\nbeaten, chained, tormented, yoked like cattle, slaughtered like summer\nflies, and yet remain, in one sense, and the best sense, free. But to\nsmother their souls within them, to blight and hew into rotting\npollards, the suckling branches of their human intelligence, to make the\nflesh and skin, which after the worm\u2019s work on it, is to see God, into\nleathern thongs to yoke machinery with--this it is to be slave masters\nindeed; and there might be more freedom in England, though her feudal\nlords\u2019 lightest words were worth men\u2019s lives, and though the blood of\nthe vexed husbandman dropped in the furrows of her fields, than there is\nwhile the animation of her multitudes is sent like fuel to feed the\nfactory smoke, and the strength of them is given daily to be wasted into\nthe fineness of a web, or racked into the exactness of a line.\u201d\n\n\u00a7 XV. \u201d ...It is not that men are ill fed, but that they have no\npleasure in the work by which they make their bread, and therefore look\nto wealth as the only means of pleasure. It is not that men are pained\nby the scorn of the upper classes, but they cannot endure their own; for\nthey feel that the kind of labour to which they are condemned is verily\na degrading one, and makes them less than men.... In all ages and in all\ncountries reverence has been paid and sacrifice made by men to each\nother, not only without complaint but rejoicingly; and famine and peril\nand sword and all evil and all shame have been borne willingly in the\ncauses of masters and kings; for all these gifts of the heart ennobled\nthe men who gave, not less than the men who received them, and nature\nprompted and God rewarded the sacrifice. But to feel their souls\nwithering within them, unthanked, to find their whole being sunk into an\nunrecognized abyss, to be counted off into a heap of mechanism, numbered\nwith its wheels, and weighted with its hammer strokes--this nature bade\nnot--this God blesses not--this humanity for no long time is able to\nendure.\u201d\n\n\u00a7 XVI. \u201cWe have much studied, and much perfected, of late, the great\ncivilized invention of the Division of Labour; only we give it a false\nname. It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided; but the\nmen:--Divided into mere segments of men--broken into small fragments and\ncrumbs of life; so that all the little piece of intelligence that is\nleft in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts\nitself in making the point of a pin or the head of a nail. Now it is a\ngood and desirable thing, truly, to make many pins in a day; but if we\ncould only see with what crystal sand their points were polished,--sand\nof human soul, much to be magnified before it can be discussed what it\nis--we should think there might be some loss in it also. And the great\ncry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than their\nfurnace blast, is all in very deed for this--that we manufacture\neverything there except men--we blanch cotton and strengthen steel and\nrefine sugar and shape pottery--but to brighten, to strengthen, to\nrefine or to reform a single living spirit, never enters into our\nestimate of advantages. And all the evil to which that cry is urging our\nmyriads can be met only ... by a right understanding on the part of all\nclasses, of what kinds of labour are good for men, raising them, and\nmaking them happy; by a determined sacrifice of such convenience or\nbeauty or cheapness as is to be got only by the degradation of the\nworkman, and by equally determined demand for the products and results\nof healthy and ennobling labour.\u201d\n\n\u00a7 XVII. \u201cAnd how, it will be asked, are these products to be recognized,\nand this demand to be regulated? Easily: by the observance of three\nbroad and simple rules:\n\n\u201c1. Never encourage the manufacture of any article not absolutely\nnecessary, in the production of which Invention has no share.\n\n\u201c2. Never demand an exact finish for its own sake, but only for some\npractical or noble end.\n\n\u201c3. Never encourage imitation or copying of any kind, except for the\nsake of preserving records of great works.\u201d\n\nThis magnificent passage, central as to Ruskin\u2019s teaching and very\ntypical of the literary power with which his spirit was armed, is\nprobably of more value as a principle than as a specific cure. We can\nwithout great difficulty obey this three precepts, and do some good\nthereby. We can avoid mere meretricious glory of finish; we can choose\nour purchases so as to favour originality, when we are buying articles\nin gold or silver or glass or bronze or leather or porcelain or wood;\nbut the great mass of the evil remains untouched. How are we to\ncultivate invention when we buy a mackintosh, or a pair of boots, or\ncommon crockery, or pens and paper--and even in an article so full of\ninventions as a bicycle, the invention is not due to the mechanic who\nmakes it. We are not really carried much beyond the \u00e6sthetic furnishings\nof our existence. So far, however, the advice is excellent and human; it\nis likely to lead persons of moderate means to prefer the products of\nSwitzerland or Japan, hand made and invented, to the machine products of\nBirmingham.\n\nThere must be always a measure of tedious soul killing work to be done;\nand few entirely escape it. Our professions, as well as our trades, let\nalone manual occupations, do us some harm, narrow our outlook, make us\npeculiar. I am told that even teachers can be recognized as such, and\nthe weighty medical manner is well known. You can neither serve behind a\ncounter nor occupy a pulpit without some of the manner of it becoming\npart of yourself. Even so, the day labourer suffers from the lack of\nintelligence he is called upon for. We must all find the balance outside\nour work. By the reasonable shortening of hours, even the dull routine\nlabourer may have a chance of exercising his faculties as a man. The\nfact that labour is specialized and monotonous constitutes the proper\nphysiological reason for the eight hour-day or shorter hours still in\nsome trades. Moreover, to do the dull rough work of the world, there is\nno denying that there are annually born a certain number of dull but\nstrong people, whose gifts lie in the absence of thinking. They are born\ninto all classes, unfortunately; but born they are. But Ruskin is fully\nalive to this solution of the ultimate difficulty, and frequently\nalludes to it.\n\n\u201cIt is in the wholesome indisposition of the average mind for\nintellectual labour that due provision is made for the quantity of dull\nwork which must be done in stubbing the Thornaby wastes of the\nworld.\u201d[121]\n\n\u201cI have said ... that the rough and worthless may be set to the roughest\nand foulest work, and the finest to the finest; the rough and rude work\nbeing, you will in time perceive, the best of charities to the rough and\nrude people.\u201d[122]\n\nMoreover, a measure of routine labour is good, as recreation, for us\nall--it is a relief from thinking, planning, inventing. Good spade and\nhatchet work, if only one can perspire enough over it, is a condition of\ngood work in higher ways. Ruskin thinks so too, and set the Oxford\nundergraduates to their famous road-making for exercise; surely the\ngreatest academic triumph a professor ever achieved.\n\nRuskin\u2019s attack on Machinery, when carefully read, applies only to steam\nmachinery, with its soot, smoke, sulphurous gases and noise. Wind or\nwater power he allows and encourages; a vast scheme of mills worked by\ntidal water power is outlined in _Fors_.[123] And oddly enough he\nprophesies, so long ago, that electricity will supersede steam; and\ntherefore if we can generate electrical energy with very much less\npublicly vomited smoke than we now make for steam power, we shall be on\nright lines, and shall have the Master\u2019s goodwill. Not by vain\nretrogression, but by determined reforms on possible lines may we some\nday get back an England good to live in. At present we are wasteful and\ndirty, and we do not care.\n\nRuskin writes: \u201cWhat is required of the members of St. George\u2019s Company\nis, not that they should never travel by railroads, nor that they\nshould abjure machinery, but that they should never travel\nunnecessarily, or in wanton haste; and that they should never do with a\nmachine what can be done with hands and arms, while hands and arms are\nidle.\u201d[124]\n\nThere is no subject which causes more merriment amongst the Philistines\nthan Ruskin\u2019s objection to railways, combined with the frequent\nlocomotion indulged in by his most devoted followers. But Ruskin\u2019s\nobjection to railways was never so absolute as was popularly supposed.\nHe always approved of them on through main routes, and only objected to\ntheir intrusion into the peace of quiet valleys off the main tracks. He\nobjected to what appeared to him the excessive provision by which a\nlovely valley was spoiled \u201cin order that every fool in Buxton could be\nin Bakewell in half an hour.\u201d We must remember that the railway mania of\n1844 occurred when Ruskin was five and twenty, at the formative period\nof his life, and that he saw all around him rough destruction of that\nbeauty which affected his soul with a thrill like a lover\u2019s (as he tells\nus in the Third Volume of _Modern Painters_, pages 295-298, quoted in\nChapter I). The countryside must have been sadly ruined in the forties,\nwhile the railway embankments were creeping along through the pastures.\n\nPossibly not all of us know the remarkable passage in the _Cestus of\nAglaia_ in praise of a locomotive:[125]\n\n\u201cI cannot express the amazed awe, the crushed humility, with which I\nsometimes watch a locomotive take its breath at a railway station, and\nthink what work there is in its bars and wheels, and what manner of men\nthey must be who dig brown ironstone out of the ground, and forge it\ninto that! What assemblage of accurate and mighty faculties in them;\nmore than fleshly power over melting crag and coiling fire, fettered,\nand finessed at last into the precision of watchmaking; Titanian\nhammer-strokes beating, out of lava, these glittering cylinders and\ntimely-respondent valves, and fine ribbed rods, which touch each other\nas a serpent writhes, in noiseless gliding, and omnipotence of grasp;\ninfinitely complex anatomy of active steel, compared with which the\nskeleton of a living creature would seem, to a careless observer, clumsy\nand vile--a mere morbid secretion and phosphatous drop of flesh! What\nwould the men who thought out this--who beat it out, who touched it\ninto its polished calm of power, who set it to its appointed task, and\ntriumphantly saw it fulfil this task to the utmost of their will, feel\nor think about this weak hand of mine, timidly leading a little stain of\nshadow of something else--mere failure in every motion, and endless\ndisappointment; what, I repeat, would these Iron-dominant Genii think of\nme? and what ought I to think of them?\n\n\u201cBut as I reach this point of reverence, the unreasonable thing is sure\nto give a shriek as of a thousand unanimous vultures, which leaves me\nshuddering in real physical pain for some half minute following; and\nassures me, during slow recovery, that a people which can endure such\nfluting and piping among them is not likely soon to have its modest ear\npleased by aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song. Perhaps I am then led\non into meditation respecting the spiritual nature of the Tenth Muse,\nwho invented this gracious instrument, and guides its modulation by\nstokers\u2019 fingers; meditation, also, as to the influence of her invention\namidst the other parts of the Parnassian melody of English education.\u201d\n\nHe further concedes that \u201csteam, or any mode of heat power, may only be\nemployed, justifiably, under extreme or special conditions of need; and\nfor speed on main lines of communication, and raising water from great\ndepths, or other such work beyond human strength.\u201d This is a very large\nconcession, and may be received with large gratitude. He even permits\nsteam machinery for such purposes as \u201cthe deepening of large river\nchannels; changing the surfaces of mountainous districts; irrigating\ntracts of desert in the torrid zone; breaking up and thus rendering\ncapable of quicker fusion, edges of ice in the northern and southern\nArctic seas, etc., so rendering parts of the earth habitable, which\nhitherto have been lifeless.\u201d[126]\n\nThe teaching of Ruskin is not really revolutionary in immediate\npractice; he advises a manufacturer to go on using his machinery; he\nmerely wants us to set our faces towards the restoration of nature\u2019s\ngifts of beauty and peace to the lives of toilers; and for ceasing to\nuproot sentiments of cleanliness, reverence and order by unnatural,\nfoul, crowded and vulgar surroundings. His tastes and instincts are\nvehemently against machinery; but his actual requirings are moderate.\n\nIt is the machine-made society we live in that distresses him, and\ndistresses us; its occasional rough coarseness, its physical ill-health.\nThere are, of course, scattered through _Fors_ many outbursts against\nmachinery in general, not so carefully limited as his more weighty\npronouncements. In Letter V, pp. 10, 11, for instance, the assertion is\nmade that a man and his family can, by their own labour, given land,\nfeed and clothe themselves without machinery; and that therefore all\nlabour-saving appliances are so many aids to idleness. I do not know\nwhere is the proof or disproof of the assertion. All we know is that\nsavage tribes do so live, but no others, and that it is in the time and\nstrength saved from labour for sheer food and clothing that the best\nactivities of humanity find room: and that civilization began with the\nexistence of a leisured class.\n\nAnd now, turning to the human product of industrialism, we will take a\nsober view, not debiting to the factory system the evils which are\ninherent in human nature, but only those due to crowded town life and to\nemployment in large rooms full of noisy machinery. If we have cured the\nsmoke evil, and reduced hours to their present reasonable length, what\nremains to be done, and will it be on Ruskin\u2019s lines?\n\nSouth Lancashire is often taken as the type of industrial England. There\nI was born and brought up, and I have lived there for the greater part\nof my life. I have known very intimately a great many of the working\npeople. They are far more pale and undersized than they ought to be.\nTheir beauty has been taken from them. The half-time system, now\nperishing, has interfered with their education. The damp atmosphere in\nthe hot rooms is bad for their lungs, and minding machines is utterly\nmonotonous. But they are excellent people--they will stand comparison\nwith the upper classes. There is every type, of course, they are as\nvaried as are men at the Universities, or as the ladies who go to any\nChurch. But, speaking as we must, in general, there is a level of\nconduct and intelligence in those mean streets, not different except in\nmanner from that of the suburbs. The degeneracy is, I believe, only\nphysical, so far as it is to be debited to the conditions of their work.\n\nThis bad physique is a real evil. The lack of room for cricket and\nfootball, the remoteness of the fields and woods, the ugliness of the\ngrey streets, the lack of quiet, added to the humid factories and the\nsmoke, have produced this. Parks and playgrounds and all sorts of open\nspaces, including extensive fields and woods and ponds accessible on a\nhalf-holiday, should be provided far more than they have been, and\nshould be less doctored by parks\u2019 superintendents.\n\nThen there is a great sphere of service open to the familiar agencies\nfor good. The Drink traffic should be curtailed, and put out of the\nreach of private profit, and better opportunities for sociability, music\nand dancing, provided, not as part of the bait of the drink seller, but\nby a democratic municipality. The usefulness of picture galleries will\nnot be fully reached till oral teaching about the pictures is added, and\nthe great educational value of comparatively cheap coloured\nreproductions is perceived. Into the work of founding the Art Museum in\nAncoats, a working class district of Manchester, on exactly these lines,\nMr. Ruskin threw himself heartily. It was indeed an inspiration derived\nfrom his writings by Mr. T. C. Horsfall which caused that Museum to be\nfounded. It has recently been taken over by the Corporation.\n\nSolemnly, then, and with due fear and doubt, considering the horror and\ndifficulty of the case, let us resolutely set ourselves to see if, under\nthe world of machinery, we can live good and healthy lives. The present\nproducts of our civilization are far from satisfactory to any of us. Are\nthe crowds of girls who rush forth from the factory when the hour of\nfreedom strikes, having pieced threads in a hot damp atmosphere, and\nshouted across the whirl of wheels all day to one another--are they on\nthe way to make fit, self-respecting and physically strong wives and\nmothers and trainers of children? There are some three hundred thousand\nof these girls in the Lancashire factories, who will be mothers of a\nmillion English babies. Or take the young men. Go by a football train on\na Saturday afternoon, when holiday is written on every bloomless and\nvulgar and swaggering young face:--what do you hear and see as you crowd\nfifteen to a carriage? Bets, ribaldry, ill nature, the carriage floor a\nmess, the whole scene an explosion of pent-up spirits of self-assertion\nand banal hilarity.[127]\n\nThese young people are undoubtedly products of the age of machinery; but\nfor machine production they would never have been born, nor their\nsurroundings formed; but the question is, cannot their tastes and\ncharacters be reformed even while they remain machine-hands? Are not\nexcellent lives possible, and healthy surroundings obtainable, in\nindustrial England? For factory life we can confidently point to such.\nBournville, New Earswick, Port Sunlight, and of an earlier date,\nSaltaire, Bessbrook, and some other centres which have not a special\nlocal name, show that the thing can be done. For colliers the case is\nharder. There are colliery villages on the Tyne which once ran extension\nlectures; but the villages themselves are horrible. There are good\ncolliery villages near Doncaster, one built round a private Park.\nCollieries have special difficulties. The coal mine will not last for\never; and when it is worked out the houses may become useless. They are\ntherefore built to last only for from thirty to fifty years. They are\nerected all at one time; and large rows of houses exactly alike are the\ncheapest. They are often outside any municipality with its possibly\nwatchful surveyor and inspectors. They are completely owned by the\ncolliery company, which has no competitor as landlord. It is the classic\ncase in England of the failure of pure competition to care for human\nwelfare.\n\n\n\n\n_EPILOGUE_\n\n\nI am kindly permitted by the Council of the Society for Psychical\nResearch to reprint here the beautiful tribute by F. W. H. Myers, which\nappeared in their _Journal_ for March, 1900; and has been reprinted in\nMr. Myers\u2019s _Fragments of Prose and Poetry_, pp. 89-94.\n\n    \u03a9 \u03bf\u1f57\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, \u03bf\u1f57\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, \u039f\u03af\u03b4\u03af\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2, \u03c4\u03af \u03bc\u03ad\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\n    \u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03bd; \u03c0\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u1f20 \u03c4\u03ac\u03c0\u1f40 \u03c3\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b2\u03c1\u03b1\u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\n\nRuskin, then, has sunk to rest. The bracken and bilberries of the\nLake-land which he loved so well have hidden the mortal shape of the\ngreatest man of letters, the loftiest influence which earth still\nretained;--have enwrapped \u201cthe man dear to the Muses, and by the Nymphs\nnot unbeloved\"--\n\n    \u03c4\u1f40\u03bd \u039c\u03ce\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03d5\u03af\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1, \u03c4\u1f40\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50 \u039d\u1f50\u03bc\u03d5\u03b1\u03af\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f00\u03c0\u03b5\u03f0\u03b8\u1fc6\n\nWe may rejoice that the long waiting is over; but memory all the more\n\u201cgoes slipping back to that delightful time\u201d when he was with us in his\nforce and fire; when it was still granted to hearken to his utterance;\nto feel the germ of virtue quickened by his benignant soul. For those\nwho had the privilege of knowing Ruskin, the author came second to the\nman; and in this brief notice of his Honorary Membership of our Society\nI may perhaps be pardoned if I dwell in reminiscence, without attempting\nany formal review.\n\nI met him first in my own earliest home, beneath the spurs of\nSkiddaw,--its long slopes \u201cbronzed with deepest radiance,\u201d as the boy\nWordsworth had seen them long since in even such an evening\u2019s glow.\nSince early morning Ruskin had lain and wandered in the folds and\nhollows of the hill; and he came back grave as from a solemn service\nfrom day-long gazing on the heather and the blue. Later came many\nanother scene;--pacings in the Old Court of Trinity with Edmund Gurney,\nwho met those generous paradoxes with humorous play; graver hours at\nOxford, in the sick-room of the Duke of Albany, who, coming back to\nearth-life from perilous illness, found nowhere a guidance fitter than\nRuskin\u2019s for eager and royal youth.\n\nBut chiefliest I think of him in that home of high thoughts where his\ninterest in our inquiry first upgrew. For the introduction to the new\nhope came to him, as to Edmund Gurney and to myself, through a lady whom\neach of us held in equal honour; and it was on the stately lawns of\nBroadlands, and in that air as of Sabbatical repose, that Ruskin enjoyed\nhis one brief season,--since the failure of his youthful Christian\nconfidence--of blissful trust in the Unseen. To one among that company a\nvision came, as of a longed-for meeting of souls beloved in heaven, a\nvision whose detail and symbolism carried conviction to Ruskin\u2019s heart.\nWhile that conviction abode with him he was happy as a child; but\npresently he suffered what all are like to suffer who do not keep their\nminds close pressed to actual evidence by continuous study. That impress\nfaded; and leaving the unseen world in its old sad uncertainty, he went\nback to the mission which was laid on him,--that mission of humanizing\nthis earth, and being humanized thereby, which our race must needs\naccomplish, whatever be the last doom of man.\n\n    Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;\n    Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind;\n    And even with something of a Mother\u2019s mind\n          And no unworthy aim,\n          The homely Nurse doth all she can\n    To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,\n          Forget the glories he hath known,\n    And that imperial palace whence he came.\n\nBut Ruskin\u2019s task,--however it might be pursued in forgetfulness of that\nunrememberable home,--was surely still the task (as Bacon called it) \u201cto\nprepare and adorn the bride-chamber of the mind and the universe\u201d; and\nthat _melior natura_ which seemed to be Ruskin\u2019s, as it was Bacon\u2019s,\ndivinity has never shone more radiantly upon the inward shrine of any\nlover of men. It was half in jest that I would complain to him that to\nEarth he gave up what was meant for Infinity, and bent a cosmic passion\nupon this round wet pebble of rock and sea. \u201cAh, my friend!\u201d he answered\nonce when I spoke of life to come, \u201cif you could only give me fifty\nyears longer of this life on earth, I would ask for nothing more!\u201d And\nhalf that season was granted to him, and all in vain;--for what Tithonus\nmay tread for ever unweary the \u201cgleaming halls of Morn\u201d?\n\nThen as that fervent life wore on, Ruskin turned more and more from the\noutward pageant to the human passion; from Alp and sunset to the sterner\nbeauty of moral law. From the publication of _Unto This Last_, one may\ntrace that slow-growing revolt against the Age which led him to preach\nin the end with such despairing emphasis the duty of protest, of\nrenunciation, of sheer self-severance from most of the tendencies of\nmodern life. The strength of this emotion in him was made, I remember,\nstrangely plain on one occasion, when some of those who cared most for\nhim had clubbed together, at Lord Mount-Temple\u2019s suggestion, to surprise\nhim, on his recovery from a serious illness, with the present of a\npicture of Turner\u2019s, which he had once possessed and still dearly loved,\nbut of which he had despoiled himself to meet some generous impulse.\nNever were givers more taken aback by the issue of their gift. For the\nsudden sight of the lovely landscape hung in his bedroom drew from him a\nletter of almost heart-broken pain,--at the thought that those whom he\nwould so fain have helped,--who were thus willing to do this thing, or\nalmost anything, to please him,--were yet not willing to do that other\nthing for their own souls\u2019 sake;--to come out from the iniquity,--to\nshake off the baseness of the age,--to bind themselves in the St.\nGeorge\u2019s Guild with that small remnant who clung to things pure and\ntrue.\n\nIndeed, there was something na\u00efve, something childlike, in his\nBrotherhoods, his Leagues, his solemn Covenants against the onflowing\ntide of things;--but a stern reality beneath all this became strongly\npresent to us then;--a deep compassion for the lonely heart, which so\nmuch needed love, yet could scarcely accept a fellowship in love which\nwas not also a fellowship in all that he held for virtue.\n\nThere are some who fear lest too pervading a belief in that other world\nmay make men indifferent to the loveliness and irresponsive to the woes\nof _this_. Yet must that needs be so? or might we not treat even this\nworld\u2019s problems with steadier heart, could we regain,--from some surer\nfoothold in the Invisible,--that ancient serenity of the Saints?\nWatching that ardent soul, whose very raptures trembled on the brink of\npain, I have thought that even from Ruskin\u2019s delight in Nature something\nof a bitter yearning might have been soothed away, could he have seen in\nstream and moorland, nay even in\n\n          great Skiddaw\u2019s self, who shrouds\n    His double head among Atlantic clouds,\n    And pours forth streams more sweet than Castaly;--\n\ncould he have seen, I say, in these, as Plato saw in Castaly or in\nHymettus, only the transitory adumbration and perishing symbol of\nsomewhat more enduring and more fair. Nay, even from his compassion for\nstunted and erring souls might not the burning pain have gone, could he\nhave seen those souls as Er the Paphlagonian saw them, marshalled in an\neverlasting order, of which but a moment\u2019s glimpse is shown;--till even\n\u201cthis last\u201d of men shall follow out, through all vicissitude, his\nendless and his mounting way?\n\nAnd turning then, with heart full of such-like fancies, to that\nwell-loved Leader\u2019s fate;--imagining his baffled isolation, and the\ndisheartenment of solitary years;--I have pictured him waiting in the\nConiston woodlands, as \u0152dipus in Colonus\u2019 grove,--waiting in mournful\nmemory, in uncomplaining calm--till he should hear at last the august\nsummons,--nay, sounded it not like the loving banter?--of the unguessed\naccompanying God. \u201cCome, \u0152dipus, why linger on our journey? Thou hast\nkept me waiting long.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\nAbbey Dale, land at, 163\n\nAlexander, Francesca, 52\n\nAncoats Art Museum, 255\n\nAristocracy, 135, 142\n\nArtistical Pharisaism, 70\n\nAssisi, 48\n\nAuthority in Religion, 67\n\n\nBacon on Usury, 189, 197\n\nBaker, George, 74, 163\n\nBaptism, 66\n\nBastiat, 189, 190\n\nBeever, Miss, 50, 52\n\nBequest limited, 188, 189\n\nBible not the word of God, 62;\n  on Usury, 194, 196\n\nBishop of Manchester, 201, 202\n\nBishops, 60, 61, 141, 142\n\nBreaking the Sabbath, 31\n\nBroadlands, 48, 261\n\nBuilders\u2019 Parliament, 155, 156\n\n\nCapitalists and War, 203\n\n_Cestus of Aglaia_, quoted on locomotive, 250, 251\n\nChrist\u2019s sheep, 65, 67\n\nChurch, 64;\n  discipline, 68\n\nClaughton, land at, 163\n\nClergy, 55-61, 138\n\nCoal, 233\n\nCoinage under St. George, 166\n\nCole, Mr. G. H. D., 152, 157, 158\n\nCommunist colonies, 133\n\nCompetition allowed, 140\n\n_Crown of Wild Olive_, Lecture on War analysed, 204-210;\n  Appendix to, quoted, 210-213\n\n\nDemocracy, 158\n\nDivision of labour, 227-230\n\nDoukhobors, 133, 199\n\nDuke, 142\n\nDull work, 246-248\n\n\n_Eagle\u2019s Nest_, quoted from, 41, 42, 67, 74\n\n_Ethics of the Dust_, 63\n\n\nFactory System, 136\n\nFarming, 226, 227\n\nFawcett, Mrs., 189\n\n_Fors Clavigera_, quoted _passim_, 131-132;\n  passages on War, 214-218\n\nFranco-German War, 204, 215, 216, 218\n\nFriar\u2019s Crag, 27\n\n\nGarden Cities and Villages, 173, 257\n\nGiotto at Assisi, 48\n\n_Gold_, 85\n\nGuild of St. George, 23;\n  _General Statement of_, quoted, 64, 65;\n  fifty years ago, 159;\n  Creed of, 161, 162;\n  land holding, 163;\n  annual meetings, 164;\n  officials, 178, 179, 263\n\nGuild Socialism, 139, 151-156\n\nGuilds, 122, 124, 139\n\n\nHorsfall, T. C., 255\n\n\nIndividualism, 148, 149\n\nIndustrial society, 253, 254, 256\n\nInfallibility, 24\n\nInterest, bound up with private property, 187\n\nIrreligious painters at Venice, 32\n\n\nLabour, 126\n\nLady Mount Temple, 49\n\nLand cultivation, 170\n\nLand tenure, 137;\n  in Ireland, 174\n\nLaw of supply and demand, 92\n\nLawyers\u2019 fees, 61\n\n_Lectures on Art_, quoted from, 46, 47\n\n_Letters to the Clergy_, 66\n\nLocomotive, praise of, 250, 251\n\nLord Mount Temple, 48, 263\n\n_Love\u2019s Meinie_, quoted, 172\n\nLuxmore, H. E., 164\n\n\nMachinery, 230-232\n\nMarriages in _Time and Tide_, 169\n\nMarshall, Prof., quoted, 93-98\n\nMill, J. S., 37, 78-119;\n  _Principles_, 86, 87;\n  chapters on social well-being, 88, 98-102;\n  his career, like Ruskin\u2019s, 102-105\n\nMilner, Dennis, 183, 184\n\n_Modern Painters_, Vol. II, 34;\n  Vol. III, quoted, 68-71\n\nMr. Molyneux, 29\n\n_Munera Pulveris_, quoted, 89, 128, 159, 185, 203\n\nMuseum at Sheffield, 164, 172\n\nMyers, F. W. H., 49, 52, 259\n\n\nNationalization of Schools, 120;\n  of workshops, 121;\n  of Railways, 124\n\n_Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds_, 35;\n  quoted, 59, 60, 62, 64, 65-68\n\n\nOaths, 73\n\nOld Age Pensions, 123\n\n_On the Old Road_, quoted, 51, 64, 66\n\n\nParents of Ruskin, 26, 27\n\nPastoral happiness, 222-225\n\nPayment of Clergy, 68\n\nPeasantry in Europe, 224;\n  in England, 225\n\nPlato, 138, 197\n\nPolitical Economy, orthodox science of, 78-81;\n  Theory of Value, 82;\n  connection with morality, 82;\n  Ruskin\u2019s definition of, 89;\n  the \u201ceconomic man,\u201d 106-109;\n  definition of Wealth, 109, 110\n\nPopulation, 137\n\nPosition of William, 189-193\n\nPrayer Books, 66\n\nPresent duty of a Ruskinian, 179, 180\n\nPriesthood, 57, 62\n\nProdigal Son, 29\n\nProfessional men as officials, 180-182\n\n\nQuakerism and Ruskin, 71-77\n\n_Queen of the Air_, quoted from, 43-45\n\n\nRailways, 249-252\n\nReligious art, 68\n\nRents under St. George, 167\n\nRicardo, 86, 91\n\nRich, 115, 116\n\nRose La Touche, 38, 261\n\nRUSKIN--\n  Aristocrat, 159\n  Art teaching, 10\n  Attack on clergy, 55-61\n  Career like Mill\u2019s, 102-105\n  Conservative, 222\n  Definition of wealth, 115\n  Divine, A, 19, 21\n  Epochs of religious change, 31, 32, 47-50;\n    at Venice in 1876, 50\n  Free trader, 83, 84\n  Guild of St. George, 165\n  Imperialist, 209, 220\n  Inconsistency, on war, 210-212\n  Inflammation of the brain, 23\n  Later views on Usury, 185, 187, 188\n  Mature period in religion, 47\n  Mill (and), 78-119\n  Museum, 164\n  Neglect of, 9\n  Peace advocate, 219\n  Political Economy of, 89, 117\n  Practical proposals, 120-150\n  Professor, 178\n  Quakerism, 55-77\n  Qualifications of, 15\n  Religious history, 26-54\n  Religious Research Fellowship, 53\n  Sacrifice of reputation, 17, 22, 37\n  Selflessness of, 13, 14\n  Signs of a Prophet, 11-25\n  Sincerity of, 12\n  Singlemindedness of, 13\n  Socialist, 134\n  Style of, 18\n  Subjects of works, 18\n  Suffering, 38\n  Susceptible to landscape beauty in childhood, 11, 20\n  Talk on Quakerism, 74-76\n  Three Religious Periods, 36\n  Twenty-six chapters, 26, 40\n  Utopia, 132, 143, 147\n  War, 73\n  Weaknesses, 24\n\n\nSacrament, 66\n\n_Sartor Resartus_, 206\n\nSchools, 120, 175-178\n\n_Sesame and Lilies_, quoted, 101\n\nShakers, 133\n\nShakespeare, 46\n\nShepherds in practice, 226\n\nSillar, W. C., 185, 186\n\nSmall Holdings, 171, 172\n\nSmoke, 234-236;\n  passages in Ruskin on, 237\n\nSociety for Psychical Research, 49\n\nSparkes, Malcolm, 155, 157\n\nStarvation, to be guarded against, 182-184\n\nStatesmen in the North, 223, 224\n\nSteam machinery, 248\n\n_Stones of Venice_, quoted, 83, 113, 237-245\n\n_Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century_, 234\n\nSweated Industries Act, 128\n\n\nTalbot, Mrs., 163\n\n_The Nature of Gothic_, quoted, 237-245\n\nThomson, George, 164\n\n_Time and Tide_, quoted, 84, 137, 139, 142, 147, 169, 175, 201\n\n\nUnemployed, the, 122\n\n_Unto this Last_, quoted, 84, 88, 91, 113-118, 120, 121, 124, 125, 139\n\nUsury, 185-199;\n  references to, 193;\n  authorities against, 194-197;\n  as private money-lending, 198;\n  as modern investment, 197, 198\n\n\nViolence, 143\n\nVivisection, 46\n\n\nWages, 124-127, 129, 130\n\nWages Fund, 86, 87, 126, 127\n\nWallace, A. R., 182\n\nWaldensian Service at Turin, 31\n\nWar, 136, 203-221;\n  and capital, 203;\n  and character, 212-214\n\nWardle, William, 164\n\nWealth, definition of, 109, 110, 113, 114;\n  Ruskin\u2019s definition, 115;\n  upper limit to, 135, 168, 199-201\n\nWelfare work, 173, 174\n\nWesley, John, on Usury, 197, 198\n\nWhitley Councils, 154, 156\n\nWord of God, 63\n\nWorks of the First Religious Period, 28, 35\n\nWorks of the Second Religious Period, 39\n\nWorkshops, 121;\n  by Government, 121, 122;\n  under Guilds, 122, 124\n\n_Printed in Great Britain by_\n\nUNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n [1] Chap. xiv. \u00a7 19.\n\n [2] _Fors_, Letter LXXXVI.\n\n [3] _Rugby Chapel_, by M. Arnold.\n\n [4] The passages were: Exod. xv, xx; 2 Sam. i. 17; 1 Kings viii; Ps.\n xxiii, xxxii, xc, xci, ciii, cxii, cxix, cxxxix; Prov. ii, iii, viii,\n xii; Is. lviii; Matt. v, vi, vii; Acts xxvi; 1 Cor. xiii, xv; James\n iv; Rev. v, vi. See _Pr\u00e6terita_ for all this.\n\n [5] For his actual experience of prayer, see the incident of 1845 in\n _Pr\u00e6terita_, vol. ii. pp. 260, 261.\n\n [6] _Pr\u00e6terita_, iii. 28.\n\n [7] _Pr\u00e6terita_, III. i. 32-34. Also referred to in _Munera Pulveris_,\n App. V.\n\n [8] _Pr\u00e6terita_, vol. iii. p. 39.\n\n [9] Id. p. 41.\n\n [10] Id. p. 48.\n\n [11] _Pr\u00e6terita_, vol. iii. pp. 44-6. _Fors_, Letter LXXVI.\n\n [12] _Fors_, Letter LXXVI.\n\n [13] Letter XII, p. 3.\n\n [14] Notably in the address and Turner drawing presented by\n distinguished men on his 80th birthday.\n\n [15] _Fors_, Letter XLII.\n\n [16] Pp. 189-190.\n\n [17] _Lectures on Art_, p. 50.\n\n [18] _Lectures on Art_, p. 52.\n\n [19] See _Fors_, LXXVI, March 1877, vol. iv. p. 69.\n\n [20] See Epilogue.\n\n [21] Letter LXIII, vol. vi. p. 89.\n\n [22] _Fors_, Letter LXI, p. 7, note.\n\n [23] See also _Fors_, Letter LXVI, vol. vi. p. 172.\n\n [24] _On the Old Road_, vol. ii. p. 388.\n\n [25] _Fors_, XCII, 1883.\n\n [26] Id. XCII, vol. viii. p. 205.\n\n [27] This reference is known to refer chiefly to Francesca Alexander\n and her mother at Florence. Not improbably, also, to the Misses Beever\n at Coniston.\n\n [28] Letter XLIX.\n\n [29] Letter LV.\n\n [30] _Fors_, Letter LXXV, \u00a7 21. Notes and Correspondence.\n\n [31] _Time and Tide_, p. 71.\n\n [32] _Sheepfolds_, p. 269.\n\n [33] _Fors_, Letter XXXI, \u00a7 18, and also Letter LXVII, \u00a7 10.\n\n [34] _Sheepfolds_, p. 271.\n\n [35] _Fors_, Letter XXXV, \u00a7 3.\n\n [36] See also _Fors_, Letter LXV and Letter XLIV, also Letter XL for\n an amusing account of the edifying Bible story of Joab and Abner; and\n very numerous other passages.\n\n [37] _Fors_, Letter XXXVI, \u00a7 3.\n\n [38] _On the Old Road_, vol. ii. p. 253.\n\n [39] _General Statement as to the Nature and Purpose of the St.\n George\u2019s Guild_, p. 12, 1882.\n\n [40] _Sheepfolds_: in _On the Old Road_, vol. ii. p. 259.\n\n [41] _Sheepfolds_, p. 259.\n\n [42] _Sheepfolds_, p. 267.\n\n [43] _Sheepfolds_, p. 283.\n\n [44] _Modern Painters_, vol. iii. p. 57 (iv. 4) (1856).\n\n [45] _Crown of Wild Olive_, Introduction, p. 17.\n\n [46] _Fors_, Letter XX.\n\n [47] _Eagle\u2019s Nest_, p. 139.\n\n [48] _Unto This Last_, Libr. ed. \u00a7 53, _n._, small ed. p. 97, and\n _Stones of Venice_, iii. 168. This last passage was written just after\n the Repeal of the Corn Laws, when the question was hot.\n\n [49] _Time and Tide_, Letter I, p. 5.\n\n [50] _Unto This Last_, p. 97 _n._\n\n [51] See the privately printed Dialogue on _Gold_; Library ed. vol.\n xvii. p. 491, written in 1863, and the letter to _The Times_, on p.\n 489.\n\n [52] _Unto This Last_, Libr. ed. \u00a7 58, small ed. pp. 109, 110.\n\n [53] _Unto This Last_, \u00a7 60, small ed. p. 114.\n\n [54] _Unto This Last_, Libr. ed. \u00a7 55, small ed. p. 103. See also \u00a7 1.\n\n [55] Letter to Dr. John Brown, Libr. ed. vol. xvii. p. lxxxii.\n\n [56] Note to _A Disciple of Plato_, by Wm. Smart, p. 48, Libr. ed.,\n xviii, lxxxiii.\n\n [57] _Principles of Economics_, Bk. I. chap. vii. \u00a7 3.\n\n [58] Book iv. \u00a7 28.\n\n [59] _Sesame and Lilies_, i. 42.\n\n [60] _Unsettled Questions of Political Economy_, Essay V, 1884, and\n earlier in the _Westminster Review_.\n\n [61] _Unto This Last_, small ed. p. 114.\n\n [62] _Unto This Last_, \u00a7\u00a7 61-64, Libr. ed.; small ed. pp. 118-127.\n\n [63] _Unto This Last_, \u00a7 65, or p. 128.\n\n [64] _Unto This Last_, \u00a7 27, or p. 40.\n\n [65] _Unto This Last_, \u00a7 29, or pp. 43, 44.\n\n [66] See in continuation of this the Apologue of the two sailors:\n _Unto This Last_, pp. 49-57 or \u00a7 33-7.\n\n [67] _Unto This Last_, Libr. ed. \u00a7 28, or pp. 41, 42 in small ed.\n\n [68] _Unto This Last_, \u00a7 77, or p. 156.\n\n [69] _Unto this Last_, Preface, p. 7.\n\n [70] By Graham Wallas, in his book with that title. See later in this\n chapter on Ruskin\u2019s Bishops, p. 141.\n\n [71] _Unto This Last_, \u00a7 79, n.\n\n [72] _Munera Pulveris_, \u00a7 128.\n\n [73] _Unto This Last_, \u00a7 53, small ed. pp. 96-8.\n\n [74] Malthus.\n\n [75] Ricardo and James Mill.\n\n [76] Ruskin\u2019s disciple, the late Professor Wm. Smart of Glasgow, has\n written a book to show that there may be no supply price to wages.\n\n [77] See _Arrows of the Chace_, ii. 97.\n\n [78] John Ruskin, _Social Reformer_, p. 138.\n\n [79] _Time and Tide_, Letter XX, \u00a7 124.\n\n [80] _Fors_, LXXXIX, p. 135. But _v._ pp. 182-4 below.\n\n [81] Letter XVIII.\n\n [82] _Time and Tide_, p. 19.\n\n [83] The literature of the Guild movement is considerable and growing.\n Mr. G. H. D. Cole has written _The World of Labour_, _Labour in War\n Time_, _Self Government in Industry_, _Labour in the Commonwealth_,\n and _Chaos and Order in Industry_, and edits _The Guildsman_ (office\n of the National Guilds League, 39 Cursitor Street, London, E.C. 4).\n Mr. A. R. Orage has written _National Guilds_, _The Alphabet of\n Economics_, and written much in his paper, _The New Age_; and Mr. S.\n G. Hobson has written _National Guilds_.\n\n [84] For a full account of this remarkable story see a pamphlet issued\n by the Garton Foundation, 36 Dean\u2019s Yard, Westminster, 1s., entitled\n _The Industrial Council for the Building Industry_.\n\n [85] \u00a7 129-133, and also _Time and Tide_, \u00a7 105; _Crown of Wild\n Olive_, \u00a7 119; _Cestus of Aglaia_, \u00a7 55.\n\n [86] See _Fors_, vol. viii. p. 231.\n\n [87] _Fors_, Letter LVIII, vol. v. p. 273.\n\n [88] Cf. the Preface to _Unto This Last_, referred to in chap. v.\n above.\n\n [89] See _Fors_, Letters LVIII and LXIII.\n\n [90] _The Wonderful Century_, chap. xx.\n\n [91] _A Reasonable Revolution_, by Bertram Pickard (George Allen &\n Unwin, Ltd.).\n\n [92] P. 115.\n\n [93] In pamphlets enumerated in Libr. ed. vol. xvii. p. 220, _n_.\n\n [94] See _The Ethics of Usury and Interest_, by Rev. W. Blissard\n (George Allen & Unwin), 2s. 6d. net.\n\n [95] The numbers which are devoted to lengthy treatment of Usury are:\n Letters I, XVIII, p. 17, XXI, pp. 15-18, XLIII, pp. 153-7, LIII,\n 142-5, LXVIII, 245-53, LXX, 312-33, LXXVIII and LXXX, and _Arrows of\n the Chace_, ii. 103. There is also a long discussion on the subject\n with Bishop Fraser of Manchester in _On the Old Road_, vol. ii. pp.\n 202-245, reprinted from the _Contemporary Review_.\n\n [96] See list in Libr. edn. vol. xxvii. Introd. p. xlvii.\n\n [97] _Time and Tide_, pp. 12, 13, small ed.\n\n [98] Preface to _Munera Pulveris_, p. xxvi.\n\n [99] \u00a7 94.\n\n [100] \u00a7 98.\n\n [101] \u00a7 102.\n\n [102] \u00a7 115.\n\n [103] \u00a7 116.\n\n [104] Sir Herbert Edwardes.\n\n [105] LXXIV, vol. vii. p. 42.\n\n [106] LXXIV, vol. vii. p. 42.\n\n [107] Vol. vii. p. 344.\n\n [108] Letter II, p. 17.\n\n [109] _Fors Clavigera_, vol. i. Letter IV, p. 18.\n\n [110] Letter VII, p. 16.\n\n [111] Letter VII, p. 21. See also Letter XIV, p. 18.\n\n [112] Letter XXXIII, p. 24. See also Letter XXXVII, pp. 19-23. LXV, p.\n 148. LXVII, p. 240. LXXIX, p. 183.\n\n [113] XLIV, p. 178.\n\n [114] See also _Munera Pulveris_, p. 46.\n\n [115] \u00a7 159.\n\n [116] _Hawkshead_, by H. S. Cowper.\n\n [117] v. _The Rural Labourer_, by Mr. and Mrs. Hammond.\n\n [118] This explanation of the Storm Cloud I gave in my book on Smoke,\n _The Destruction of Daylight_ (1907, now out of print). It was\n accepted by the Editors of the Library Edition of Ruskin\u2019s works. Vol.\n xxxiv. p. xxvi.\n\n [119] A Local Government Board Departmental Committee was sitting on\n this before the war. It has resumed its sittings under the Ministry of\n Health.\n\n [120] Other passages on Smoke may be found in _Fors_, Letter XLIV,\n \u00a7 13; Letter XLVI, \u00a7 10; Letter LX, \u00a7 3; Letter LXXXI, \u00a7 17 (in a\n letter from Mr. Horsfall); in a youthful reference in _The Poetry of\n Architecture_, chap. v. \u00a7 63; _Modern Painters_, vol. iii. chap. 13. \u00a7\n 14; vol. v. pt. ix. \u00a7 24; _The Queen of the Air_, Preface (a beautiful\n passage) and I. 8; _Ariadne Florentina_, vi. \u00a7 221; S. Mark\u2019s Rest,\n vi. \u00a7 76; _The Art of England_, vi. \u00a7 184 (a strong passage); _Aratra\n Pentelici_, iv. \u00a7 132; _Arrows of the Chace_, ii. p. 181; Letter\n printed in Library ed., vol. xxix. pp. 574-6, called \u201cMorning Thoughts\n at Geneva,\u201d intended for _Fors_.\n\n [121] _Fors_, XCV, vol. viii. p. 258.\n\n [122] Id., LXXXXII, vol. vii. p. 306. A similar solution is outlined\n in Letter XVIII of _Time and Tide_.\n\n [123] Letter LI, p. 85.\n\n [124] _Fors_, Letter XLIV.\n\n [125] Library ed. vol. xix. p. 61.\n\n [126] _Munera Pulveris_, i. p. 16.\n\n [127] _Fors_, xi. pp. 3-7, on the navvies on the way to Furness Abbey.\n\n\nTypographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:\n\ngathering hinself into=> gathering himself into {pg 30}\n\nfrom other notives=> from other motives {pg 80}\n\nwere comparativelty uninstructed=> were comparatively uninstructed {pg\n169}","title":"The Harvest of Ruskin","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":53814}