{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_66101/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_66101","id":"gutenberg_66101","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66101","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Social ethics","Social sciences"],"text":"Note: Images of the original pages are available through\n      Internet Archive. See\n      https://archive.org/details/ploughsharepruni00hous\n\n\n\n\n\nPLOUGHSHARE AND PRUNING-HOOK\n\nTen Lectures on Social Subjects\n\nby\n\nLAURENCE HOUSMAN\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Swarthmore Press Ltd.\n(formerly trading as Headley Bros. Publishers Ltd.)\n72 Oxford Street, London, W1\n\nFirst Printed September, 1919\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThese papers, originally given as lectures, make no pretence to the\nsolution of the social or political problems with which they are\nconcerned. They indicate rather a certain standpoint or attitude of\nmind from which these and like questions may be viewed, one which may\nfind acceptance with only a few of my readers. Even those who are\nfriendly may consider it too idealistic; those who are adverse will\nemploy other and harder terms.\n\nWith regard to that standpoint, while not wishing to avert criticism,\nI would like to secure understanding; and if a few words of general\napplication can make that more possible it may be well to offer them\nhere.\n\nWhether these lectures were primarily intended for the pulpit or\nthe platform it would be hard to say. Most of them have been given\nin both places: and their drawback to some who heard them in the\nformer was (I have been told) their occasional tendency to make the\ncongregation laugh. That in itself is no special recommendation; it\ntakes so much less to make a congregation laugh than an audience.\nBetween the pulpit and the platform there is bound to be a difference;\neven the fact that the preacher is normally immune from interjection\nor debate tends to give to his statements a complacency which is not\nalways intellectually justified. And I remember well that two of these\nlectures, after having been accepted in a church with only momentary\nbreaches of decorum, aroused elsewhere a storm of criticism and rebuke\nwhich taught me, if I did not know it before, that a preacher occupies\na very privileged position, and can turn a church, if he chooses, into\na place of licence which elsewhere will not be accorded him.\n\nBut there is one point of difference between the pulpit and the\nplatform, between the exposition of religion and politics, which I\nhave never been able to understand. After all, in both cases, you\nare dealing with and making your appeal to human nature; you may\nbe inciting it to virtue, you may be exposing its imperfections\nand its faults. Why is it, then, that in the religious appeal\n\u201cconversion\u201d--change of heart--stands for almost everything, whilst on\nthe political platform it is hardly reckoned with? It is so much easier\nand safer to tell a congregation that they are \u201cmiserable sinners,\u201d and\neven to get them (perhaps conventionally) to say it of themselves, than\nto tell it, or to extract a like confession from a political audience.\nIn a church we allow ourselves to be taken to task for \u201chardness of\nheart and contempt of God\u2019s word and commandments\u201d; at a political\nmeeting it is only our opponents whom we so take to task, while of\nourselves and our party we have nothing but praise. It is on these\nlines that a general election is run--revivalist meetings are held\nthroughout the country to denounce, not our own sins, but the sins of\nothers. Is it any wonder that it does not produce honest results?\n\nHaving said this, I have given the main standpoint of the papers\nthat follow. I do not believe that we can get home to our political\nand social problems without self-accusation going quite as deep as\nanything we say of ourselves in church or chapel--or without making\nthe application very direct and personal. There is no institution\nin our midst, religious or secular, which does not stand quite as\nmuch in need of conversion, change of heart, as do the individuals\nfor whose benefit or disciplinary treatment it is run. Our schools,\nprisons, law courts, State institutions, ministries, diplomacies--all\nthose things on which we most pride ourselves--are just as liable,\nperhaps more liable, to hardness of heart and contempt of God\u2019s word\nand commandments as we ourselves, for they are all part of us. It\nis, indeed, one of our social devices to get rid of our consciences\nby making them institutional. There is a certain class of mind which\nthinks that if it has established legality it has established a right\nover conscience--that if it has established order it has established\nvirtue. It has very often established quite the contrary--not virtue\nbut a State-regulation of vice; for if we can turn the hardness of our\nhearts into a State-regulation, there we have vice enthroned; and\nthe callousness of the individual is enlarged and becomes a national\ncallousness, all the more difficult to get rid of, because it has\nbecome identified with law and authority.\n\nA very good (or bad) example of this was provided by the conduct of\nthe Bishops in the House of Lords a few years ago, when, to provide\nthe Government with a short cut out of its difficulties in dealing\nwith political prisoners (mainly caused by its refusal to treat them\nas political prisoners) they allowed the rules of the House to be\nsuspended for the passing through all its stages in twenty-four hours\nof the \u201cCat and Mouse Act.\u201d Before long its operations horrified\nthem, and they signed (or some of them did) letters and memorials of\nprotest to the Government, asking for those operations to be stopped.\nBut not one of them would make a motion in the House of Lords for\nthe suspension or repeal of that Act for which, in so special a way,\nthey had made themselves responsible. By allowing it to become law\nthey had passed on the responsibility to others; and being thus quit\nof it, the last thing probably that occurred to any of them was that\nthey themselves needed \u201ca change of heart\u201d in order to recover moral\nintegrity, or even political honesty.\n\nAnd so, in these pages, law and authority are just as much questioned\nas any other of our social features, on the direct assumption that\nlike produces like, and that a form of society which establishes,\nencourages, or condones as \u201cnecessary\u201d such defilements of human\nnature as militarism, prostitution, sweated labour, slum-dwellings,\nvengeful and unreformative punishment--having its heart so hardened as\nto tolerate these--is not likely in its institutions and government\ndepartments to have escaped from a reproduction of that attitude of\nmind which makes them possible or regards them as a defensible solution\nof the social problem.\n\nThe war has revealed much to us. It has shown how much society is\nwilling to afford for things which it considers worth while; and has\nthus shown by implication those things which formerly society did not\nthink worth while--because its heart was not in them. It has had the\nheart to spend colossal sums, to conscript millions of young lives to\ndeath in defence of its organisation upon the lines of power against\na rival organisation willing to pay a similar price. It had not the\nheart, in the days of peace and prosperity, to spend one-hundredth part\nof that sum in organising even those institutions which it entirely\ncontrolled, on the lines of love.\n\nIn our own midst, behind our sea-defences, we were still competitive,\njealous, grudging, parsimonious, wasteful, slow to mercy and of great\nanger; and the prevailing characteristic of our civil contentions was\nthat no side would ever admit itself to be in the wrong, or consent\nto think that a change of its own heart was necessary. And as the\nvery crown and apex to that mountain of self-deception, stood the\nministerial bench in Parliament. When blunders had been perpetrated and\nbecame too obvious for concealment, we might occasionally be told that\nto make mistakes was human, and that government did not claim immunity\nfrom the operation of that law; but ministers would dodge, and shuffle,\nand lie--suppress, or even falsify information to which only they had\naccess, rather than admit that they had \u201cdone wrong,\u201d or open their\neyes to the fact that what they mainly needed was a change of heart.\n\nAnd as with ministers as a whole, so as a whole with people. Those\nelements of our national and international relations which were leading\nsteadily on to the great conflagration wherein we were all presently\nto be involved, were those in which (our pride being implicated) we\nstubbornly denied that any change of heart was necessary. The State\nwould not admit that its exaltation of the Will to Power over the Will\nto Love was morally wrong; it would not admit that the alternative\ncame within the scope of practical politics; such teaching it left\nto the advocacy of the Churches; and how half-hearted that advocacy\nhad become under pressure of the surrounding atmosphere of national\nself-sufficiency was revealed when the war came upon us. Christianity\nbecame almost mute; the one form of prayer, special to the occasion,\nwhich the Church could not or would not use was that which alone is\ntruly Christian--prayer in identical terms both for ourselves and our\nenemies. To pray that spiritual strength and moral virtue might be\ngiven equally to us and them was beyond us--though in the granting of\nit war would have ceased. We were not content to pray merely that right\nshould prevail--right, that most difficult of all outcomes to secure\nwhen once, even for a just cause, nations embark on war--we insisted on\npraying that we should prevail: and so (praying for things materially\nestablished) not that we should prevail by a clean adherence to the\nprinciples of democracy, but by the instrumentality of a corrupt and\nsecret diplomacy. And so before long--knowingly or unknowingly--we were\npraying for the success of the secret treaties, for the successful\nrepudiation of the very principles for which we had set out to\nfight, for the suppression of Ireland\u2019s right to self-determination,\nfor the downfall of the Russian Revolution, which was insisting so\ninconveniently on a belated return to first principles, and for other\ndoubtful advantages not at all synonymous with the coming of Christ\u2019s\nKingdom. And we were praying for these things--just as really, though\nwe did not mention them by name--because our hearts were not set\non praying for the well-being of all nations and all governments\nalike. Had we been capable of so praying, it would have meant that a\nreal change of heart had come to us, and that we were offering that\nchanged heart to all the world alike for the establishment of the new\nInternational.\n\nBut to such change of heart we could not attain--could not even\nconsent; for it would have implied that there was something morally\nwrong in our national institutions, in our government and our whole\nsocial structure, which we would not admit. We would not admit that the\nchemic elements of our own national life had conduced to war in common\nwith the chemic elements of the nation whose flagrant violation of\ntreaties had given us the immediate materials for a good conscience. We\nfattened our hearts for war on the immediate material thus provided us,\nignoring those other materials which lay behind, and which we and all\nother nations shared alike--though not necessarily in equal degrees.\n\nAnd here we have the essential and fundamental difference between the\ngenuine profession of Christianity and the profession of C\u00e6sarism.\nFor the follower of Christ to confess that he has done wrong, that he\nneeds a change of heart, redounds to his honour--he goes down to his\nhouse justified. But when a nation has given itself to C\u00e6sar, its main\nidea of \u201chonour\u201d is to refuse to admit it has done wrong, or to accept\npunishment; it may be beaten, crushed, but you cannot extract from it\na confession of moral wrong-doing; a sense of sin is the negation not\nonly of the German State system, but of all. A \u201cproud nation\u201d will not\nown that it has been in the wrong, least of all when it embarks on war;\nif it did it would go down to its house in dust.\n\nNow that being, as I see it, the moral product of C\u00e6sarism, in all its\ndegrees and kinds--whether autocratic or democratic C\u00e6sarism--of the\nsetting up of the Will to Power over the Will to Love--it follows that\nthe change of heart which I predicate in these pages for the solution\nof our social and international problems, is almost a Tolstoian\nnegation of the principle upon which the modern state system stands. As\nsuch, it will be very unwelcome to many of my readers; but I hope that,\nas here set down, I have made my standpoint plain. The ploughshare and\nthe pruning-hook are not mine to wield; I only point in the direction\nwhere I think they are to be found.\n\nL. H.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n                                          PAGE\nGreat Possessions                            1\n\nCrime and Punishment                        26\n\nChristianity a Danger to the State          48\n\nThe Salt of the Earth                       63\n\nThe Rights of Majorities                    85\n\nDiscreditable Conduct                      109\n\nWhat is Womanly?                           135\n\nUse and Ornament                           157\n\nArt and Citizenship                        189\n\nConscious and Unconscious Immortality      218\n\n\n\n\nGREAT POSSESSIONS\n\n(1913)\n\n\n\u201cYou never know yourself,\u201d says Thomas Traherne, \u201ctill you know more\nthan your own body. The Image of God was not seated in the features of\nyour face but in the lineaments of your soul. In the knowledge of your\npowers, inclinations, and principles, the knowledge of yourself chiefly\nconsisteth.... The world is but a little centre in comparison of you\n... like a gentleman\u2019s house to one that is travelling, it is a long\ntime before you come unto it--you pass it in an instant--and you leave\nit for ever. The omnipresence and eternity of God are your fellows and\ncompanions. Your understanding comprehends the world like the dust of a\nbalance, measures Heaven with a span, and esteems a thousand years but\nas one day.\u201d\n\nTo this statement of man\u2019s comprehensive powers, a further one might\nlegitimately be added: You shall never know delight, till you delight\nin more than your own body.\n\nMan\u2019s body being the crucible wherein such vast things come to be\ntested, \u201cEternal Delights are,\u201d says Traherne, in a further passage,\n\u201cits only fit enjoyment.\u201d\n\nHis doctrine is remarkable in this, that while he tends to see in\neverything a spiritual significance, and almost refuses to find beauty\nin externals alone, he insists, nevertheless, that man was sent into\nthe world to enjoy himself, to stretch out for new acquisitions with\nall his faculties, and take to himself great possessions. He regards\neven the base and material form of conquest, expressed in endless\ncovetousness and fierce desire for possession, rather as a lower\ntype of what man should do and be, than of what he should not. Man\u2019s\nfaculties were given him so that he might be divinely unsatisfied, ever\nseeking more, ever assimilating more--regarding this earth not as a\nvale of misery or a source of temptation, but as a very Paradise and\nthe true gate by which Heaven is to be attained and entered. \u201cIt is,\nindeed,\u201d he writes, \u201cthe beautiful frontispiece of Eternity, the Temple\nof God, and the Palace of His Children.\u201d\n\nIn this respect Traherne\u2019s teaching is remarkably like the teaching of\nWilliam Blake, who regarded the mere outwardness of things as nothing\nin comparison with their real inwardness, and yet was insistent that\nhere and now the spirit of delight and energy and enjoyment was the\ntrue and undefiled way of life.\n\nBut this revolt against the monastic asceticism of the middle ages\nstands far removed from any implication of sensual indulgence.\n\n\u201cMy mind to me a kingdom is,\u201d wrote one of our poets. \u201cThe kingdom of\nHeaven is within you\u201d gives in more scriptural phrase precisely the\nsame truth; and for its application to the conduct of life we have\nthis further scripture: \u201cLay not up for yourselves treasure on earth\nwhere moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and\nsteal, but lay up for yourselves treasure in Heaven where neither moth\nnor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through and steal.\u201d\n\nAnd if it be a true boast that man\u2019s mind is his real and legitimate\nkingdom, then he must make that kingdom his Heaven, and within that\nkingdom his treasure must be stored. It is there, by the power of\nhis mind more than by the power of his hands, that he must gather\nand hold together his great possessions. We are accustomed to speak\nin one single connection (with book-knowledge, namely, and with the\nuse of words)--of \u201clearning things by heart.\u201d It is only \u201cby heart\u201d\nthat we can ever really learn anything; only when our heart is in it\ndo we know and value a thing so as to understand it. The man whose\nheart is not in his work is not a complete craftsman; he has not yet\nlearned the \u201cmystery\u201d of his trade. When men\u2019s hearts were in their\nwork they called their trades \u201cmysteries,\u201d and did, as a consequence,\nmore excellently than we do now, when we make rather for the price of a\nthing than for the joy of it.\n\nUntil we have joy in our labour, all labour is a form of waste--for it\nwastes the bodies and souls which are put to it, and is destructive\nof the most wonderful and valuable commodity which this planet has yet\nproduced--human nature. Labour without joy causes it to deteriorate;\nand if a man is put to work wherein it is impossible to find joy, then\nit were better for the wealth of the nation, as well as for the wealth\nof his own individual soul, that he should be free from it.\n\nAnd if that is impossible then let us not boast ourselves about our\n\u201cnational wealth\u201d or our great possessions. Nations whose wealth\nand industries are built up out of the hard and grinding mechanical\nlabour of millions are not capable in any true sense of holding\ngreat possessions, for at their very root is an enormous mass of\npoverty--impoverished blood, impoverished brain, and impoverished\nspirit.\n\nIf you would examine into the wealth of this or any other nation, look\nnot first at its temples or its arts, but into the bodies and minds\nand characters--and the faculty for joy--of its men and women. And\nif these, in the majority of cases, are below par, then the nation\u2019s\nwealth is below par also; its great possessions are overshadowed by the\ngreater dispossession which stands imposed upon the lives of its people.\n\nThe word possession itself has, in our use of it, a double\nsignificance. When we speak of a man \u201chaving a possession,\u201d we may mean\ntwo things--either that he possesses, or else that he is possessed. A\nman with a possession of jealousy, or hatred, lust or covetousness,\nhas no real possession or control of those things, but is himself\npossessed or controlled by them, and so is rendered not stronger but\nweaker--subject to a master other than himself.\n\nYet the man who is thus possessed is not conscious of any diminution\nof his individuality, any reduction of personal power or prowess: he\ndoes not discern from it any closing in of that round horizon to which\nfirst his spirit was heir. For that by which he is possessed fills him\nwith such a pressure of emotion--its dynamic forces within him are so\nstrong, that he may actually imagine his personality to be thereby not\ndiminished but enlarged, and may (by reason of the violence with which\nthis distemper discharges itself on others) be cheated into the belief\nthat thus he secures for himself a broader base, raising his life to a\nhigher level of consciousness, instead of what actually is the truth,\nturning it to consumption and waste--not opening his senses to new joys\nbut shutting them in; sharpening them indeed like teeth, but closing\nthem together with springs made not for expansion but for contraction,\nso that they act like a trap destructive of the very life they would\ncontrol. And as with individual men, so with nations.\n\n\u201cWould you know a man,\u201d said the Greek oracle, \u201cgive him power.\u201d But\nthat, though sure as a test of others, is no sure means for enabling a\nman to know himself. Power all down the ages has been the arch-deceiver\nof mankind. Power which has set itself on great possessions has\nbrought disinheritance to the human race. We do not know what humanity\nmight be--how fair, how lovely, and of what good report--that great\nbeatific vision is still hidden from our eyes--mainly because we\nhave interpreted power in terms of possession; and, forcing others\nto go without, in order that we ourselves may possess, we stand\nto-day immeasurably poorer and weaker than we should have been had we\ninterpreted our power and our possessions differently.\n\nFor centuries of time (so long, indeed, as history records anything)\nthe leading nations of the world have gone out to conquer other nations\nand to possess them. And how have they done so?--mainly by depriving\nthem of their liberty, by reducing their power of initiative, by\nundermining and warping their racial characteristics. How much has\nnot that impoverished the history of the world and the real wealth of\nnations? For people living in subservience or subjection, accepting and\nnot rebelling against it, breed less nobly as a consequence--they fail,\nthen, to produce great minds or to express themselves greatly in the\narts. Their life-potency is diminished; and we, holding them upon those\nterms, are owners of a property which we squander by our very mode of\npossessing it.\n\nQuite as much of the art, the literature and the philosophy of the\ngreatest periods of civilisation has been wiped out and destroyed\nbeyond recovery by these possessive struggles of the past as has\nbeen hazardously preserved and passed down to us through interludes\nof peace; nor have we any cause to think that in the future we shall\nbe any wiser while our views as to possession show so little change.\nAnd that loss in beautiful production is but the symbol, the outward\nand visible sign of a loss immensely more great in flesh and blood\nand spirit, which has gone on--not only while wars were waged, but\nwhen (war being ended) dominance over the conquered was imposed as a\ncondition of peace. Every nation that has made itself materially great\non these terms, has done so on a _d\u00e9bris_ of perished loveliness which\ndoes not reach its full amount in the hour of the victors\u2019 triumph; but\ngoes on accumulating till that also which caused it is brought to the\ndust.\n\nIt is many years, for instance, since we conquered India; and in so\nfar as our dominion has saved it from other conquests and wars of\nnative State against State, and creed against creed, our rule may\nhave been beneficial--though I do not think that we ought to take our\nown word for it, or indeed anyone\u2019s word except that of the native\ncommunities themselves and a native press, free and unfettered for\nthe giving or the withholding of its testimonial. But one thing we\nassuredly have done: we have gone on steadily destroying the native\narts and \u201cmysteries,\u201d and substituting for them our own baser code of\ncommercialism and capitalised industry. And in so far as we have done\nthis we have not possessed ourselves, but have dispossessed ourselves\nof the real beauties and values of Indian civilization; and, for the\nsake of trade-profit to our merchants and manufacturers, we hold in our\nhand a poorer India in consequence, and are the poorer possessors of it.\n\nAll that poverty--poverty of invention, poverty of craft--is the\nproduct of a false ideal of possession, false to human nature, because\nquite obviously a cause of deterioration to those visible proofs of\nman\u2019s well-being--the joyous labour of his hand and brain.\n\nSet against the witness of all that misguidance of the past that\nwise and lovely saying of Christ, so unlikely in its first seeming:\n\u201cBlessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth.\u201d At first\nit sounds so improbable--so contrary to all we know of man\u2019s long\nstruggle for existence up to date. And yet, (however much we must\nstill qualify the possession of the meek upon earth) still more must\nwe qualify the possession of the overbearing and the proud, when we\nrealise what true possession should be. A modern writer has described\nwar as \u201cthe great illusion,\u201d and has set himself to show that all\nthose advantages at which the State aims when it turns to military\noperations, become as dust in the balance if compared to the real\ncost in treasure which war entails even for those who are nominally\nthe victors. And war is only one form or aspect of that great strife\nfor possession which has afflicted every race in its progress from\nthe cradle to the grave--merely a larger and more apparent version of\nthe conflict between folly and wisdom which goes on in every human\nbreast. Possession is the great illusion through which man physically\nor intellectually strong seeks to secure power, and succeeds only in\nsecuring weakness--not only for himself but for others.\n\nFor you cannot test strength truthfully without relation to its\nsurroundings. A tower built upon foundations that shift and give way\nunder its weight is not strong, however formidably it has been reared,\nor however closely its windows are grated and barred. Its very bulk\nand weight may help to bring about its fall. Similarly any strength of\ndespotism or government which is reared up and depends for its stay\nupon the weakness of others is a mere apparition of power. Here to-day,\nit is gone to-morrow when those upon whose subjection it rested have\ndiscovered a strength of their own--or, because of their weakness, have\nfailed in its support.\n\nTrue possession can only be had in relation and in proportion to the\nself-possession of others; the man who reduces the self-possession of\nothers never adds to his own; and where self-possession is absent, no\nreal or strength-giving possession remains possible.\n\n\u201cWhat shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his\nown soul,\u201d is one of those profound messages of wisdom which have\nbeen obscured by the theological gloss laid upon them. Instead of the\nimmediate and practical condemnation of here and now, the hypothetical\ncondemnation to loss in a future life has been substituted, and our\nspiritual preceptors have not concentrated upon making clear to us how,\nhere and now, possession of the whole world (in any material sense)\ndoes actually tend to destroy soul.\n\nThe possessive outlook, in its very inception, sets a limit to the\nsprings of spiritual growth or action, and to that \u201cperfect freedom\u201d\nthe basis of which is service. But if \u201cservice is perfect freedom,\u201d\nthen \u201cdomination is perfect bondage,\u201d as much for those who impose as\nfor those who suffer it. For the man who domineers over his fellows\nreceives in his own soul the reflex or complementary part of that evil\neffect which he has on others. There is no act done by man to man which\nis not sacramental in its operation for good or ill; in all his deeds\nto his neighbours he both gives and receives, either for his own help\nor hindrance. Whosoever gives a blow receives one; and that blow may\nbe the heavier that is not returned in kind. He who does unkindness to\nothers is unkind to his own soul; he who diminishes the self-possession\nof others diminishes his own.\n\nYet possession--in the sense of realising each one for himself the\nwealth and enjoyment which life has to offer--is so deep an instinct,\nis so knit up with the adventurous and progressive spirit out of which\nthe higher human consciousness is built--that it is useless to turn\non man and say to him: \u201cPossess nothing--rid yourself of all joys, of\nall the delights of the senses and the understanding--so only shall\nyou attain to the heavenly stature.\u201d That doctrine has been preached\nin the past; and the squeals of Manichean hermits in the wilderness,\nand of monastic contortionists, denying to their senses the very\nground upon which they stood, has been its echoing chorus all down\nthe ages. Never were souls more horribly possessed than these fliers\nfrom possession; never were men more defeated in their warfare with\nthe thing they spurned. Like a tin tied to a dog\u2019s tail the more they\nran from it, the more the flesh afflicted them reminding them of its\nneglected claims. The loveliest and wisest of these medi\u00e6val sinners\nagainst the life which God had given them was brought by his own\ngospel of peace to a death-bed repentance which others did not attain\nto. \u201cBrother ass, I have been too hard upon thee,\u201d said St. Francis,\nturning with compunction at last to his much-wronged body, the one\nthing to which, in mistaken piety, he had denied either consideration\nor love. The single greed which ate up and destroyed the life of that\nlovely saint was a greed for mortification; and he died very literally\nof blood-poisoning, brought about by his own suicidal act, because\nhe willed too possessively to share the passion and sufferings of\nChrist--the death instead of the life.\n\nThat blood-poisoning of the medi\u00e6val saint\u2019s was a reaction, violent\nand unkind, against the wrongful version of possession which, in their\nday as in our own, was destroying the peaceful possibilities of human\nsociety.\n\nYet without a certain quality of possessiveness the human mind cannot\ngrow. Wordsworth pictures for us very beautifully that natural\npossessive element in its age of innocence.\n\n\n     Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,\n     A six year darling of a pigmy size!\n     See, where \u2019mid work of his own hand he lies,\n     Fretted by sallies of his mother\u2019s kisses,\n     With light upon him from his father\u2019s eyes!\n     See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,\n     Some fragment from his dream of human life,\n     Shaped by himself with newly-learn\u00e8d art;\n         A wedding or a festival,\n         A mourning or a funeral;\n         And this hath now his heart,\n         And unto this he frames his song.\n\n\nWith these mental possessions he is opening his mind to the coming\nconquests of life: as much to be conquered by its beauty as to conquer\nit. But what he gains from his appreciation of earth\u2019s loveliness\nbrings loss to none; in this extension of his mental horizon there is\nno shutting of others from a like view; this aspect of the dominion\nupon which he is now entering is communal, something illimitable, which\nall may share. Of possession acquired upon those terms we need never\nbe afraid. And it is a very real possession, far more real, as I shall\nhope presently to show, than any mere power to thwart, hinder, or\ncontrol the freedom of others, which is the form of possession at which\ntoo often man aims.\n\nLet us start, in order to realise this, with certain other experiments\nof childhood. Which child more truly \u201cpossesses\u201d the life of linnet\nor hedge-sparrow, making it in some measure his own: the child who\nstays quiet and disciplines himself to watch the bird at the building\nof its nest, the hatching of its eggs and the feeding of its young;\nor the child who puts an end to all that beauty and complexity of\nmotion by bringing down his bird with a stone? If he comes to tell\nothers of his experience, what alternatively is there for him to\ntell? In the one case only his own act of destruction, a thing done\nand brought to a dead end; in the other he has a dozen new things to\ntell of--discoveries made in a process of life which he has watched\nwith delight and knows still to be going on. From which of these\ntwo experiments does he draw the larger consciousness? Which of the\ntwo most peoples his world for him? Step by step as he advances he\nwill find how much, by interfering with the lives of others, he can\ndestroy, but how little he can build up; he can take hold of the\ndaddy-legs leg by leg and find that they all come off, and wonder\nperhaps at the zest with which that eager little martyr fulfils the\nwords of Scripture, \u201cIf thy foot offend thee cut it off and cast it\nfrom thee.\u201d But constant repetition of the experiment, though it may\ngive him an evil sense of power, will give him no variety, no real\nadvance in knowledge concerning the life, or the use and beauty of\nflies\u2019 legs. He will not treasure--to benefit by them--the legs that\nhe has pulled off, nor will his brain have stored anything but an\nadded sense of and liking for his own power to destroy. And so will\nit be with everything on which he experiments destructively. His\nknowledge and understanding of their nature will remain at a minimum.\nProgressing on these lines, he will for ever be making things cease to\nbe themselves without making them really his own. But if he reverse\nthat process of experiment by encouraging things to be themselves,\nhow varied and multitudinous will grow his consciousness of life,\nhis appreciation of its finer shades, its delicacy, its grace, its\nadaptability, its vigour and its freedom. If his interest is in birds,\nhow much more he will know of them, and find in them how much more of\nalertness and beauty, if he hang food for them outside his window,\nrather than cages for them within; if he will recognise that the beauty\nof a bird lies too largely in its wings, for caging to be anything but\na contradiction of its true existence. If his interest is in animals,\nhow far more he will learn of their resources and character, if he aims\nnot at cowing them and causing them to flee from him in fear, but at\nencouraging them in all genuine and characteristic development. That\ndoes not mean teaching them to \u201cperform\u201d in painful and artificial\nways--exploits which are always built up on processes of cruelty, and\ndo not in the least reveal animal nature as it really is but only\nimpose upon it a mask of concealment--anthropomorphic, full of conceit\nand self-flattery--the same fond thing which he did when he began\nmaking God also in his own image to worship it.\n\nThere, indeed, in man\u2019s shaping of God to be like himself, revengeful,\ndeceitful, pompous, inconsiderate, unmerciful, one-sided and masculine;\nin making Him, too, a performer of tricks, so that in those attributes\nhe might see himself reflected and stand enlarged in his own\neyes--surely there more than in any other department of life has man by\nhis foolish possessiveness brought to the human race poverty instead of\nwealth, a curse instead of a blessing.\n\nThat is but one example of how this narrow possessiveness with which\nman set out to conquer heaven and earth wears thin and poor under the\ntest of time, and leaves him in the end no standing monuments but just\na heap of rubble on which to gaze--only that, or perhaps less--perhaps\nonly desert sand.\n\nThat failure of material ambitions stands immortalised for us in\nShelley\u2019s \u201cOzymandias\u201d:\n\n\n     I met a traveller from an antique land,\n     Who said: \u201cTwo vast and trunkless legs of stone\n     Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,\n     Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown\n     And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command\n     Tell that its sculptor well those passions read\n     Which yet survive--stamped on these lifeless things--\n     The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed.\n     And on the pedestal these words appear:--\n     \u2018My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;\n     Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!\u2019\n     Nothing beside remains. Round the decay\n     Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,\n     The lone and level sands stretch far away!\u201d\n\n\nThat is a moral which we shall do well to remember. All great\npossessions materially founded come at last to that, and the heart that\nclings to them must go down after them to the grave.\n\nIt is the same when we base our delight of human relationship in an\ninsistence upon possession: it serves only to accentuate the place of\ndeath in the world and to give it size. The man, or woman, whose idea\nof love lies in the claim to possess and to control others, dies many\ndeaths before he reaches his final end, and walks daily with his foot\nin the grave. These tragedies of possession, so impoverishing to the\nspirit, are all round us; the world is humanly more full of them than\nof anything else: Husbands who adore their wives, but cannot let them\ncall their souls their own; parents, possessive of their children,\nimposing upon them their will up to the legal limit and beyond; homes\ndevouring the independence of womanhood, cramping, constraining,\nrobbing of initiative and force, and doing all these things under cover\nof the claims of love, of natural affection, of piety! What is all this\nreally but possession masquerading under another name? I remember once\nreading a remarkable story by Mr. John Gray, called _Niggard Truth_,\nof a woman who took masterful possession of a weak husband and \u201cran\u201d\nhim as an expression, not of his own personality, but of hers. And when\nat last she had very literally run him to earth, she buried him in a\ngarment of red flannel so that, as she expressed it, she might \u201csee\nhim better\u201d in the grave. And there, at the end of a strenuous life,\nshe sat amid her domestic possessions, her glass shades, her family\nplate, and her mahogany, with her mental eye fixed upon a corpse, and\nher heart filled with a _Magnificat_ of self-applause. She was the\n\u201cOzymandias\u201d of the domestic hearth; and there are thousands of them in\nthis country to-day. \u201cLook on their works, ye mighty, and despair!\u201d\n\nI have taken for example the domestic relations, because there we get\nin small, but simple and concise, that demoralising claim to possession\nwhich goes forth with missionary zeal to devastate the world; and\nbecause here, in the home, the true social service that is owing is, in\ntheory at least, recognised and admitted.\n\nThe duty--surely the obvious duty--of parents to their children\nis to assist them, to the full extent of their means, toward\nself-development. We have no right to bring children into the world\nto warp and stunt their growth, to make them merely reflections of\nourselves, or to keep them back from independence when they come to\nman\u2019s or woman\u2019s estate. What the parent needs, perhaps, most to learn\nis to relax constantly and in ever-increasing degree that hold which\nwas necessary during the early years of childhood, but which, even\nthen, we take too much for granted and employ far too habitually.\nParents often claim too great a possession of their own children;\nthey make cages for their characters, and mould them away from their\nnatural bent to what suits their own family pride, their own taste,\nor their own sense of importance, sometimes conscientiously believing\nthis to be the parental prerogative. But if parents are to use safely\ntheir power to impose moral training they must build up first in their\nchildren a sense of self-reliance, of initiative, of freedom, and then\ntrust to it. They have no right to rely for their reward on caged\ncharacters, or, by any dictation or control, to exact recompense for\nthe services which (with whatever devotion) they have rendered. The\nsame holds good through all human relations, parental, marital, social,\nracial: it is ignoble to claim loyalty or devotion from those whom you\nhave not first made free. Gratitude--even filial gratitude--has no\nmoral value save if it comes from a free agent. If it comes from one\ntrained to be not free it partakes of servility. And it is better for\nparents to forgo gratitude than to exact its imitation or substitute,\nby the imposition of any restrictive conditions or claims after the\nyears of tutelage are over. It may well be that gratitude has far too\nsmall a place in the human heart; but I am quite sure that the claim\nfor gratitude has too large a one, and that this in excess brings the\nvery reverse of a remedy when the other is lacking. And what is true\nin relation to parents and their children is true also in every other\nhuman relationship where the claim to possess intrudes to the hindrance\nof self-realization and self-development. The possessor, in claiming\nrestrictive possession of others, loses possession of himself.\n\nThat is what made slavery as an institution so doubly impoverishing\nto the human race. It impoverished the mind of the slave, but it\nimpoverished quite as much the mind of the slave-owner.\n\nWherever man has tried to possess others he has lost possession of\nhimself. That is the price inevitably paid by any class or section\nof the community which seeks to dominate the lives and restrict the\nliberty of its fellows. Tyranny does not strengthen but weakens the\nmoral nature of those who exercise it, and he who owns slaves cannot\nhimself be free. Domination is as destructive to human worth and more\ndestructive to moral integrity than subjection. If \u201cpossession is nine\npoints of the law\u201d on the material plane, the tenth point--spiritual in\nits working--is anarchy to the soul.\n\nFrom time immemorial man has claimed it as his natural right to possess\nwoman. And it is in consequence in relation to woman, and in matters\nof sex, that he has most obviously lost self-possession. And just as\nhe has claimed that to possess woman is the natural prerogative of the\nmale, so you will hear him maintain that lack of self-possession in\nregard to woman is natural also--and a certain degree of licence the\nmale prerogative. The two things go together--claim to possess others\nand you lose possession of yourself: Give to all with whom you come in\ncontact their full right of self-possession and self-development, and\nyou, from that social discipline and service, will in your own body and\nmind become self-possessed. For that is true possession which, while\nit brings you a sense of enlargement and joy, takes nothing from the\nfreedom and the joy of others.\n\nOf that kind of possession you may be prodigal, but of that which\ntakes anything from others, or demands any condition of service from\nothers, have a care! And look well what the conditions may be. Ask\nyourself constantly what is this or that demand for service or labour\ndoing to other souls? What conditions does it lay upon them? You may\nboast that you have simplified your life--rid yourself, for instance,\nof domestic service by getting rid of cook and housemaid. You have\nnot. The bread, the meat, even the ground flour that comes into your\nhouse is all provided by a domestic service which takes place outside\nyour door and which you do not see. And you are as morally concerned\nfor the conditions of that labour as if you yourself supervised it.\nYou need it and use it as much; it is only done for you at a further\nremove--out of sight and out of mind--so that it is much easier (but\nnot more justifiable), to be callous as to the conditions of those who\nrender it. And if upon those material lines of comfort and luxury you\nextend your demands, you are also extending your claim over the lives\nof others--and your responsibility for those lives, if they go lacking\nwhere you go fed.\n\nSurely, for the whole of that part of your life you are under a strict\nobligation to render service in return--equal to that which you claim.\nAnd if you, by your service, cannot insure to others an equality of\npossession in things material (and make as good and wholesome a use of\nthem as they could make), those material possessions should be a weight\nupon your conscience, till you have got matters more fairly adjusted.\nTake it as your standard of life to consume no more than you, by your\nown labour, in your own lifetime, could produce. What right has any\nman to more than that, except through the bounty and kindness of his\nfellows? But if he insists on more, and takes more, does he really\npossess it? Only in an ever diminishing degree in proportion to his\nexcess, because as he exceeds he is ever diminishing his true faculty\nfor reception.\n\nHere is a simple illustration of that truth, a gross example which I\nread in a newspaper the other day: In America a prize is annually given\nto the man who can eat the largest number of pies at a sitting--each\nof the pies, a compound of jam and pastry, weighing on an average\nhalf a pound. The prize-winner became the external possessor of\ntwenty-seven. But internally he could hardly be said to possess them at\nall--they possessed him, and made him, one would imagine, a thoroughly\nineffective citizen for at least the two or three following days. That\nman would have been far more really the possessor of three or four pies\n(seeing that he could have properly digested them) than it was possible\nfor him to be of the twenty-seven. In this excess he merely injured\nhimself without any gain, except the monetary bribe which induced\nhim to make a beast of himself. And how many men are there not, who\n(receiving the monetary bribe of our present unequal and inequitable\nsystem of reward for industry or for idleness) proceed to make beasts\nof themselves--more elaborately, but just as truly and completely as\nthis pie-eater; and by making beasts of themselves are by so much the\nless men of soul and understanding--not more, but less the possessors\nof their human birthright.\n\nIf we store up treasure materially (treasure of a kind which, if one\nhas more of it, another must needs have less)--if we gather about us,\nin excess, creature comforts for the over-indulgence of our bodily\nappetites, we are gathering that which is liable to moth and rust and\ntheft--liable to be a cause of envy and covetousness in others; and\nwhen we have gathered to ourselves this excess of perishable delight\nand have applied it, the result, more likely than not, is a cloying of\nthose very appetites to which we seek to minister--and, eventually,\ndeterioration and enfeeblement of the body itself.\n\nAnd as with individuals so with nations; there is no greatness of\npossession in holding that which involves the deprivation of others,\nthe diminution of their freedom, their happiness, their power of\nself-development. That is not true kingdom. It is the manufacture\nof slaves. But if we lay up treasure in the kingdom of the mind, in\nthe development of our sense of beauty, our faculty for joy, we have\nsomething here on earth which neither moth nor rust can corrupt, nor\nthieves steal. Our possessions then are things that can arouse no base\ncovetousness, we need not hold them under lock and key, or make laws\nfor their protection, for none can deprive us of them. And while you\nso hold them on such free and noble conditions, you do not fail to\ndispense something of their beauty and worth to those with whom you\nassociate.\n\nThese possessions, with which you have enriched your lives, make no man\npoorer, rob no fellow creature of his right, conflict not with the law\nof charity to all.\n\nSeeking possession upon those lines, you shall find that noble\nthings do tend to make possible a form of possession in which all\nalike may share; that architecture, music, literature and painting\ndo offer themselves to the service of a far nobler and more communal\ninterpretation of wealth than that which would keep it for separate\nand individual enjoyment. A thousand may look upon the beauty of one\npicture, and detract nothing, in the enjoyment of each, from the\nenjoyment of all; nor has virtue or value gone out of it because so\nmany have looked on it; and so it is (or so it may be) with all beauty\nwhether we find it in nature or in art.\n\nIf I were asked to name the man who in the last hundred years had\nthe greatest possessions, I think I would name Wordsworth. Read his\npoetry with this thought in your mind, of how day by day he gathered\npossessions of an imperishable kind, which needed no guardianship\nbeyond the purity of his mind, and excited in others no envy. Nay, how\nmuch of those wonderful possessions was he not able to give to others?\nSome of his loveliest lines of poetry are a record of possession\nrightly attained. I give here only one of his poems--one of his\nsimplest in inspiration--to show what I mean:\n\n\n     I wandered lonely as a cloud\n         That floats on high o\u2019er vales and hills,\n     When all at once I saw a crowd--\n         A host of golden daffodils;\n     Beside the lake, beneath the trees,\n     Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.\n\n     Continuous as the stars that shine\n         And twinkle on the Milky Way,\n     They stretched in never-ending line\n         Along the margin of a bay.\n     I gazed--and gazed--but little thought\n     What wealth the show to me had brought:\n\n     For oft when on my couch I lie\n         In vacant or in pensive mood,\n     They flash upon that inward eye\n         Which is the bliss of solitude;\n     And then my heart with pleasure fills,\n     And dances with the daffodils.\n\n\n\u201cOnly daffodils\u201d you say? But he made them for himself and others an\neternal possession of beauty and delight.\n\nThose who have great possessions on these terms need never turn\nsorrowfully away when the command comes: \u201cSell all thou hast and give\nto the poor.\u201d For these are the inexhaustible treasures of the soul,\nand are in their nature communal; and happy is the man or nation that\nfinds them.\n\n\n\n\nCRIME AND PUNISHMENT\n\n(1918)\n\n\nThe two words Crime and Punishment have come to us in a conjunction\nwhich it is very difficult to separate. Our fathers have told us, and\nour teachers and theologians have strenuously insisted that the one\nnecessarily entails the other.\n\nThe whole of our social order is based upon the idea that if a man\ncommits crime--an offence, that is to say, against the written law of\nthe community--he must be punished for it. If he were not, social order\nwould go to pieces.\n\nBut our social order does not lay equal stress upon the idea that if\na man lives virtuously he must be rewarded. If a man lives virtuously\nhis reward is in Heaven--that is to say, he takes his chance. His\nvirtue may assist or may hinder his worldly advancement; but we have\nnot yet committed ourselves to the conviction that social order will\nnecessarily go to pieces if virtue is not rewarded. It will only go to\npieces if crime is not punished. Society can reconcile itself to the\none omission; but it cannot reconcile itself to the other.\n\nThis inequality of interest in retribution and reward is based perhaps\nupon the calculation that while you look after the crimes, the virtues\nwill look after themselves; and that the virtues will not--for lack\nof Birthday Honours--rebel against the society in which they find\nthemselves.\n\nAnd really, there is something in it. Virtue is already self-governing;\nvice is not. The virtuous and humane part of a man--his will to unite\nand co-operate with others for social development and service--inclines\nhim to accept and make the best of the conditions of life, to take the\nrough with the smooth, the hindrances with the aids, the good with the\nevil: not, indeed, passively, or without some effort to get rid of bad\nsmells, bad tastes, bad laws, bad governments--but with a definite\nconsciousness that in operating against these he is operating not for\nhis own single benefit, but for the benefit of the community. And that\nbeing so, he can be left, unrecompensed and unrewarded, to face a very\nconsiderable amount of discomfort, adversity, and even injustice,\nwithout becoming either a rebel or a criminal. Although if governed\nunintelligently enough, or wickedly enough, he may be turned into both.\n\nBut with the criminal it is not so. His social sense is more\nrudimentary; and when he finds himself up against adverse and perhaps\nunjust conditions, he seeks a solution satisfactory to himself alone.\nAnd I suppose the main idea of the use of punishment (apart from the\nvengeful pleasure it gives to those who inflict it) is that it takes\nthe satisfaction out of him again, making him feel that, in a highly\norganised community, the individual solution has uncomfortable\nresults. And Society\u2019s calculation, in thus punishing him, is (or has\nbeen hitherto) that it is a less troublesome and expensive way of\nmaking him cease to be a nuisance, than educating him, or employing\nhim, or reforming the social conditions which have produced him.\n\nSo long as we believe that Society is right in that calculation, so\nlong, I suppose, shall we continue to advocate punishment; but when\nwe come to believe that Society is wrong, we shall begin to advocate\neducation, employment, social reform, and, above all, human sympathy\nand understanding as a substitute; with the idea that they may\ngradually do away with the necessity for punishment.\n\nBut pending that consummation so devoutly to be wished, most of us will\nprobably continue to believe that punishment is just and right; and\nwill find it very difficult to think of Society, and of ourselves--as\nall equally criminal along with the individual whom our social contempt\nand neglect have de-socialised and made a fit recipient for punitive\ntreatment.\n\nThe temptation to think that punishment is just and right has been\nwith us from time immemorial; it is probably arboreal, certainly\nneolithic; and therefore, to our atavistic instincts, it is supremely\nsacred. We have got it firmly into our heads that punishment is a\nsuperior ordering of consequences. And as the law of cause and effect\nwhich we see operating in nature is the basis of our moral sense, we\nhave fallen to the confused notion that punishment is the same. But\nas a matter of fact the two are entirely different. The law of cause\nand effect stands for natural consequences; the law of punishment\nsubstitutes artificial consequences; and we fly to punishment largely\nas an escape from the results of our age-long indifference to natural\nconsequences. Having produced the criminal we set to work to destroy\nhis self-respect, as a short cut to the preservation of our own.\n\nThat may sound a puzzling statement; but the more we accentuate the\ndifference between the criminal and ourselves--the more, superficially,\nare we able to get rid of our sense of brotherhood and responsibility.\nAnd so, when bishops go on to the platform to advocate the flogging\nof men who live on the earnings of prostitutes, it helps them to\nforget that they also are living on the earnings of prostitutes, and\nare by their support of a capitalist system involving sweated labour\nand degraded housing conditions--neatly and efficaciously driving\nthe prostitute into the hands of the male \u201cbully\u201d--whom they then\nflog for extracting his profit from a damaged article which, in the\npublic market of supply and demand, they have already wrung dry. The\nvery monstrousness of the proposed penalty helps us to forget that\nwe are all links in the same chain of circumstances. In the \u201cbully\u201d\nthe degrading brutality of the system finally emerges and becomes\npatent; just as in war the degrading brutality of our peace system\nfinally emerges. Then we point to it with horror and cry that we are\npeace-lovers! So we are; we have loved peace at a price which we would\nnot exceed--we ran it on sweated conditions; and we pay for it in war.\nFor there exist, in every nation, sources of wealth, sufficient--if\nequitably distributed and constructively applied for the good of\nall--to allay that economic unrest which is the main incentive by\nwhich modern nations are led into war. But in every country alike\nthere are interests which refuse to pay that price, and which will, if\nthreatened, precipitate their country into war rather than be held at\na ransom which would merely readjust wealth more equitably to the true\nsources of its production.\n\nWar has come to us--not as a punishment divinely imposed--(a splendid\nold lady of ninety told me the other day that the war was God\u2019s\nvisitation upon us for our divorces and for having given votes to\nwomen)--war has come upon us, not as a punishment for these offences\nagainst Taboo, but as a natural consequence of our social peace\nconditions. And at present, in the mentality of nations, punishment\n(not of the system, but of the criminal act which has finally emerged\nfrom it to horrify us) is the only remedy.\n\nAnd so punishment still appears to us as the very bed of justice--the\nfoundation stone of morality. If you do not insist on it, social order\nwill go to pieces. And as we have attempted scarcely any criminal\nreform without punishment--and none till the day before yesterday--the\ncontention is accepted as true for lack of witnesses against it.\n\nThe standpoint toward human nature of our generally accepted \u201cmoral\ncode\u201d is that of a devout believer in corporal punishment--of that\nkind of parent who says: \u201cI have to flog my boy because he is so\nuntruthful.\u201d And the idea that the untruthfulness is the product of the\ncorporal punishment never enters the parental mind.\n\nBut this vengeful exercise of parental authority is only a secondary\nsymptom of belief in a vengeful order of Creation--of a God whose\nmethod it was to vindicate the moral law, not by bringing home to\nill-doers through natural consequences the defects of certain courses\nof conduct, but by expressing His moral indignation in exemplary\npunishments of an arbitrary kind--generally of a miraculous character.\n\nWhen man first conceived of God, he conceived of Him as a sort of Dr.\nBusby--one in whose mind the Rod was the beginning and end of wisdom;\nand the Rod of Heaven operated by intervention, over and above the\noperations of Nature--the law of cause and effect. Natural consequences\ndid not sufficiently vindicate divine justice. A belief in miraculous\nand vengeful intervention and a belief in \u201cexemplary\u201d legal punishment\ngo together; and will, I believe, die together.\n\nA great deal of Old Testament teaching is merely an elaborate extension\nof _Punch\u2019s_ picture of the British workman holding a brick\u2019s end over\nan unfortunate batrachian, and saying, \u201cI\u2019ll l\u2019arn ye to be a toad!\u201d\nAnd all he succeeds in doing is producing a dead toad instead of a live\none; the species itself remaining entirely unaltered.\n\nThat is a parable of the doings of our theologians, since theology was\ninvented for the Fall of Man. And if humans came to the conclusion that\nthat was the mind of God, it is no wonder that they imitated Him, and\ndo so to this day.\n\nWe must believe in punishment as the proper reward of crime--we must\neven believe in unreformative punishment as the proper reward of crime,\nif we believe in a Hell to which lost souls are relegated against their\nwill, and there kept with no hope whatever of cure or betterment from\nthe process. And that is what the whole of Christendom believed about\nHell when Christians really did believe in it.\n\nUnreformative punishment upon earth was a necessary consequence of that\nbelief; and, therefore, belief in punishment for the sake of punishment\nbecame universal.\n\nAnd over against it--quite unregarded--stood the new gospel of\nhumanity--\u201cLove your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to\nthem that hate you, pray for them which despitefully use you and\npersecute you.\u201d And then the reason, the key to it all:--\u201cThat ye may\nbe children of your Father which is in Heaven, for He maketh His sun to\nrise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on\nthe unjust. Be ye, therefore, perfect, even as your Father which is in\nHeaven is perfect.\u201d\n\nThe Sermon on the Mount, which threw over the doctrine of punishment\non earth, threw over with equal emphasis the doctrine of punishment in\nHeaven--of any arbitrary or miraculous intervention for the betterment\n(to moral ends) of the law of natural consequences.\n\n\u201cBe ye the children of Creation!\u201d is the real human solution--not by\nharking back (as opponents would pretend) to the savagery of a lower\nspecies, but by accepting the spiritualising impulse of evolutionary\nforces--which have brought us to this great development from the\nmentality of the lower animal world--the knowledge that we are all part\nof one whole.\n\nAnd it is on that recognition of an underlying unity (from which we\nare inseparable) that the great natural revolution of our ideas about\ncrime and punishment must be brought about. If we cling to the violent\nand the arbitrary, and the separative solution (of which miraculous\nretribution is the corollary) we are in the Dark Ages still.\n\nIt must have been the experience of many whose work has taken them\nnot only into slums but into prisons and police-courts, that the\noppressive sense of Evil triumphant, strong and proud of itself, has\nweighed more heavily upon them in the prison and in the police-court\nthan in the slum; for the slum only represents the neglect of Society,\nbut the administration of our penal code represents its stereotyped\npreoccupation (with sympathy and understanding almost entirely\neliminated) on a problem which nothing but sympathy and understanding\nwill ever solve. There Society is in its trenches fighting against the\nhuman nature which it first violates and then fears.\n\nWe, law-makers and law-abiders, are in league with--and are dependent\nfor our material prosperity and protection upon--a system which is very\nnearly as bad as the crimes we denounce. And until we have made our\nsystem very much more beautiful, very much better, and more convincing\nto the criminal and the revolutionarist--it is only by fear and a\npunitive code that we can keep it going.\n\nIt is not possible to maintain such adjuncts to our social system\nas profiteering, exploitation, class privilege, wage-slavery,\nrace-subjection, international jealousy, without a penal code and its\nlogical outcome, war. If we want to get rid of the one we must have\na whole mind to get rid of the others too. Do not let us pretend to\nseparate them, for we cannot. Not only does the attempt produce weak\npractical results--it produces also a false mind.\n\nThe attempt to separate one thing from another, one human being from\nanother, is at the root of our belief in punishment. Punishment helps\nto separate, helps to make us feel separate; it does not unite.\nAn English judge declared quite recently that the main object of\npunishment was not to reform the criminal but to protect society. And\nso long as that is true, the criminal is just as conscious as we are\nthat the discipline laid on him is the expression of a divided standard\nof morality, knowing perfectly well that we in like circumstances\nshould not think such punishment good for ourselves or our children.\n\nFor is it not true that wherever a local or group interest comes to\nbe established, there the members of that group cease to believe that\npunishment from any outside power or authority is good for them?\n\nTake the family--those of you who believe in punishment--those who\nprofess to be law-abiding; one of its members commits a theft. Is he\nhanded over to the police to be dealt with according to law? Not at\nall. On the contrary, everything is done to enable him to escape the\npunishment. We don\u2019t believe in legal punishment when it comes to\nour own circle. And we only believe in legal punishment for others,\nbecause, loving and understanding them less, we are unwilling to take\nas much trouble about them.\n\nAnd that same vicious principle of belief in punishment only for\nothers mounts up and up through every communal interest that has\nestablished itself in our midst on a unity of feeling closer than that\nwhich obtains generally. Every class-interest, every trade-interest,\nevery party-interest that stands combined for its own benefit does\nall it can to evade the punishment of its members by the larger and\nmore impersonal authority of the State. Scandals are hushed up in the\npolice; scandals are hushed up in the Army; scandals are hushed up in\nthe Cabinet; everything possible is done to prevent our penal code\nfrom acting equally on the vested interests in which we specially are\nconcerned.\n\nAnd yet we say that we believe in punishment!\n\nBut if we do honestly believe in punishment, ought we not then to\ninsist not merely that the administration of our law-courts should\nbe impartial and judicial, but that the source and promotion of our\nState-prosecutions should be impartial also? Probably most unreflecting\npeople think that they are. But again and again the Government, when\nit chooses or refuses to put the law into motion and prosecute, though\nnominally the accuser, is really the accused, using its powers for the\nsaving of its own skin, to keep the case out of court--sometimes even\nin spite of the protests of the magistracy itself. Again and again the\njudicial scales have been fraudulently weighted--not in court but out\nof it by the interests of party government.\n\nLet us take a rather notorious instance where this was done.\n\nWithin quite recent times, two men have conspired--the one to raise an\narmy of rebellion if Home Rule were imposed on Ulster; the other to\nraise an army of rebellion if conscription were imposed on Ireland.\nThe crime in each case was precisely the same; but the punishment was\ndifferent. The one--the more recent--was sent to prison for it without\ntrial. The other, equally without trial, was elevated to Cabinet rank.\n\nNow, each of these men, in conspiring to break the law, did probably\nwhat he conscientiously thought to be right under the circumstances.\nThat we can believe. But it is very difficult to believe that the\nGovernment (when, with the connivance of Parliament, it punished the\nsame offence so differently) thought that it was doing right--the equal\nand the just thing in each case. It was only doing the convenient\nthing to cover its own blunders. And the question is, therefore,\nwhether--morally--the Government was not the real criminal.\n\nBut if we ask whether it is going to be punished for it, the answer\nis--probably not.\n\nIt is not my point to urge that the Government should be punished, but\nonly to show how--as administered to-day--punishment is an arbitrary\nand artificial device, partially applied or not, according to the\nprosecutor\u2019s political convenience.\n\nThe consequence--the logical consequence of this corrupt inequality\nof State-prosecution, is that a Government which does such things is\nmisliked and distrusted by men of honest character--and so weakens its\nhold on the more judicious minds of the community--and eventually, one\nmay hope, its power over the country\u2019s policy.\n\nOne might point further to another instance. The Society of Friends,\nby its official committee, recently published, without submitting it\nto the Censor, a pamphlet called _A Challenge to Militarism_. For\nthat corporate act of a committee of twenty--all equally guilty--the\nGovernment (to avoid too great a scandal) selected two members for\nprosecution, and got them sent to prison for six and for three months.\n\nAbout a fortnight later another challenge to militarism, a pamphlet\nentitled _A League of Nations_, was published, without being submitted\nto the Censor, by Lord Grey of Falloden; and he has not been sent to\nprison for it.\n\nNow if we believed in punishment, we should want the Government\npunished for these acts of corrupt favouritism in State-prosecution.\nBut if we believe in natural consequences--those which I have already\nindicated--we shall confidently anticipate that in the end (the real\nend) divine justice will be done; and that these ephemeral misdoings\nwill eventually help the spirit of man to a better and larger\nunderstanding of the follies which are committed when men substitute\nthe Will to Power for the Will to Love.\n\nAnd if we can--as we are going to--if we can leave injustice when done\nin conspicuous high places to the natural and logical consequences,\nwithout applying the penal code, why cannot we trust natural\nconsequences a very great deal more, where smaller and more humble\nmisdemeanours are concerned, and give to those natural consequences a\ngreater unity of effect by irradiating them with the true spirit of\nman--love, joy, gentleness, peace, against which there is no law?\n\nOne of the reasons why we dare not be humane and curative instead of\npunitive to our criminals lies in the fact that the standard of life\nin which we have allowed honest and hard-working millions to subsist\noutside our prisons, has been so inhuman and degraded that if we made\nour prisons really humane, really curative, they would be a reward\ninstead of a punishment.\n\nWe dare not offer so beautiful a temptation.\n\nAnd so it is separation again--the separation of class from class,\nof rich from poor, which makes impossible the standardising of our\nprisons from living tombs into genuine reformatories and sanatoria.\nIf we had not separated ourselves in our national life from a sense\nof responsibility for the poverty and misery around us, we should not\nbe driven into so separate a treatment of our criminals. We cannot\nafford to humanise our prisons, while we will not afford to humanise\nour slums. Again and again, when you appeal for real prison reform, the\nobstructive argument arises: \u201cWhy should we take so much trouble for\nthe criminal, when hundreds of thousands of the honest struggling poor\nare so much worse off?\u201d\n\nBut we have to take trouble anyhow; and the more unintelligently we\ntake trouble the greater is likely to be the cost of our criminals per\nhead to the State. In New York State, America, where Mr. Mott Osborne\nhas been trying to establish the principle of self-government among\nthe prisoners of Sing-Sing, there was actually a danger that (under an\nextension of the system) the prisons might become self-supporting. And\nat once trade interests did everything they could to get it condemned;\nthe contractors were afraid of losing their State contracts.\n\nThat is just one little glimpse of what we are up against where vested\ninterests are concerned--interests so strongly represented in the\nlegislatures even of \u201cfree nations.\u201d But we are up against something\nmuch bigger than that. We are up against a moral reluctance of the\nwhole community to pronounce the word \u201cBrother.\u201d For if the State is\ngoing to show a really understanding mind toward the criminal, it has\ngot to show it just as much to the whole social problem of poverty and\ndisease. And that is going to cost the State more money than it is\nprepared to spend on anything--except on War.\n\nCrime is sometimes a very shameful thing. But is not the record of the\nway powerful States have dealt with crime in the past more uniformly\nshameful even than crime itself? Has not that record stood out as a\nghastly blind spot in the conscience of Christian Society?\n\nPeople of conservative mind are so extraordinarily ready to make\nexcuses for organised Society which they will not make for the\nindividual. \u201cThat was a cruel age,\u201d they will say, when you recall the\njudicial horrors perpetrated against human nature three hundred, two\nhundred, one hundred years ago; it was tradition, it was custom. But\nthere were nations, professing Christianity--a doctrine having exactly\nthe same basis then as now--the same creed, the same gospel, the same\ndivine life of compassion and mercy exemplary of what Heaven required\nin the conduct of man to man; and there were rulers and administrators\nwith minds and power of reason just as capable as our own--giants\nof intellect some of them--who, with all their profession of\nChristianity--interpreting it to the supposed needs of the State--have\nleft to us this ghastly record of a penal code worse than the crimes\nit was set to remedy. That penal code--the obsequious servant of\nState-authority--stood hundreds of years behind the average individual\nconscience of the community. And yet in moral authority we exalt it\nabove the individual! In age after age the conscience, the living\nconscience of this country went to prison and to execution to bring\nit just a little more up-to-date. Revolting juries refused to convict\nbecause of its savageries; and still it moved slowly and reluctantly,\ncruel in its fear of the human nature it did not understand.\n\nLess than a century and a half ago a girl of fourteen was sentenced\nin this country to be burned alive for counterfeit coining; only\neighty-five years ago a boy of nine was sentenced to death for breaking\na pane of glass and stealing two pence. The sentences were not carried\nout, but they were pronounced. I suppose it was still considered\n\u201cexemplary\u201d to remind the criminal classes of what powers the law had\nover them.\n\nNow let us imagine that some individual caught a boy indulging in petty\ntheft; and to punish him--in hot blood perhaps--took him and hung him\nup by the neck till he was dead. Should we not be inclined to say that\nso rabid a wild beast must be exterminated from the face of the earth,\nlest he should have descendants like himself?\n\nYet that is what our own Courts of Justice--the authorised instrument\nof the people of England--were doing in cold blood to young boys in\nthe time of Charles Lamb. They had not the excuse of national danger,\nor war; yet we don\u2019t think that our ancestors ought to have been\nabolished off the face of the earth for doing it, or for allowing it.\nWe manage to forgive them, because after all they were--our ancestors.\nWhen it comes to a State-act, the individual shares the responsibility\nwith so many that he is able to shift it from his conscience.\n\nBut in that process what had the State done to itself? In so dealing\nwith the criminal--it had become a criminal, making of itself a moral\nmonstrosity--all the more foul because in the perpetration of such acts\nit declared that it was doing no wrong!\n\nHow, one may ask, was it possible for such penalties as these, and\nothers even more savage than these, to become embedded in the penal\ncode of a civilised and a Christian State?\n\nMainly for two reasons I believe: first the fact (referred to before)\nthat the doctrine of unreformative punishment, as expressive of the\nJustice of God, was part of its religion; and secondly, that the State\nbased itself then, as now, on the Will to Power, and not on the Will\nto Love. And seeking its safety in terms of power it perpetrated these\natrocities. From those two premises the results were only natural.\n\nAre we going to salve our consciences to-day by mere degrees of\ncomparison, by saying: \u201cWe are not so bad as that now\u201d? Perhaps we are\nnot so bad; but the basis on which we continue to act has not altered.\nThe Will to Power (for which the State still stands) must always lag\nbehind the Will to Love in its understanding of human nature. And\nwhile it lags behind the penal code of the State will always be a drag\nupon the social conscience.\n\nNow so far we have been considering this doctrine of punishment in\nrelation to the criminal section of society--force and punitive\ntreatment being necessary, we say, for the discipline and control of\nthe waste products of our civilisation. But in the whole body politic\nwhat does it all come to? What type of mind is finally evolved by the\nState which so deals with its human material? What is the final moral\naspect of the State itself?\n\nExamine that question from the international point of view. Why is\nevery State armed? Because every State, when all is said and done, is\na potential criminal whom other States cannot trust. And though these\nStates look down upon their criminals, they are proud of themselves.\n\nWe are grouped to-day, many States together, in armed alliance for what\n(when we took up arms) we believed to be a great and a just cause; and\nwhile we are so grouped we speak well of our Allies. But the groupings\nof to-day are not the groupings of yesterday; and the international\nspectacle which we have presented age after age has been simply this:\nthat no nation could trust any other nation to behave morally, justly,\nhumanely, and for the good of the whole, where single self-interest was\nconcerned.\n\nSo like to its own criminals did each nation remain, that all the\nothers had ever to keep their instruments of punishment ready to hand\nin case of need.\n\nIs not that an extraordinary commentary on the law of punishment; that\nnot merely does it fail to do away with the criminal within its own\njurisdiction, but reproduces his likeness in all the high places of\nthe world--giving him his justification by showing him that, where\ncommunity of interest ends, States are no other and no better than he?\n\nWe all agree that war is a very horrible thing. But at one point it has\na moral value which is not shared so obviously by other penal codes; a\nvalue which people are coming more and more to recognise to-day, and\nwhich will--more than anything else perhaps--help to put an end to war.\n\nFor when you seek to punish wrong by going to war, then you yourself\nhave to share the punishment. Innocent and guilty alike must agonise\nand suffer and die. To inflict that punishment you must choose out your\nbravest and your best, and send them to share equally with those you\nwould punish the sentence of suffering and death.\n\nAll punishment, inflicted by penal codes, really comes back to\nthe community; but only in war do we see it shared: actively and\nvoluntarily by some, passively and unavoidably by others. And perhaps\nit is that more than anything else which will eventually persuade\ncivilised man that war is intolerable--that he cannot punish without\nsharing the punishment.\n\nIt may sound fantastic to suggest that a like condition should be\ndefinitely attached to our civil and penal system, in order to bring\nhome to us that all punishment is shared, that what we manufacture in\nour prisons becomes a staple commodity.\n\nBut I can think of no device that would so quickly and effectively get\nrid of that separation of interest which punishment seems to establish.\nImagine that for every prisoner sentenced, a lot fell on someone\nelse, calling upon him or her to go and share in that demonstration\nof society\u2019s failure to produce only good citizens. Imagine the Prime\nMinister, about to make an important statement in the House of Commons,\ncalled suddenly by lot to share the incarceration of a defender of the\nliberty of the press or of a robber of hen-roosts! Should we have to\nwait a month--a week--to have our prisons transformed into places where\nhuman nature was no longer thrown to waste, with its energies cut off\nfrom sane employment and development? Would it not bring home to us--as\nperhaps nothing else would--the mill-stone weight on the life of the\nnation of all punishment that is not purely reformative and curative?\nWould it not very soon put an end to punishment in the old sense\naltogether?\n\nYou may look upon this suggestion as a fantastic parable; but\nspiritually it is what we shall have to do.\n\n\u201cThere is only one sin,\u201d said the unknown writer of one of the\nmost beautiful and famous books of devotion produced during the\nmiddle-ages--the Theologia Germanica. \u201cThe only sin is separation.\u201d\n\nWe shall never get rid of the criminal till we cease to separate\nourselves from him, till we make his interest our interest, till we\nshare, willingly and consciously, the responsibility of the society\nwhich has produced him.\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTIANITY A DANGER TO THE STATE\n\n(1916)\n\n\nThe State, which accepts the proposition that force is a remedy, has\nlogical ground for employing force to secure its ends, until worsted by\nthe forces opposed to it, or by some other power.\n\nSuch a State, naturally and logically, claims the assistance of its\nsubjects in pursuing a course for which, in time of peace, and with\ntheir apparent consent, it has made great preparation, entailing a vast\nexpenditure of the nation\u2019s wealth and energy.\n\nThis claim of the State for the personal service of its citizens is\nalways latent even in peace-time; but in peace-time the great majority\nof the services it requires are rendered upon a voluntary basis, and\ngenerally in exchange for a monetary equivalent.\n\nOnly, therefore, when the State is pressed by necessity to make an\nextreme assertion of its claims for personal service does it find\nitself actively opposed by citizens who have never in their own lives\nand consciences accepted the proposition that force is a remedy for\nevil.\n\nIt is true that many of these objectors have paid taxes without\nresistance for the upkeep of Army and Navy. If they have done so\nconscientiously and not merely negligently, it has probably been\nupon the lines of \u201crendering to C\u00e6sar the things which are C\u00e6sar\u2019s,\u201d\nand from a recognition that all the devices of barter and exchange\n(including a coin-currency) are a material convenience devised by\nthe State, which may legitimately be given to or withdrawn from the\ncontrol of the individual without affecting his personal integrity.\nMen so minded may say quite plausibly: \u201cMy worldly goods you can take\nor leave; my pockets you may fill or empty; but my body is the temple\nof the Holy Ghost, and if I am called upon to give personal service\nfor the infliction of legal penalties, for the suppression of civil\ncommotion, or for the prosecution of war, then I am asked for service\nin a form which I can only render if my conscience approves.\u201d\n\nFaced by this contention, the State has often thought wise to admit, or\nto make allowance for, a claim which nevertheless it will not recognise\nby law. People who object to jury-service for the enforcement of a\npenal code which is against their conscience, are frequently excused\nwithout fine or penalty. The same allowance would probably be made to\nexcuse any one opposed to capital punishment from assuming the office\nof hangman. Yet capital punishment only exists because a majority in\nthe State believes it to be essential to public safety; and if there\nwere a dearth of hands ready to undertake the task, it would then\nbecome a test of good citizenship for all to offer themselves; and the\nconscientious objector, whose argument was tolerated and respectfully\nlistened to the day before, would suddenly become a disreputable object\nto all law-abiding men, unless the State were weak enough, or wise\nenough, to provide him with the right of exemption. If it did so he\nwould immediately cease to be disreputable in the eyes of the law, his\nright to a conscience being granted.\n\nThat concession has frequently been made in the past to people\nwho, calling themselves Christians, have held tenets subversive of\nState-authority. When religious conformity was considered necessary\nto the spiritual security of the State, Nonconformists resisted, till\nthe State made allowance for them. When the taking of an oath was\nconsidered necessary for the security of truth in the witness-box,\nQuakers resisted, till the State made allowance for them. When the\ncoercion of Ulster was considered necessary for the well-being of\nIreland, men who had taken the oath of military obedience threatened\na conscientious strike, and the State made allowance for them.\nIncidentally they became the heroes of that party which is to-day most\nstrenuous in its detestation of those later conscientious objectors who\nrefuse to take the oath of military obedience; but nobody was sent to\nprison for uttering propaganda in their praise!\n\nNow the reason why the State could tolerate them was not a moral\nreason; it was simply upon the calculation that, while still pursuing\nits policy of physical force, it could afford to do without them. It\ncould allow non-conformity based upon Christian teaching, or upon\nconscientious scruples, to streak the current of its policy, without\nthereby suffering any deflection of its course.\n\nBut it is quite different when the State, driven by its belief in the\nrightness and the remedial value of physical force, comes to commit\nthe whole of its resources to the prosecution of war. The existence\nof the conscientious objector then becomes a more inconvenient factor\nin the situation; it may even, from the State\u2019s point of view, become\na dangerous one. Then those insidious Christian idiosyncrasies, which\nhave so often been allowed to withstand authority, must have all\npossible ground cut from under them, lest it should afford standing\nto a new social ideal. We have it on the authority of the public\nprosecutor himself that, if all men became conscientious objectors,\nwar would no longer be possible; and from such a catastrophe the State\nmust, of course, be saved by all possible means.\n\nIt is at this point, therefore, that the latent claim (which in\npeace-time is often more honoured in the breach than in the observance)\nbecomes insistent and active. The State must have--if it can get\nit--the personal service of all its able-bodied citizens. And thus,\npractically for the first time, the rival claims of law and conscience\nupon a man\u2019s allegiance come to be fought out in public on a large\nscale; and if the Nation is engaged in a popular war, or in one where\nthe vast majority believes that it has righteousness upon its side,\nthen there will inevitably be much prejudice in the public mind against\nthe conscientious objector; whereas there might be much sympathy for\nhim (though not really on the principle for which he contended) if he\nwere refusing to fight in a war which happened to be unpopular, or\nwhich a great number of people regarded as unjust.\n\nBut if we want to get to the true basis of the principle against which\nthe conscientious objector is contending (a principle which cannot\nlogically be separated from any form of government built up on force)\nwe must not colour our view with the rightness or wrongness (in our\nown estimation) of the war in which we are engaged, since we obscure\nthereby that quality of allegiance which is claimed by the State.\n\nThe State\u2019s claim--latent in peace-time and liable to emerge whenever\nwar or crisis shall arise--is not that its citizens should fight for\nit when the cause is just and right, but that they should fight for it\nin any case, if it orders them. That claim, made by every State with\nmore or less urgency, we are now invited to view with horror operating\nat its full efficiency throughout a Prussianised Germany. Thus exalted\nand perfected, it has become, we are told, a danger to the world;\nin such a State the moral conscience of the individual has become\natrophied by subordination, and he is not free to choose between right\nand wrong. But war only brings home to us the logic of a situation\nwhich in peace-time we have burked; and now, in order to combat the\nevil, in its fullest manifestation, men in this country are asked to\ngive their souls into similar keeping--to accept, that is to say, the\nover-riding of individual conscience by the law of State-necessity.\nIt is a claim which any State, founded on force, is bound eventually\nto make; it is a claim which anyone who believes force to be evil is\nbound to repudiate. The follower of the one school draws his ethics\nfrom the established rules of the body politic to which he belongs;\nthe follower of the other draws them, it may be, from the personal\nexample and teaching of One whom the body politic of his day regarded\nas a criminal, and put to death; of One whose followers, it may be said\nfurther, were persecuted in the early centuries of the Christian era,\nnot because of their opinions, but because, in practice, they were a\ndanger to the State. The Roman mind was very logical; and only when\nChristianity had become absorbed in the State system and had accepted\nthe view that physical force and persecution were good social remedies,\nonly then did Christianity cease to be an apparent danger and a fit\nsubject for persecution.\n\nBut the primitive Christian standpoint is always liable to emerge; and\nwhen it does, then we get the opposing principles of two incompatible\nschools. And we must keep these principles in mind--the principle\nof conduct based upon a personal example rejecting force, and the\nprinciple of conduct based upon a social edifice relying upon force\nfor its well-being and advancement; otherwise we confuse the issue,\nand weaken our appreciation of the moral position which each side\nassumes. It is surely quite evident that the State, while based upon\nforce, cannot (except as an indulgence) countenance the claim of any\nindividual to make the morality of its action the test for personal\nallegiance and service. And so this State-claim must be unequivocably\ndefined, otherwise we do not really know where we are.\n\nNow many fervent supporters of the doctrine that State-necessity must\nstand supreme above individual conscience, confuse matters by importing\nthe moral equation, and by arguing for the compelling principle from\nparticular instances where moral considerations seem to favour it: \u201cOur\nCause is just; therefore, etc.,\u201d is the line on which they contend. But\nthe State\u2019s claim stands independent of the justice of its cause; and\n\u201cMy Country right or wrong!\u201d is the real motto which the objector to\nconscientious liberty is called to fight under.\n\nAll that the State-backers say as to the obligation for Englishmen to\nfight Germany to-day, applies equally to the obligation for Germans\nto fight England. So while we continue to assert that a man must fight\nhere with us for the cause of liberty, honour, righteousness--in a\nword, for God--we assert equally that in another country he must\nsubject his conscience to the claims of the State, and fight for\noppression, dishonour, unrighteousness--in a word, for the Devil (and\nthat in spite of the baptismal vows which oblige him to \u201cfight manfully\nunder Christ\u2019s banner,\u201d not merely against sin, as he individually is\nconcerned, but sin spiritually combined in its symbolic representative,\nand defended by the temporalities of the world). From which we must\nargue that, if Christ were here on earth to-day, born of German\nparents, he would be called upon to fight in the ranks of Germany; that\nif he were born of English parents he would be called to fight for\nEngland; while, if again, born of Jewish parents, he might be accorded\nthe alternative privilege of fighting for England which was not his\ncountry, or of being deported to Russia to fight for the persecutors of\nhis race.\n\nThe conscientious objector, on the other hand, feels bound to take\nthe moral equation of all such particular instances as a guide to\nhis diagnosis of the evils of war; and he comes thus to regard the\nexpedient of war as altogether so bad a remedy for evil that he dares\nto doubt whether Christ would be seen bearing arms on either side;\nand he is probably strengthened in that conviction by the fact that\nmodern conditions of war tend more and more to involve the weak,\nthe innocent, and the helpless in the ruin and suffering wrought by\nindustrial and financial exhaustion, invasion and blockade, and that\n\u201carms of precision\u201d are so unprecise and blind in action that they\nare quite as likely, when directed against towns, to destroy the\nnon-fighters as the fighters. And the conscientious objector finds a\ndifficulty in seeing Christ serving a gun for the artillery of either\nside (however righteous the cause) which may have for immediate result\nthe disembowelling of a mother while in the pains of child-birth, or\nthe dismembering of young children.\n\nHe holds further (and it is a tenable argument addressed to any Power\nwhich maintains despotic sway over an alien race, declaring such sway\nto be acceptable to the people concerned, while treating as \u201cseditious\u201d\nany reluctance to regard it as acceptable), he holds that, if the worst\ncomes to the worst, submission to force, or mere passive resistance\nthereto, is more lifesaving, both morally and physically, than the\nsetting of force against force even for the defence of \u201cliberty.\u201d He\nholds, probably, that Finland, in her policy of passive resistance to\nTsarist domination, has better conditions and prospects to-day than\nSerbia; that the present fate of India, as the result of submission to\na stronger Power is preferable to the present fate of Belgium; even\nthough the Government forced upon it be more alien to the genius of\nits races than is the German to the Flemish. He may believe that in\nthe long run India is more likely to escape from being Britainised by\nbowing to the subjugating Power, than Britain is likely to escape from\nbeing Prussianised by a hurried adoption of a similar system to that\nwhich she has set out to destroy. He may even think (for there is no\nlimit to the contrariety of his views) that if England wins handsomely\nin this war by adopting the Prussian system of militarism, she is more\nlikely to retain it than if she gets beaten. In a word he thinks war\nthe most hazardous of all remedies for the evils it sets out to cure.\n\nThe State, on the other side, sees the very gravest danger to that\nedifice of worldly power which is summed up in the word \u201cimperial,\u201d if\nonce it allows the individual conscience to pick and choose the moral\nterms of its allegiance. And the better the argument the conscientious\nobjector can present from political parallels in other countries, or\nfrom the failures and blunders of past history, the more dangerous\nbecomes his propaganda and the more rigorously must it be suppressed.\n\nThe State\u2019s claim to our duty to-day is precisely the same, neither\nmore nor less, than it would be if it required our services for the\nprosecution of a second Boer War, a second Opium-trade war against\nChina, or a second war against the Independence of America. The causes\nof the war might be no more reputable than in these cases, but the\nState\u2019s claim on our allegiance would remain the same. \u201cIt is not for\nyou,\u201d the State says, in effect, \u201cto judge whether I am right or wrong,\nif I come to claim your services for war.\u201d\n\nNow nobody, I presume, is so convinced of the perennial purity of his\ncountry\u2019s motives, or that its foreign policy has in the past been\nso safe-guarded by democratic control, as to claim that it has never\nwaged foolish or unjust wars. Most reasonable people will admit that\nthe State is, in matters of morals, a fallible authority. The claim\nis, therefore, that of a fallible authority for the unquestioning\nobedience of its citizens in a course of action which may involve the\nruin, torture, and death of an innocent people, or the subjugation of\na liberty-loving race. That claim by a State which stands based on the\ndoctrine that Might is a surer remedy and defence than Right, is a\nperfectly logical one. I have not a word to say against it.\n\nBut when that claim is made for the State by followers of Christianity\non Christian grounds, then I am anxious to relieve the State of the\nentanglement they would thrust upon it. I am sure that a State which\nbases its authority on Might is weakened and not strengthened by any\nattempt to sanction its claim as being compatible with the Christianity\ntaught by Christ. The less Christianity a State pretends to when it\ngoes to war, the more is it likely to conduct its war effectively,\nand to find no mental hindrance in its way as it advances to its true\nend--the destruction of its enemies.\n\nBecause our counsels were mixed with a certain modicum of Christianity,\nwe had a reluctance early in the war to use asphyxiating gas, exploding\nbullets, and certain other improved devices for adding to the frightful\neffectiveness of war. We still hesitate to smear phosphorus on our\nshells so as to make wounds incurable, or to starve our prisoners\nbecause we hear that our fellow countrymen are being starved in\nGermany. In some instances with the help of the _Daily Mail_ the\ndoctrine of \u201can eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth\u201d has carried\nthe day for us; but it is not a Christian doctrine, and elsewhere\nChristianity, or its shadow, still holds us by the leg. The _Morning\nPost_, seeing the national danger we were in from these divided\ncounsels, rightly demanded a Government that would \u201cstick at nothing,\u201d\nbut has only partially succeeded in securing what it wants.\n\nNow the conscientious objectors have been trying to do us the service,\nwhich we have ignored, of pointing out from the very beginning that\nwar is not and cannot be Christian, and so showing us that when a\nnation goes to war Christianity is the real danger. The bigger the\nbulk of genuine and practical Christianity in any country, the more\nimpossible is it for that country to adopt effective methods of war.\nThe reluctance which we feel to shell out phosphorus, or to starve\ncivilians, will in the genuinely Christian State make itself felt at a\nmuch earlier stage of warlike practice, long before those particular\ndevices have been applied or even thought of; and it will arise (to\nthe discrediting of all power which places Might above Right) from\nthe assertion that \u201can eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth\u201d is not\nChristian doctrine, and is, in result, no remedy for the evil it sets\nitself to avenge.\n\nThis is the real parting of the ways; it is fundamental. Christianity,\nbased upon the personal example and teaching of Christ, is too\nindividualist to be in accordance with Society as at present\nconstituted. Institutional Christianity, on the other hand, has\nobviously transferred its allegiance in certain matters of moral\nguidance from Christ to C\u00e6sar; and claims that those matters have\nbeen left for C\u00e6sar to decide. I heard it argued, for instance,\nquite recently, by a Roman Catholic, that as Christendom in all ages\nhad tolerated war, all question of conscientious objection thereto\nby a Catholic falls to the ground. The answer of the Christian\nindividualist, I conceive, would be, that Christendom also tolerated\ntorture for the extraction of truth, and slavery for the extraction\nof labour; and that, nevertheless, the conscientious objection\nof resistant minorities succeeded, in spite of the supineness of\nChristendom, in placing those monstrosities outside the pale of\ncivilized convention. No doubt while those devices flourished\nunder the countenance of Mother Church, Christians opposed to their\nabolition would have cried then, as they cry now about war, \u201cHow are\nyou to do without them? How can you extract truth from an unwilling\nwitness, or labour from a subjugated race, except by compulsion and\nforce?\u201d The answer to that apparently insoluble problem now stands\nwritten in history--a history which has not eliminated untruth from\nthe witness-box, or indolence from the labour market; yet torture and\nslavery alike have ceased to be practical politics, except where the\nState still answers with regard to war as it used to answer with regard\nto these: \u201cI cannot do without.\u201d There, in their last real stronghold,\nunaffected by Christian ethics, slavery and torture still stand.\n\nBut we have to remember that the State\u2019s claim, if we accept it as a\nbinding principle, comes much closer home to us than it would do if\nit arose only in time of war. Military service, once we are in it,\ninvolves us in such things as the firing at Peterloo on defenceless\ncitizens, in the murder under superior orders of Sheehy Skeffington;\nin the shooting, if we are ordered to shoot them, of conscientious\nobjectors--men who are themselves sworn not to take life. Military\nservice, loyally rendered in Tsarist Russia, involved the riding down,\nthe sabring to death, and the drowning of those meek crowds who stood\nbefore the Winter Palace in January, 1905, asking for their \u201cLittle\nFather\u201d to come and speak to them words of comfort.\n\nThese are things unfortunately which Christians cannot do with a\ngood conscience, but which the State for its safety may say that it\nrequires. Let those of us who agree with the State\u2019s claim to our\npersonal service, irrespective of conscience, do our utmost to separate\nit from the weakening effects which true and genuine Christianity is\nbound to have on it.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SALT OF THE EARTH\n\n(1918)\n\n\nIt is a curious commentary upon the confusion of tongues which has\ndescended upon us in our efforts to build towers reaching to Heaven,\nthat you would have been misled had I given this address its true\ntitle. Had I called it \u201cthe Value of Purity\u201d most of you would have\nimagined that I was going to speak of what is usually called--with such\nstrange one-sidedness--the \u201csocial evil\u201d; just as we call the liquor\ntraffic \u201cthe Trade.\u201d You would have thought, probably, that I was\ngoing to speak about Regulation 40 D, or some other aspect of the sex\nproblem with which the word \u201cpurity\u201d has become conventionally allied.\nIt would, indeed, be one-sided in the other direction, to exclude\nsuch considerations from the scope of so embracing a theme; but my\nintention is rather to disencumber the word \u201cpurity\u201d from the narrow\nand puritanical meaning to which it has become limited; and the \u201cSalt\nof the Earth\u201d does bring us nearer by its salutary implication to what\npurity should really mean.\n\nFor if purity is not a good sanitary principle of fundamental\napplication to all ethical problems alike, it is merely a pious fad\nwhich may easily become a pious fraud--a religious tenet pigeon-holed\nby crabbed age for the affliction of youth. To departmentalise it in\na particular direction leads to impurity of thought; for we destroy\nthe balance of life and degrade its standards if we do not use our\nmoral weights and measures consistently in all relations alike. And\nif you allow a particular implication of purity to impose its claim\nin a society whose impurity in other directions makes it entirely\nimpracticable, then you are reducing your social ethics to mere\npretence and mockery; and honest youth will find you out, and will turn\naway from your religions and your ethical codes with the contempt which\nthey deserve.\n\nIs not that what is actually happening--more apparently to-day,\nperhaps, than ever before? Has not that departmental code to which I\nrefer broken down and become foolish in the eyes of honest men and\nwomen, largely because purity is nowhere established in the surrounding\nconditions of our social life?\n\nWhat is the true aim of social life and social organisation in regard\nto the individual? What claim has it upon his allegiance if it does\nnot offer the means of self-realisation and self-fulfilment equally to\nall? And suppose, instead of doing this in a large majority of cases,\nit does the reverse: starves his imagination, reduces his initiative,\ncripples his development, makes practically impossible (at the time\nwhen desire awakes and becomes strong) the fulfilment of his nature\ninstinct for mating; how does the claim stand then? If you can only\noffer him marriage conditions which are themselves impure, unequal laws\nwhich are themselves a temptation, houses incompatible with health\nor decency, wages insufficient for the healthy support of home, and\nwife, and children; if that, broadly speaking, has been the marriage\ncondition which society offers to wage-earning youth, what right has it\nto babble about \u201cpurity\u201d in that narrower and more individual relation,\nwhile careless to provide it in its own larger domain?\n\nIf you have employments--such as that of bank-clerk or\nshop-assistant--which demand of those engaged a certain gentility of\ndress and appearance, but offer only a wage upon which (till a man\nis over thirty) domestic establishment at the required standard of\nrespectability is quite impossible--if that is the social condition\nimposed in a great branch of middle-class industry--if you tolerate\nthat condition and draw bigger profits from your business, and bigger\ndividends from your investments upon the strength of it--what right\nhave you to demand of your victims an abstinence which is in itself\nunnatural and penurious, and therefore impure?\n\nYet what proportion of sermons, think you, have been preached\nduring the last hundred years in churches and chapels against that\ngreat social impurity of underpaid labour, and underfed life which\nhave between them done so far more to create prostitution than any\nindwelling depravity in the heart of youth? Thwarted life, and sweated\nlabour, those have been the makings of the \u201csocial evil,\u201d so called;\nand they lie at the door of an impure system which has made its money\nsavings at the cost of a great waste of life.\n\nThat particular instance, which I refer to merely in passing, has to\ndo with our ordinary application of the word purity. But I want to\nshow how all social purity really hangs together, and how, unless\nyou have a great fundamental social principle pure throughout,\ncorruption will carry infection from one department to the other,\nmaking useless or impracticable any ideal of purity which you try to\nset up in one particular direction. If you do--to put it plainly and\ncolloquially--the doctrine won\u2019t wash; honest minds will find out that\nthe part is inconsistent with the whole.\n\nWhat, then, is the whole social ideal which lies at the root of the\nmodern State? Is it pure, or is it impure? Is it the true \u201cSalt of the\nEarth\u201d which, if equally applied, will benefit all nations and all\npeoples alike: those to whom, in President Wilson\u2019s phrase, we wish to\nbe just, and those to whom we do not wish to be just? Does any modern\nState really present within its own borders, and in its treatment of\nall classes and interests, an example which, if extended, would make\nthe world safe for Internationalism--an end which I am inclined to\nthink is more important than making it safe for Democracy?\n\nThe phrase \u201cSalt of the Earth,\u201d which I have taken to illustrate the\nmeaning and value of social purity, has come to us from that wonderful\ncompendium of ethical teaching known to Christians as the \u201cSermon\non the Mount\u201d; that body of coherent, consistent, and constructive\ndoctrine from which Christianity--so soon as it had allied itself with\nC\u00e6sar and the things of C\u00e6sar--made such haste to depart. And the\nwhole process of that departure was (from the pure ethical standard of\nthe Sermon on the Mount) a process of adulteration--of impurity--an\nadaptation of a spiritual ideal to a secular practice of mixed motives.\nBut the process really began earlier. It began in the attempt to\nidentify the God of the Sermon on the Mount with Jahveh, the tribal God\nof Hebrew history. And in that attempted identification (incompatible\nethics having to be reconciled) ethics became confounded.\n\nThe Rabbinical training of St. Paul, the Hebraistic tendencies of the\nearly Christian Church (whose first device was to proselytize the Jews\non the old nationalistic assumption that they were the Chosen People),\nall combined to give an impure vision of God to the followers of the\nnew faith. The nationalism of Judaism corrupted the internationalism\nof the Day of Pentecost; and the primitive Mosaic code uttered from\nSinai, and adapted to the mission of racial conquest there enjoined,\nstultified the teaching of Calvary.\n\nThe two were incompatible; yet, somehow or another, the Christian\nChurch had to evolve an ethic which embraced both. And it did so\nthrough allegiance to the State, and the setting-up of a compromise\nbetween things secular and things spiritual which has existed ever\nsince.\n\nYou can see for yourselves which of the two is to-day the more\nrecognised and observed among nations which call themselves Christian.\nThe old tenets of Judaism--based on the Mosaic law and summed up in the\nsaying, \u201cAn eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth\u201d--can be observed\nby any one to-day in practical entirety with the full approval of the\nState. A strict observance of the Sermon on the Mount, and a practical\nbelief in the teaching of Calvary land a man in prison or may even\nrender him liable to be shot.\n\nRightly or wrongly he is regarded as a danger or a weakness to the\nmodern State. Personally, I think that he is rightly regarded so; for I\ndo not see how the modern State could exist if everyone were a sincere\nbeliever in that great peace-offensive, the Sermon on the Mount, and in\nits great practical exposition, the Death on Calvary. The only thing I\nam in doubt about is whether the modern State is the better alternative.\n\nChristianity, sincerely and whole-heartedly practised, might have\nstrange social results; it might, on the other hand, be unexpectedly\npleasant and workable. But of one thing I feel quite sure; it would\nnot--as humanity is at present constituted--be practised by any but a\nvery small minority; and it would have to work entirely without State\naid. But that minority would fulfil, for the purposes of demonstration,\nthe condition which, I think, is necessary for all great ethical\nadventures: it would be pure and unadulterated. It would succeed or\nit would fail standing upon its own feet and not upon C\u00e6sar\u2019s, not\nrelying on mixed motives or compromise, but on a single principle--the\nprinciple of loving your neighbour as yourself, and converting him\nfrom evil ways by a process of peaceful penetration. And being--and\nremaining, a decisive minority in the world\u2019s affairs, its part therein\nwould resemble the part played by salt in the chemical sanitation of\nthe soil out of which grow the clean or the unclean things of earth\nwhich feed or which poison us.\n\nAnd that is the first point which I ask you to consider; the\nextraordinary value to society, and to the whole evolution of the human\nrace of minorities holding extremist opinions--so extreme that they do\nnot seem at the present day to be practical politics--and yet having a\nchemic influence (which would not be otherwise obtainable) for bringing\ninto being the mind of to-morrow, which has always been, all down the\nages, the work of minorities, and generally of persecuted minorities.\n\nFor the Salt of the Earth is only one single constituent, which enables\na better standard of life to become established where the virtue\nof its presence is felt. Salt is not, and cannot be, the general\nconstituent of life; its essence always remains a minor quantity, and\nyet quite definitely it affects the generality of things around it.\nBut in itself it is an extreme, an uncompromising element; its most\nstriking characteristic is its saltness.\n\nIt would be foolish, therefore, to blame it for not being sweet, or for\nnot being acid, or for not being capable of taking the place of beef or\nmutton in the dietary of the human race, or for not making the whole\nhuman race in its own image. (The only person I ever heard of who was\nturned into an image of salt was Lot\u2019s wife; and as a human being it\nmade her entirely useless). And yet, as, quite literally, the substance\nsalt has helped the earth to become habitable, and the human race to\nbecome human, so has that symbolic salt of the earth, helped the human\nrace to become humane, and to envisage (though not to obey) a new ethic\nof conduct based upon an ideal conception of the brotherhood of man.\n\nIt was the extreme expression of a new and higher moral plane to which\nevolution is only gradually bringing us. Had it started upon compromise\nit would have been useless. Its special value was, and still is, in\nits uncompromising enunciation of a principle which we still regard as\nimpracticable.\n\nBut it had, at least, when it was first uttered, this degree of\npracticability--it appealed to men\u2019s minds; and it has gone on\nappealing to them ever since.\n\nHad it been uttered to neolithic man, it would have been merely\nunintelligible, with no imaginable relation to the experiences of\nlife; whereas it has a very obvious relation now. Earth was then\nin the toils not of a moral but of a physical problem, demanding\na straightforward physical solution; and the salting of the earth\nconsisted then very largely in the indomitable courage and obstinacy\nwith which man--the crude struggling biped--stood up against the larger\nand more powerful forms of life which barred the way of his advance\ntoward civilisation--just as previously, the salting of the earth\n(the preparing it for a higher form of life) depended upon the huge\nand uncouth antediluvian monsters which devoured and trod down the\noverwhelming growths of marsh and jungle.\n\nAnd from that first salting of the earth, lasting through so many\nages, it is no wonder that much of the old physical recipe still\nsurvives; and that the history of civilisation has shown us a process\nin which ruthless extermination by war was regarded as the best means\nof establishing God\u2019s elect upon earth. The doctrine that force is a\nremedy, or a security for moral ends, dies a slow death in the minds\nof men. Institutional Christianity has, by its traditions and its\nprecepts, done all it could to keep it alive. We still have read to us\nin our churches--for our approving acceptance--a proposition made by\nthe Children of Israel to a neighbouring tribe, precisely similar to\nthat made five years ago by Germany to Belgium. And the inference left\non the minds of Christian congregations, generation after generation,\nhas been that God quite approved of it (and of the ruthless devastation\nwhich followed) as a means for making his chosen people the salt of the\nearth.\n\nIt is not without significance that the Christian Church all down\nthe ages has allowed that sort of teaching to enter the minds of the\ncommon people. It is not without significance that the common people\nfive years ago rose superior to their Bible-teaching, and regarded its\nreproduction in the world of to-day as a moral outrage.\n\nAnd yet if the world\u2019s affairs, and its racial problems are to be\nsolved by physical force, it was a perfectly consistent thing to do;\nand the inconsistency lies in our moral revolt against it.\n\nThe truth is, of course, that we are in a period of transition. We are\nindignant with people who regard successful force as a justification\nfor wrong; but we are almost equally indignant with those who will not\nregard it as a remedy for wrong. And we are slow to see that while the\nschool of justification by force remains rampant in the world, there\nmay be some chemic value for the spiritual development of the human\nrace in the school which denies the efficacy of remedy by force. Yet\nis it not possible that as the past belongs to the one, so the future\nmay belong to the other?\n\nWhen we started upon this war we declared that it was a war to end war;\nand it was quite a popular thing to say that if it did not result in\nthe ending of war, then the cause of the Allies would stand defeated.\nBut that was only another way of saying that we should suffer defeat\nif in the near future the whole world were not converted to the point\nof view of the conscientious objector. But that would have been a very\nunpopular way of putting it, so it was not said.\n\nSurely this sort of contradiction in which war lands us is only another\nproof that we are in an age of transition. Transition makes consistency\ndifficult.\n\nBut the inconsistency, which conditions of war bring into prominent\nreality, lies embedded in our social system (which is itself a\ncompromise between two incompatible principles)--the Will to Love and\nthe Will to Power; and there will always be that inconsistency till\nthe world has definitely decided whether Love or Power is to form the\nbasis of our moral order. It has not decided it yet. In our own country\n(leaving out all question of foreign relations) we have not decided it\nyet.\n\nIt is the condition of impurity resulting from that indecision--and\npermeating more or less the whole of our social organisation--which I\nask you now to consider.\n\nHow it came about is really not difficult to explain. When primitive\nman began to develop the rudiments of society (the group, or the herd)\nhe did so mainly for self-preservation. In the struggle for existence\ncoordinated numbers gave him a better chance; and giving him a better\nchance of life, they gave him also a better chance of self-development\nand self-enjoyment. But into that early society man brought not only\nhis social instincts but his predatory instincts as well. And while the\ngroup helped him to prey more effectively on those left outside, it did\nnot prevent him from preying in a certain measure on those within. The\nexceptionally strong man had an exceptional value in his own tribe; and\nhe exacted an exceptional price for it--in wives, or in slaves captured\nin war, or in the division of the spoil. It was the same, as society\ndeveloped, with the exceptionally resourceful leader; brain began to\ncount above muscle; and the men of exceptional ability acquired the\nwealth. And you know perfectly well, without my going further into\ndetail, that out of the price exacted within the community (whose broad\ninterests were in common) separate and conflicting interests arose; the\ninterest which secured political control exacted from all the dependent\ninterests an unfair price for its services; and wherever slavery was an\nestablished part of social development, man did not love his neighbour\nas himself, he only loved him as his chattel.\n\nYou may take a big jump through history, from primitive to feudal, from\nfeudal to modern times; and you will still find the same interests\nstrong in every state, using their inherited control of wealth, of\norganisation, and of law, to extract advantage to themselves from the\nweaker, and the less educated members of the community; and always\ndoing it in the name of the commonwealth--the strength and stability\nof the State. Only the other day (in a State as advanced as any\nin its democratic faith and its doctrine of equality for all--the\nUnited States of America) the moment there was a temporary breakdown\nin the legal safeguards against child-labour--there was a great\norganised rush in certain States of conscripted child-labour into\nindustry--conscripted not by the State but by capital, exploiting the\nincreased need of the wage-earning classes brought about by the raised\nprices of war.\n\nThe men who do that kind of thing (and they are men of great power\nand influence in the State) still only love their neighbours as their\nchattels, and still take advantage of all forms of law, or absence of\nlaw, to keep established as far as they can the conditions of social\nslavery. You may say that a thing like that lies outside the law, or\nthat it is an abuse which legislation has not yet overtaken and put an\nend to; but what is more important and more significant is that it is\nan abuse which public opinion in those States where it was done had\nnot overtaken and put an end to, or not merely put an end to, but made\nimpossible. It makes it impossible for a black man over there to marry\na white woman; and if it can do the one it can do the other.\n\nBut what are those people doing? They are merely reflecting in their\nown personal affairs an ideal which lies engrained in every State which\nputs self-interest above the interest of the whole human race. And\nthat, in our present transitional stage, is the standpoint of every\ncountry to-day. In our heart of hearts we still hold Nationalism more\nimportant than Internationalism. And \u201cmy country right or wrong\u201d is\nstill for some people the last word in morality; rather than admit\ntheir country to be in the wrong they will let morality go.\n\nIn that matter, indeed, the world to-day seems to be divided into\ntwo schools. There is one school which so exalts the idea of the\nState as to say that the State can do no wrong: that if morality and\nState-interest conflict morality must go under, or rather that morals\nonly exist to subserve State-interests,--and being a State-product, the\nState has the right to limit their application. We are fighting to-day\nagainst a race which is charged with having taken up that attitude;\nand the pronouncements of some of its most distinguished writers, as\nwell as certain methods which it has employed in war, seem to bear\nout the charge. But when it comes to war, that particular school of\nState-ethics gives itself away by protesting that the other States\nwhich are in hostile alliance against it are behaving very wrongly\nindeed--though by its own doctrine (States being above morals) they are\nincapable of wrong. It cannot stick to its own thesis.\n\nBut what are we to say if that other school, which admits that the\nState can do wrong; but is not going to allow the State to be punished\nfor doing wrong if that State happens to be its own? It is not\nthat this school does not believe in punishment; it believes in it\nenthusiastically, rapturously, so long as it is directed against the\nwrong-doing of some other State. Punishment is good for other States,\nwhen they do wrong; without punishment the justice of God would not\nbe satisfied. But for their own particular State punishment is bad,\nand is no longer to be advocated. And so you may say--looking back in\nhistory--that your country was quite wrong in waging such and such a\nwar; but patriotism forbids the wish in that case that right should\nhave prevailed and the justice of God been satisfied.\n\nNow that school was very vocal in England during the Boer War; and I\ndaresay during the Opium War with China; and I daresay, also, during\nthe American War of Independence--very loud that we were in the wrong;\nbut not at all admitting, for that reason, that it would be good for us\nto be beaten. But I think it should be one of our proudest boasts that,\nin the long run (not immediately--not perhaps for a generation or two)\nthe political and moral good sense of this country goes back upon the\nteaching of that school. I believe that on the whole we are glad that\nwe were beaten in the war with America; and that we are glad we were\nbeaten because we were in the wrong. And, perhaps, some day--not yet,\nfor our fear of the Yellow Race is still greater than our fear of any\nwhite race you can name--but, perhaps, some day we may be sorry that we\nwere not beaten to a standstill in our opium war with China. (I see,\nincidentally, that to-day we are addressing a sharp remonstrance to\nthe Chinese Government, because it is now doing that very thing which\nwe then compelled it to do at the point of the bayonet--permitting,\nnamely, the opium trade to be revived. That remonstrance only came,\nhowever, after we had sold to China sufficient opium to last its\nmedical needs for 140 years!)\n\nNow those acts of our national past, which we now reprobate, were only\nbad prominent expressions of the fundamental idea on which the modern\nState runs its foreign policies--reflecting outwardly something which\nlives strongly engrained in our midst--the Will to Power. It is because\nthat principle is more firmly established in the world of diplomacy\nthan either the Will to Serve or the Will to Love, that our policies\nhave been able to shape themselves. It was not because we wished to\ngive the Heathen Chinee a good time that we forced our opium upon him;\nit was because we wanted to give our opium trade good returns. And\nthat was merely a faithful reflection of what was going on at home.\nIt was because we wanted--or because our ruling classes wanted--to\ngive capital good returns, that the working classes were not allowed\nto combine, that child-labour, and sweated industries remained like\ninstitutions in our midst, that legislation in the interests of labour\nand of women and children fell hopelessly into arrears. Democracy,\nyou may say, has done away with all that: well, with some of it. In\nproportion to the broadening of its power in the State, Democracy has\nlooked after its own interests. But so long as the average human mind\nis bent upon securing advantage to the detriment of others, or upon\nsecuring for itself privileges not to be shared by others, that mind\nwill inevitably be reflected in the way we work our State institutions,\nand the form we give to our foreign policies. And always, and in every\ninstance, you will find, if you follow it out, that this inclination\nto secure advantage to the detriment of others always lands you in\nan ethical contradiction unless your ideal is entirely inhuman and\nnon-social. It is inconsistent with that community of interest to which\nsocial order pretends. We set up laws for the good of the State; and\nwe call them equal laws. And if they are good laws, and if we love\nour country, we must necessarily love the laws which are for the good\nof our country, and embrace them with equal fervour, whether they\ntouch us or whether they touch our neighbours. But when a member of\nour own family commits a theft, or a forgery, we do everything we can\nto save him from the operation of that law which we think so good for\nothers. And if we do; then our affection or respect for the law is\nentirely one-sided and impure. And the people who make laws and devise\npunishments upon those unequal premises are not at all likely to make\ntheir laws just, or their forms of punishment wise.\n\nOur whole prison system is bad just because it is not really designed\nfirst and foremost to do the criminal good, and to develop him into a\nuseful citizen; but only to repress him and make him a discouraging\nexample to others.\n\nOur prisons are impure because they are lacking in good-will; we have\nregarded power instead of love as the solution of the crime problem;\nand we have been contented to apply an impatient, unintelligent, and\nsoul-destroying remedy to the crimes of others, which we would not wish\nto see applied in like case to those of our own family.\n\nOf course, I know that our prisons have been greatly improved;\nbecause, as I said before, we are in a state of transition, and a new\nschool of thought, whose basis is Love and Service, is fighting an\nold school of thought whose basis is Power, and gradually--only very\ngradually--getting the better of it.\n\nIt is the same with Education; the old idea of education was largely\nbased on dominance and power--the power of the teacher to punish. The\nnew idea is largely based upon the power of the teacher to interest,\nand upon trust in youth\u2019s natural instinct to acquire knowledge. It\nis a tremendous change; the old system was impure in its psychology,\nand corrupted alike the mind of the teacher and the taught. Nobody in\nthe old days was so unteachable as a school-master; and yet his whole\nprofession is really--to learn of youth. And the ethical impurity of\nthe old system came at the point where there was a lack of goodwill--a\nlack of mutual confidence.\n\nIn trade again, how much co-operation has been over-ridden by\ncompetition--man\u0153uvres of one against the other, designed to the\nother\u2019s detriment. We have been told that competition is absolutely\nnecessary to keep us efficient in business; it is precisely the same\nschool of thought which says that war is necessary to keep us efficient\nas a nation.\n\nBut in a family you don\u2019t need competition; where there is goodwill,\nco-operation and the give-and-take of new ideas for the common stock\nare enough.\n\nTo-day we are beginning to wake up to the possibility of co-operation\ntaking the place of competition. It is the purer idea; and being the\npurer we shall probably in the end find it the more economical.\n\nAnd what shall we say about politics? Does anyone pretend that our\npolitics are pure; or that the system on which we run them is\nanything but a vast system of adulteration?--which may perhaps be\nthus expressed:--Two great bodies of opinion trying to misunderstand\neach other and trying to make the general public share in their\nmisunderstanding, in order that their own side may attain to power.\n\nWhen you start on a discussion, what is the pure reason for that\ndiscussion? To try to arrive at a common understanding--mental\nco-operation. But is it for that purpose that we raise our party cries\nand run a general election?\n\nWe are being threatened with that great boon in the near future. And\nwhen it takes place a great wave of impurity will rise and will flood\nthrough the land; and men will be strenuously misrepresenting the\nwords and thoughts and motives of their opponents--and very often men\nwill be misrepresenting their own motives--because their end is really\npower--power over others instead of goodwill to others. And out of that\nprocess we shall draw together the Council of the Nation!\n\nThat process--which we see quite well is an impure process--is forced\nupon us because we are in a stage of transition; it is difficult as a\nmatter of practical politics to suggest a better.\n\nBut ought not that obvious fact to make us very humble about our\npresent stage of political development--and humble in general about the\nposition to which we have attained in our moral evolution? Is it not a\nlittle premature to call ourselves a Free Nation? Is any Nation really\nfree till it has found itself on peace and good-will to all?\n\nNow I have put before you these sorry spectacles to show that where\nthe true social ideal of brotherhood and goodwill breaks down, you\narrive at some ethical absurdity of which you have to be ashamed--you\nfind yourself driven into inconsistency, into impurity. And the only\nthing that is consistent and is pure (once you have started with the\nsocial idea) is that we are all one brotherhood--and that harm to one\nmember of the community is harm to all. And when you have once got a\nnation that has really taken that idea to heart and made a practice of\nit, such a nation will never rest content till there is a Society of\nNations of like mind extending over all the world.\n\nI referred just now to the Sermon on the Mount. To most of the world\nits teachings sound impracticable. They are the extreme statement\nof an ideal; and it is hard in this world to live ideally. But that\nstatement has about it this merit of commonsense--it is pure, it is\nconsistent--it is a united whole; and it is based on something of which\nwe have never yet really allowed ourselves the luxury--a trust in human\nnature. A belief that if you set yourself whole-heartedly to do good to\nothers--to do good even to your enemies--human nature will respond.\n\nWe cannot all love our neighbours as ourself--that individual emotion\nis beyond us. But if we can love our country enough to die for it,\nwe can also love it enough to give to it laws and institutions and\npolicies that shall prepare the way for the universal brotherhood of\nman.\n\n\n\n\nTHE RIGHTS OF MAJORITIES\n\n(1912)\n\n\nIn every age some fetich of government has been set up designed to\ndelude the governed, and to induce a blind rather than an intellectual\nacceptance of authority.\n\nTo set up in government some point over which you must not argue, is\nalways very convenient to those who govern; and so you will note,\nthroughout the world\u2019s history, that the manipulators of government\nhave always tried to impose some incontrovertible proposition as the\nbasis on which their authority shall rest; and then, having done so, to\nget the strings of it into their own hands, and work it to their own\nconvenience.\n\nIn the present day \u201cmajority rule\u201d is the pretended fetich; a majority\nwhose qualification is almost automatic, whose registration is all\ndone for it by the party agents, and whose free and independent vote\nis brought up to the polling-booth very largely by the bribe of a free\nride in a motor-car.\n\nScores of elections, that is to say, are turned by the indifferent\nvoter, and on this sort of cookery recipe the moral products of\nmajority rule are served up to us as \u201ca dish fit for a king,\u201d and as\ngiving moral sanction to government. And whatever indigestion comes\nto us as the result of our swallowing it whole we are to sit down\nunder. If the majority has decided, the matter (we are told) is beyond\nargument.\n\nThat is the fetich, the superstition on which, in theory, government\nrests to-day.\n\nIn other times there were other fetiches, quite as respectable. \u201cThe\nKing can do no wrong,\u201d was one of them. And we have had staged before\nour eyes, in due order, the divine right--or the divine sanction; it is\nall the same--of Kings, of Property, of Inheritance, of Slavery, and of\nWar.\n\nAll these have been maintained as necessities of government--infallible\ndoctrines, based on Scripture and the will of God.\n\nSome of them present rather a battered front to-day. The fetich which\nhas taken their place is the \u201cRight of Majorities.\u201d\n\nWe do not exactly say \u201cMajorities can do no wrong.\u201d But we do incline\nto say (often for the sake of a quiet life, and for no better reason)\n\u201cMajorities must be allowed to do as they please.\u201d And that means in\neffect--those must be allowed to do as they please who can pull the\nwires by which majorities are manipulated.\n\nI need hardly remind you that to-day the wire-pullers are the\nstatesmen, the leaders of party, who have secured more and more the\ncontrol of the party-machine, and with it the control of the education\nof the electorate.\n\nHaving secured this control, they let loose upon you the astonishing\ndoctrine that, if you have numbers, there you have your right cut and\ndried; that if you have not numbers your right (politically speaking)\ndoes not exist.\n\nNow every student of history knows that in the past majorities,\nmore especially manipulated majorities--or their counterpart _force\nmajeure_--have done great crimes.\n\nBut we do not to-day maintain that those majorities had a \u201cright\u201d to\nsack cities, to violate women, to massacre, to exterminate, and to\nbring others into subjection. The most we say is that these happenings\nare an extreme, and, under some circumstances, an inevitable expression\nof certain bad elements in human nature. Is it not, then, perfectly\nabsurd to imagine that under internal and domestic conditions all such\nbad elements have departed from majorities; and that a consensus of\nvice, of self-indulgence, of unfairness, of a desire for domination,\nmay not spread through very large sections of the community, even\nthrough whole peoples where the opportunity so to indulge is\naccorded--especially if it be accorded by law or embodied as a State\ndoctrine?\n\nClearly, therefore, there must be some limitation or check imposed\nupon the so-called \u201crights\u201d of majorities; and some of them may be\nlimitations which those majorities would not choose for themselves,\nbut will, all the same, submit to without revolt if they are properly\nrubbed home! One of the essential conditions for majority rule (if\nit is to carry with it any moral sanction at all) is that it must\nbe ready to submit to the same conditions which it imposes upon\nothers; and that it must not set up qualification, or prohibition from\nqualification, without any liability of that prohibition falling upon\nitself. It must make the liability fairly equal.\n\nThe specious excuse and justification for government by majority, as\nput forward by the materialists, is that, latent, within it, lies the\nphysical force of the nation. (I may say, in passing, that the physical\nforce of the nation lies latent in every form of government which\nsecures the assent of the governed; and only ceases to be latent when\nsome of it gets on to its hind-legs and insists on another form of\ngovernment; and to be effective, that \u201csome of it\u201d need not always be a\nmajority.)\n\nBut it is no use talking of physical force being the basis and the\nmoral justification of majority rule--it is no use invoking the\nphysical force argument--unless your majority is also prepared to go\nto the trouble of exercising it and paying the price for exercising\nit. And the main phenomenon of our present form of government by\nmajority is that the majority won\u2019t take any trouble at all; that,\ntaken in the bulk, they care very little, and won\u2019t put themselves\nto inconvenience--certainly won\u2019t risk physical discomfort and\npain--unless government has very seriously incommoded them by damaging\nor by neglecting their interests.\n\nIf the physical force basis is to be your full sanction of\ngovernment--if that is really your argument--then that basis, that\nsanction, is possessed equally by king or despot, so long as he has his\norganisation at his command. There are his numbers, obeying him just\nas, with us, M.P.\u2019s, 700 strong, obey the party-whips, often against\ntheir principles, but from no physical compulsion whatever.\n\nWhat the preachers of physical force seem to ignore in arguing about\nthe basis of government, is the aim of government. What, in the minds\nand consciences of those who believe in government, is government\naiming for? Is its aim only to keep order or to be just? Does it seek\nto repress humanity to the utmost extent, or to develop it? To wrap its\ntalents in a napkin, or to make it spiritually a ruler of cities?\n\nWhat is humanity out for? To what is it evolving? What has been its\nimpulse, its motive force in pressing for, and in extracting from\nreluctant authorities Representative Government, with its accompanying\nsymbol--the voice of the majority?\n\nIt has been seeking humane government--in the belief, surely, that\nthe nearer you get to really humane government the more will unrest\nand revolt and crime cease; and, by the consequent reduction of the\npolice and of the forces of repression now needed, repay the State a\nhundred-fold for the liberties it has established. And majority rule\nis merely a device to get nearer to humane government, to open up the\nmind of man to his own humane possibilities, and to develop his trust\nin others by reposing trust in him. The more you spread government as\nan organization of the people themselves, the more humane, upon that\nworking basis, are likely to be its operations--on one condition: that\nsuch organisation of the people, whatever its numbers, submits to the\noperation of its own laws and shares equally in the conditions which\nit imposes--that, if it provides a qualification for citizenship, it\nprovides also the means for all to qualify.\n\nNow this brings us to the relative duties of those who govern and of\nthose who are governed; and, whereas, fundamentally their duty is the\nsame, in one important respect it differs. In each case, broadly and\nfundamentally, their duty is toward their neighbour--to do to him as\nthey would he should do unto them. That axiom, rightly carried out,\ncovers all the law and the prophets, being greater than either; nay, if\nit were rightly and universally carried out, the law and the prophets\nmight safely be shelved. Law merely exists as an expedient, because men\nhave not yet learned thoroughly to do, or even to wish to do, their\nduty toward their neighbour; and as law is an imperfect thing, only\nexisting because of, and only applicable to, imperfect conditions, the\nlaw and its upholders are not, and never can be, a perfect expression\nof that duty which is mutually owed by all. Law is only an expedient\nfor averting greater evils which might, and probably would, take place\nwithout it in our present very imperfect stage of human development.\n\nBut there is one obvious difference between the governors and the\ngoverned. In the action of the former there is an assertion of\nauthority--an underlying assumption of a power to improve matters by\nregulating them. In the governed there is no such assumption of moral\nsuperiority; the governed are there whether they like it or no; and the\nlaws which condition their lives are laid upon them by a power beyond\nthemselves, even when--under a representative system--they have secured\nsome minute voice in regard to their shaping.\n\nThe governors, therefore, by their assumption of an ability to improve\nmatters, are in a fiduciary position to the rest of the community--the\n_onus probandi_ of their beneficence rests upon them and not upon\nthe people. It is their duty to pacify the governed; it is not the\nduty of the governed to pacify them; and if they fail in the work of\npacification, which is their main _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_, they, and not the\ncommunity, have to meet the charge of functional incompetence.\n\nGovernment is a function; being governed is not a function. Humanity\nin all stages of civilization or of savagery has fallen subject to\ngovernment without being asked to show any certificate of its fitness\nto be governed. It is therefore, the governors who have to prove\nthemselves fit--not the governed; and if a penal code be found, or\ndeclared, necessary to enable the governors to secure peace and\norder, then (if your system be just and equal) the penal code should\nbe applicable in at least equal severity to the governors who impose\nit, when instead of producing contentment, it produces unrest and\ndisorder. Liability to impeachment and condemnation under laws of an\nequal stringency would be, I think, a very wholesome corrective to the\nlegislative action of M.P.\u2019s voting coercive measures which only result\nin failure. I fancy that under such conditions there would have been,\nfor instance, a far smaller majority for the \u201cCat and Mouse Act,\u201d the\nfutility of which soon became so ridiculously apparent. Imprisonment\nwith compulsory starvation, followed by release upon a medical\ncertificate, and then by a fresh term of imprisonment would have been a\nmost enlightening form of vacation for certain members of Parliament.\nAnd until we have secured in this country a much more equal adjustment\nof the relations between governors and governed, some such corrective\nfor vindictive legislation is certainly needed.\n\nIt is not a sufficient equivalent, or safeguard to popular liberty, to\nbe able merely to dismiss from office a Minister of the Crown who has\nby his administrative blunders brought citizens to death and property\nto destruction, or who has sedulously manufactured criminals out of\na class whose will is to be law-abiding. He, if anybody, deserves\npunishment; and Parliaments (backed by whatever majority) which,\nthrough maintaining political inequalities, produce such results, are\nunder the same condemnation. The _onus probandi_ of their beneficence\nrests upon them; and if, commissioned to secure peace and order, they\nproduce only unrest and disorder, then the proof is against them.\n\nListen to these remarkable words by so great a supporter of\nconstitutional authority as Edmund Burke:\n\n\u201cNations,\u201d he says, \u201care not primarily ruled by laws, still less\nby violence. Whatever original energy may be supposed in force or\nregulation, the operation of both is, in truth, merely instrumental.\nNations are governed by the same methods and on the same principles by\nwhich an individual without authority is often able to govern those who\nare his equals or his superiors--by a knowledge of their temper, and by\na judicious management of it. I mean--when public affairs are steadily\nand quietly conducted: not when government is nothing but a continued\nscuffle between the magistrate and the multitude, in which sometimes\none and sometimes the other is uppermost, in which they alternately\nyield and prevail in a series of contemptible victories and scandalous\nsubmissions. The temper of the people amongst whom he presides ought,\ntherefore, to be the first study of the statesman. And the knowledge\nof this temper it is by no means impossible for him to attain, if he\nhas not an interest in being ignorant of what it is his duty to learn.\u201d\n\nAnd further on he says:\n\n\u201cIn all disputes between them (the governed) and their rulers, the\npresumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people. Experience\nmay perhaps justify me in going further. When popular discontents\nhave been very prevalent, it may well be affirmed that there has\nbeen something found amiss in the constitution or in the conduct of\ngovernment. The people have no interest in disorder. When they do\nwrong, it is their error and not their crime. But with the governing\npart of the State it is far otherwise. They certainly may act ill by\ndesign as well as by mistake.... And if this presumption in favour of\nthe subject against the trustees of power be not the more probable, I\nam sure it is the more comfortable speculation; because it is more easy\nto change an administration than to reform a people.\u201d\n\nThere, then, is a great authority, Edmund Burke, maintaining that\ngovernments are more liable to wilful error than those whom they\ngovern--and the main value of majority rule is that it tends to bring\nthe presumption round to the side of government, by making the voice\nof government also the voice of the people. I do not think the claims\nof majority rule can be put on any higher footing than that--that if\nthe government is really expressive of a governed majority (and not\nmerely of a majority to whom the constitution has accorded licence and\nprivilege above its fellows) then the favourable presumption in any\nconflict comes round to the side of government.\n\nBut if government claims its sanction from a majority, then we must\nenquire further into the composition and character of that majority;\nand yet further whether the mandate of that majority is the output\nof its conscience or merely of its self-interest; we must watch its\nworkings, and see what really brings it to the poll--its moral sense,\nits pleasure in motor-cars, or its inclination (based on a national\nlove of sport) to select and to back the winner.\n\nAt whose bidding to-day, and for what motive, are we really being\ngoverned? Our duty toward government can never be greater than toward\nthat voice of sanction on which it rests. And short of a voice of\nthe whole people conscientiously uttered, and so conditioned as to\nbe really free and equal, I do not see whence an entire sanction\nof government is to come--though you may have (under such and such\ncircumstances) a large increase of presumption in its favour.\n\nBut obviously there are degrees. We in England clearly recognise that.\nWe have recognised it in our own history; we recognise it in looking\nabroad upon other countries. And we rather approve--most of us--of\nrevolution against a Russian or a German government which has refused\nso to aim that the people shall be in some sort their own governors.\n\nSimilarly, in this country, the sanction may be imperfect--we may\nhave secured the form but not the substance. If so--if the form is\nso manipulated as to be virtually of no effect--the moral sanction\nis by so much lessened. Universal franchise--on the unattainable\nqualification, let us say, of standing on one leg for a fortnight,\nwould be a mockery deserving of instant revolt. And there is some\nmockery in setting up any qualification of which a willing and\npainstaking citizen cannot avail himself--or herself. Perhaps there\nis also some mockery--some cheapening of citizenship--in setting up a\nqualification which requires no willingness and no pains.\n\nThe moral sanction of government, therefore, is ever fluctuant and\nvariable--conditioned always by the sincere relationship of theory to\npractice, of form to fact. No amount of form or theory, however just\nin appearance, or legal in fact, will condone unjust government. And\nas we would wish to be condemned and punished were we so to impose on\nothers--so must we act towards any government which seeks to impose\non us by substituting form for substance. If its moral sanction is\nimperfect it cannot claim perfect obedience.\n\nNow if there is not a full and honest wish among those who govern to\ndo as they would be done by--claiming no advantage or privilege for\nthemselves, and not attempting to keep in order one section of the\ncommunity rather than another by framing laws which penalise this\nsection rather than that--if there is not this honest wish, there will\nall the more be an attempt on the part of the governing section to give\nto its government in form that virtue which it lacks in practice,--to\nsay to objectors: \u201cSee how safeguarded on all hands are your interests,\nhow perfectly you are represented, how obviously you are the masters of\nthe situation, and we only the servants.\u201d And the nearer the governed\nare to an intellectual awakening and apprehension of their true\ncondition, the more elaborate and plausible will be the pretence that\nthe real ultimate power rests--not there in the hands of the governors,\nbut here in the hands of the governed. And best of all--because most\ndeceptive of all--will be the device which does actually put the means\nof reforming or of overthrowing government into the hands of the\ngoverned, while so nullifying the application of those means that the\nfair form, so fruitful in seeming, shall be in reality an empty husk.\n\nNow, if it be true--as from history I have contended--that the moral\nsanction of government is variable, and depends on honest conditions\nand relations, obviously it is not the mere plausible form which shall\ndecide whether this or that government be deserving of obedience or\nnot. That form which is established by law must bring forth fruit to\nthe satisfaction of the governed--producing, as proof of its claim,\npeaceful conditions and general content. If it fail to do this then it\nmust be suspected, enquired into, and, if need be, disowned.\n\nBut it must breed something more than the acquiescence of a majority.\nThe contentment, or at least the acquiescence of minorities is one\nof the signs of good government. For while it takes little to make\nminorities critical, it takes much to make them revolt--if for no other\nreason than that the chances are against them. And it is not in human\nnature to face so heavy odds except for some grave cause.\n\nConsider first, then, in any given case, \u201cAre those in the minority\nseeking to keep or filch liberty from you, or only to obtain such\nliberty as is already yours? Are they seeking to set up equality of\ncondition or inequality? Are they pressing for privilege or only for\ncommon ground?\u201d\n\nAnd if the answer to such questions be that they seek only a like\nliberty upon common ground and equality with yourselves--then, I\ncare not how large the majority against them--you must open or make\navailable to them that same standing which you claim as your due; and\non whatever basis of public service or private worth you have obtained\nyour right,--that means, that test, that qualification must be open\nalso to them, else your majority rule is nothing more than brute force,\na despotism extended from the embodiment of one or of a few to an\nembodiment of 10, 15, or 20,000,000. But if you sanction that and make\nit your base, then, to be logical, you must sanction also (at least\nas a test) the employment of force by a minority to make its position\nuntenable. And remember, that if among a minority some ten per cent.\nare willing to die, as against only some one or two per cent. in a\nmajority, that minority is likely to win, and all your numbers will be\nvain.\n\nThat fact puts no undue or dangerous power into the hands of\nminorities. Consent, on a just basis, can be obtained to government\nwhose acts are little to the liking of individual minds or of\nminorities. But if, after long trial of expedient, persuasion, or\ncoercion, consent cannot be obtained, then the weight of evidence\n(based on the unfailing document of human nature) has shifted against\ngovernment; and it rests more with the government than with the rebel\nto prove that its claims are just.\n\nWhen governments establish inequalities affecting the lives and\nliberties of any, however few, I see no sanction whatsoever in\nmajorities. One runaway slave had not to wait upon a majority of\nhis fellow-slaves in order to establish his right to escape from\nslavery--still less upon a majority of the nation which owned him.\nIf he could find a path along which to escape, that was the highroad\nappointed for him by God from of old; and if he died in the attempt his\ngrave was still a monument to Liberty. Not the will of a million could\ndestroy the right of that one. And though I admit that a society which\nsanctions slavery must treat as a murderer the slave who kills in his\neffort to escape,--nevertheless, by posterity, and in a society which\nhas repudiated slavery, that act will be very differently regarded;\nand so long as the man\u2019s aim when he committed that legal offence\nwas freedom, we, who have repudiated slavery, look upon him not as a\nmurderer but as a fighter in a just cause.\n\nWe are in a society to-day which tolerates and even sanctions things\nwhich to-morrow will be regarded as slavery is regarded now. While\nsociety thus chooses to establish evil it is driven in self-defence to\ntreat those who rebel as criminals. But posterity will not so think of\nthem; and the greater the forces of the majority which stood against\nthem when they struck--the more will it admire and reverence, and\napprove. Surely a startling commentary on the \u201crights\u201d of majorities:\napproval of the minority in an inverse proportion to its size!\n\nNow, you might have a State almost equally divided into what were,\nbroadly speaking, opposed interests; under certain circumstances, for\ninstance, (circumstances which have actually occurred in the past)\nmanufacturing and agricultural interests might be opposed. If, then,\nyou accepted majority rule as a blind dogma, those two interests\nwould have the right alternately to prey upon and to bleed each other,\naccording to the fortunes of the polls--and they might do it by putting\nforward legislative programmes which would bribe the electoral wobblers\nfirst to this side and then to that. Where, on such a device does moral\nright come in? Was ever anything so ludicrous as a doctrine?\n\nAs a doctrine of right, majority rule has but doubtful ground to stand\non. As an expedient, for practical use under sound conditions, there\nis much to be said for it. But when once you recognise it as a mere\nworking expedient, then its workings must be watched, proved, and\nsometimes corrected and checked--by a minority.\n\nMajority rule is only tolerable when it has the equal rights of man\nand woman firmly fixed as its goal; and it is as tending to the\nestablishment of that doctrine that majority rule is acceptable (with\nsome caution and reservations) to our progressive sense of citizenship.\n\nIn the great historic moments of upheaval which have brought it about,\nit has consciously or subconsciously been an attempt to get rid of the\nbad principle of dominance over others. It expresses the hope, or it\nembodies the probability, that a majority will be so broadly made up of\nall sorts and conditions--of the whole chemical composition of human\nsociety, that is to say--that in a government prompted and directed\nby a majority there will be no dominance of one section over another\nsection: that they will, in the long run (or, if efficiently checked,\nin the short run) correct each other, strike a balance, and prevent the\nrigid and continuous existence in the body politic of any subjected\nsection.\n\nBut if a majority could so sort its materials as to select for rigid\nand permanent subjection one section of the community, then the reason\nfor its existence, and the grounds for its moral sanction would be gone.\n\nIf, then, two-thirds or three-quarters of the community can secure\na greater apparent measure of comfort for themselves by forcing the\nremaining one-third, or one-quarter, to wait upon them and minister to\ntheir needs, the actual size of that dominant majority confers upon\nit no moral right whatever. There would, indeed, be more semblance of\nright, or at least more tenable ground, if a minority could so impose\non a majority; because in that case the power of imposition would\narise not from mere brute force so much as from superior ability; and\na minority which can manipulate to its purpose the bulk material of a\ncommunity has shown better ground for the rule of others (not very good\nground, I admit) than the mere weight of numbers can supply. Weight\nof numbers as a ground for dominating others gives you no moral or\nefficient basis at all. Weight of capacity does give you an efficient\nbasis, if not a moral one.\n\nNow, if your two-thirds majority is extracting comfort on unequal and\ncompulsory terms from the remaining one-third, you surely cannot deny\nthe right of the remaining one-third so to diminish the comfort thus\ncompulsorily extracted as to bring it to vanishing point, or to make\nit even a minus quantity. And the bigger the majority which is thus\nextracting sustenance from the minority, and exploiting it to its own\nends, the more you will admire the minority if it rises in revolt, and\nmakes the imposed and one-sided bargain unprofitable to the majority.\nAnd should the contention be carried to extremes (as it will be if\nboth sides are sufficiently resolved) then the majority will have to\nexterminate the minority, and (if it wishes to continue government on\nthe same lines) will have to extract for exploitation a new minority\nfrom its own body--give up one of its own ribs to servitude--and so\nbecome a diminished people in its perpetuation of a bad system.\n\nNow, these considerations of moral right are irrespective of numbers.\nIt may be the bounden duty of one man to resist the will of hundreds,\nor thousands, or millions. Indeed, every religious system admits, and\nhistory gives clear evidence, that that is so. A man must obey his\nconscience; that is his one ultimate guide. That statement expresses\nwhat one may call the atomic theory of human society. It suggests, at\nfirst sight, an impossible splitting to pieces of all systems of law\nand order; but it is not so in reality, because--and this is the really\nwonderful thing and the spiritual root of the whole matter--conscience\nis the most infectious and convincing force in life. In a community\nthere is really a far greater agreement of conscience than of desire or\nof opinion. A conscientious resister may, of course, be mistaken; but\nif he is prepared to go on resisting, making sacrifice, and enduring\nsuffering for his scruples--that process is the least fallible as a\ntest, and the most converting in its tendency of all the processes of\npropaganda that the human mind can conceive; and by recognizing the\nmoral right of the individual to put himself to that test before the\neyes of his fellow citizens, and so at the same time to test their\nconsciences in the matter, you are not really encouraging a course\nwhich leads to disunion and anarchy, but a course which, on the whole,\nwill best bring about a general consensus of opinion. A community\nwhich recognises the moral worth of such tests of its own and of\nthe individual conscience, will be far less likely to arouse such\ndemonstrations of revolt than one which altogether ignores and despises\nthem; for the simple reason that such a community will be better based\nin its duty toward its neighbour; it will wish each man to do that\nwhich it would claim the right to do itself in a like case, if faced by\na superior power backed by greater numbers than its own.\n\nIf I know that my conscientious resistance will be respectfully\nconsidered (though not made easy or cheap to me), that my test of other\nconsciences may be tried and may be adjudged to fail--I shall not be\nmore inclined to enter into conflict with so considerate a majority,\nbut less; for it is not open-minded justice but close-minded injustice\nwhich arouses opposition and rebellion.\n\nBut while human nature makes it safe, in the main, that men and women\nwill not in any appreciable numbers submit themselves voluntarily to\ncontinuous discomfort, deprivation, loss of liberty and ease, except\nfor a just cause or a high motive worth looking into, considering, and\nmaking allowances for: human nature does not make it safe that those\nin authority will not be overbearing and unjust, unless they too are\nliable to a like test.\n\nAnd here again we come to consider the duty of the law and of\nlaw-makers to individuals.\n\nThe law should be prepared wherever its fallibility stands\nproved--where, for instance, it has done hurt and damage to innocency\nby its operations--at least to make full reparation. It is not an\nhonourable position, for that which holds fiduciary together with\ncompulsory powers, to say to one whom it has falsely imprisoned or\nunjustly charged--\u201cYou, on the whole, benefit by government, and,\ntherefore, must yourself bear this hurt of government which has fallen\nupon you.\u201d The State or the community which permits such individual\nhardship to result from its imposition of a fallible code is not just\nin its government or dutiful to its neighbour. And if it so acts, it\nundermines in the governed their sense of its moral sanction. The State\ncannot so do hurt to its citizens and retain an unimpaired claim on\ntheir allegiance; nor can it with any moral decency claim reparation\nfrom its enemies abroad, if it does not make full reparation for its\nown miscarriages of justice at home.\n\n\u201cOne,\u201d it is sometimes argued, \u201cmust suffer for the general good.\u201d But\nthe general good is not so served. In this connection general good only\nmeans \u201cgeneral cheapness.\u201d The State, and not the citizen, must pay the\nprice of its presumption--or it must look for an altered mind in every\ncitizen whom it so afflicts from its position of immunity. Nay, it may\nbe well that its supposed immunity should occasionally be disproved by\na determined and self-sacrificing citizen, entirely for the general\ngood, and the State forced to pay in extra upkeep for the bad condition\nof its laws.\n\nThe careless self-allowance of majorities in wrong done to minorities,\nor even to individuals, is not to the general good; and one could\nrather wish to a State that its minorities should be alert and\npugnacious, than its majorities self-satisfied and indifferent on the\nscore of mere numbers.\n\nNumbers, uncorrected by conscience and uncontrolled by penalties, may\nbe the cheapest, nastiest and most unscrupulous form of tyranny. The\nindifference or acquiescence of hundreds to conditions by which they\nthemselves are not consciously affected cannot have the same moral\nweight as the discontent of one or of a few who are so affected.\nThat is a consideration which must always qualify the \u201crights\u201d of\nmajorities. In such circumstances the sanction of mere numbers is not\nsufficient.\n\nAre minorities, then, always to have their way? By no means. We know\nthat they cannot.\n\nCountless minorities in our political controversies have contended,\nhave failed, and have acquiesced in their failure. Time has tested\nthem, and has measured the depth of their grievance by the scale of\nhuman nature.\n\nBut other minorities, which have persistently refused to acquiesce have\nwon. Time has tested them also; and human nature, not numbers, has in\nthe long run proved their case.\n\nMedical science tells us that there is in the human eye a blind spot,\nby the existence of which alone we are enabled to see. If that blind\nspot were absent the eye would be without focus.\n\nIn human nature (however much we hold by the principle of ordered\ngovernment) there is a point of revolt which standardises the relations\nof the individual to government. It cannot be brought into play by\nmere artifice or calculation, except for brief spells; but when\nnaturally aroused it lasts.\n\nIt is that point of revolt, latent at all times in a freedom-loving\npeople, but only aroused by unjust conditions--it is the existence of\nthat point of revolt in human nature which secures good government.\n\nMinorities, if determined, can make unjust government an economic\nextravagance, and can indicate to majorities (with some trouble and\ncost to themselves) the limitation of their rights.\n\nThe sleeping partner of good government is the spirit of revolt.\n\nTo-day we have not good government; and that is why the sleeping\npartner is awake.\n\n\n\n\nDISCREDITABLE CONDUCT\n\n(1915)\n\n\nDiscreditable conduct, according to its right derivation, is conduct\nprovocative of disbelief. It is that kind of conduct which makes\nus doubt the professions of its agents, because it is practically\ninconsistent with the things that they preach.\n\nMany things are done in this world which are very reprehensible,\nvindictive, cruel, narrow-minded--I might go through a whole catalogue\nof the vices; but they are not therefore \u201cdiscreditable.\u201d A man who\nhas gone about the world expressing his undying hatred for another\nman, and then ends by killing him, has done nothing discreditable from\nhis own standard. He has not made you believe less in his professions,\nbut more; for he actually did mean what he said, and has become by his\nact a creditable witness to the faith that was in him--the dark gospel\nof hatred. But if, while nourishing a personal hatred, he was at the\nsame time laying it down as the duty of all men to love their enemies,\nthen we have not to wait for the murder in order to look upon him as\na tainted and a discredited witness. It is not so much the blood upon\nhis hands as the hatred within his heart which has discredited him as a\npreacher to others.\n\nOr, put the case otherwise; without pretending to such a counsel of\nperfection as that he can love his enemies, a man may yet assert that\nhuman life is sacred, and that he has no right to take the life of his\nfellow. Having done so he begins to set up exceptions: \u201cThough I may\nnot do it at my own,\u201d he says, \u201cI may do it at the bidding of others.\u201d\nAnd this not by orders that he is compelled into on pain of death or\ntorture (when he might plead a natural human infirmity as his excuse\nfor wrongdoing) but by voluntary enlistment in an army, or by voluntary\nacceptance of the post of public hangman, or of a judgeship, or of\nservice upon a jury in cases involving the death-penalty.\n\nNow, it may be very commendable to take human life at the bidding of\nothers; but it is not consistent with the unqualified statement that\n\u201call human life is sacred.\u201d The one proposition--it is not my concern\nhere to defend or attack either of them--becomes discredited by the\nother. The advocate of the judicial extinction of life under the\ninstitution of capital punishment, or of wholesale extinction under the\ninstitution of war--if he wishes to be heard as a credible witness, and\nto avoid the imputation of discreditable conduct when he gives a hand\nto it--must reshape his statement something after this manner: \u201cHuman\nlife is so important a thing that one man must not take it on his own\nresponsibility; but Society may.\u201d And then he will have to make up\nhis mind what he means by Society, and why he thinks Society is more\nto be trusted than himself. And if he finds himself in a community\nwhich permits or even inculcates moral evils which he individually\ncannot tolerate, then he must puzzle out for himself why he will\ntrust such a community with the power to kill, when he sees it make\nso vile and miserable a misuse of the power to keep alive--or to keep\nfrom life in any form that is worth having--so many millions of his\nfellow-creatures. And he will find presently that his assertion that\nhuman life is sacred must--if it is to mean anything--extend from the\ncomparatively easy and simple problem of the death-penalty to those far\ngreater problems, which lie all around him, of the cruel life-penalties\ntolerated or exacted by Society.\n\nSo before long what he will find himself up against is this--the\nnecessity of being a creditable or a discreditable witness to the value\nof Society itself--of that thing to whose apron-strings he has tied\nhis conscience. For you cannot assert that it is right for Society to\nunmake human life unless you also assert that Society is making human\nlife in a form that is worth having, in a form, too, that would be\nimperilled were its power of judicial murder to be taken from it.\n\nBut the point of departure I have wished to bring you to is this:\nman did not begin to doubt his own moral right to kill other men\nuntil there entered into his being an idea of something better able\nthan himself to judge, to control, and to provide. And so long as he\nbelieved in that idea as protective of a morality superior to his\nown, and productive of the fruits of life in better quality, he could\nwithout discredit put into its hands powers which he dared not himself\nexercise.\n\nBut when, on the contrary, a man comes to the conclusion that the\nproducts of Society as constituted have in them more of evil than of\ngood, he may quite creditably, in a strict sense of the word, start an\nattack upon Society, or upon great social institutions, and seek to\nbring them to dissolution. Such a course of action may be arrogant, or\nmay have an insufficient basis of fact, but it is not discreditable.\nRather does it prove the man\u2019s faith in his professions. History\ngives record of many such characters, and posterity has approved of\ndeeds which in their own day were regarded as violent, arrogant, and\nunjustifiable.\n\nMartin Luther attacked a far greater social institution of his own day\nthan was comprised under any single form of government. He attacked\nsomething much bigger than the English or the American Constitution.\nIn deciding to attack it he was more arrogant (if single unorganised\naction against large and organised numbers be the proof of arrogance)\nthan you or I could be if we attacked any institution to-day that\nyou like to name, even the institution of war. Now, the result of\nthat great attack was that it succeeded--not unconditionally, not\nuniversally, but (broadly speaking) racially and territorially. About\none-third of Europe was conquered by it; and about two-thirds remain\nto this day--not indeed unaffected, but certainly not conquered by\nLutheranism. If you are to judge of sacred causes by mere numbers,\nthere are still more nominal Catholics than nominal Protestants in the\nworld; and, therefore, by numbers, up to date Luther is condemned.\n\nLuther\u2019s real conquest--the thing that he really did bring about,\nand in which numbers are now on his side, would have horrified him.\nLuther was the root-cause why there are to-day more nominal Christians\nin the world who pick and choose doctrines to suit their own taste,\nthan Christians who submissively take their doctrines wholesale from\nothers whether from Luther or from Rome. It is due to Luther, as much\nas to anybody, that so many Roman Catholics who have no leanings to\nLutheranism, are only nominal Catholics. Luther, that is to say, has\nbrought into existence an enormous number of discreditable Christians\nwho will not openly admit that they are free-thinkers.\n\nYou have clergy of the Church of England, for instance, who read\nthemselves into their pulpits with the Thirty-nine Articles, and do not\nbelieve half of them.\n\nThe average young man who enters the ministry of the Church of England\nhas been reasonably mothered by a university education; and when he\ntakes the plunge it is not total immersion. His mother--his Alma\nMater--still holds him by the heel. It is in consequence, with a sort\nof heel of Achilles that he enters upon divinity; and over this he\ndraws a stocking with a large hole in it just where the wear of the\nheel comes hardest. That stocking (containing forty stripes save one)\nis the Thirty-nine Articles. It has been loosely knit, it is warranted\nto shrink the longer he wears it, and the hole in consequence gets\nlarger.\n\nThere you have the weakness of the Church of England. Nobody to-day in\nhis senses is prepared to die for the Thirty-nine Articles. Yet to hold\nministry in the Church he has to swear by them, and thus at the very\nbeginning of his ministerial career discreditable conduct is imposed on\nhim.\n\nIt is no wonder that upon that basis the Church of England is permeated\nwith unbelief in the things that it professes. A Church, a religion,\nmay be full of credulity, bigotry, superstition--and with all those\nthings it may yet have a true and a living faith: it may breed martyrs\nand inquisitors in equal numbers and with equal facility; but, in order\nto do so it must have at its back something definite and distinctive\nthat its members are prepared to die for. And if it has not that, it is\nbound to become before long a discredited institution.\n\nIt is an interesting and a hopeful trait in human nature that it will\nonly believe obstinately, continuously, and in spite of persecution, in\nthose things which seem greatly to matter. When they no longer seem\nto matter, belief falls away from them. And, broadly speaking, we have\ncome to see that things do not greatly matter unless they affect life\nand conduct.\n\n\u201cThe Kingdom of Heaven\u201d is within you; and if your doctrinal test does\nnot produce good ethical results, you begin to doubt--not the Kingdom\nof Heaven--but the doctrine on which it was made to depend.\n\nSimilarly, if a doctrine obviously lays itself open to grave abuse,\nor presents strong temptation to the infirmities of human nature, you\nbegin to doubt whether it is so heavenly in origin as it pretends to be.\n\nThe doctrine held by some cannibal African tribe that the bride\u2019s\nmother shall provide the wedding-breakfast in her own person, is so\nclearly a truckling to the prejudice against mothers-in-law--which\nexists even in this country--that such a religious tenet immediately\nbecomes suspect, and we guess that it emanates not from the gods but\nfrom their maker, man.\n\nNotice, too, how the gradual displacement of miracle has been brought\nabout. So long as miracles appealed to the human mind as a moral and\nnot a licentious expedient for the Creator of the universe to indulge\nin, they remained acceptable to the human understanding and were easily\nbelieved. Their real dethronement began when it was seen that a belief\nin them gave the greatest possible assistance to the cruel, grasping,\nand criminal instincts of the human race--that, from the social point\nof view, they opened a way for the terrorising of the weak, for fraud,\nfor covetousness, for murder, for theft--in a word for priest-craft in\nall its worst forms.\n\nThe belief in miracle enabled Samuel, with his punitive threats of\ndivine vengeance, to terrorise first Eli and then Saul, and bring\nIsrael to such a pass under his priestly government that at no period\nof that people\u2019s early history were they more in subjection to their\nenemies.\n\nThe belief in miracle enabled Elisha to cajole Elijah into the\nwilderness and there murder him, persuading subsequent inquirers that\nhe had gone up to Heaven in a chariot of fire. Everybody believed him\nexcept the children; and when they mocked him and told him to go and\ndo likewise, he threatened that bears would come and eat them. And\nScripture, as a warning to us against like conduct, tells us that they\ndid.\n\nThat is how miracle was played under the old dispensation; and (as\nlong as it could possibly be maintained) under the new also. Then, as\nthe bad social results of a belief in miracles became accumulatively\napparent--when carried outside the canon of Scripture into contemporary\nlife--then it began to dawn upon some people how bad also a belief\nin them was for the mind of man in relation to the Deity. It began\nto be seen that the institution of a law of nature (in conjunction\nwith an arbitrary suspension thereof whenever divinely convenient)\nwas not compatible with what men have now come to regard as \u201cmoral\nconduct.\u201d It was literally \u201cdiscreditable\u201d; for it made men disbelieve\nthe law of their own being. In nine hundred and ninety-nine cases\nout of a thousand a man was to be guided by experience, by thought,\nreason, and conscience--by a belief in cause and effect. Then--in the\noff case--unreason and inexperience were to descend upon him like a\nthunderbolt, and either beat him to dust, or lift him, an ingenuously\namazed Ganymede to the seats of bliss.\n\nNow, we may admit--indeed we must--that there are many mysteries and\nsecrets of nature which man has not yet fathomed; there may be many of\nwhich as yet he has no suspicion. A sudden exhibition of any of those\npowers and mysteries might even to-day seem \u201cmiraculous.\u201d When in the\npast some fortuitous circumstance brought them about, \u201cmiracle\u201d was the\nonly explanation of them which human understanding was able to offer.\n\nBut now we are coming more and more to believe that if blind men have\nsuddenly received their sight it has not been by miracle but by law;\nif faith has removed mountains literally, or caused the sun and the\nmoon to stand still, it has done so by reliance on sources which lay\nhitherto untapped in the general order of things, and implicit ever\nsince the creative scheme was established. For if any other explanation\nis to be offered, then the work of creation is discredited, and the\nmeaning and the moral values of those processes which we sum up in the\nword \u201clife\u201d become cheapened, because we can no longer regard them as\na law, but only as a sort of police-regulation, arbitrary, capricious,\nand provocative of misconduct, in that we are unable to depend\nupon them, or to have any guarantee that they will be impartially\nadministered.\n\nMiracle discredits the ordered scheme of creation; and quite as much\ndoes it do so if you believe creation to be the work of a personal\nDeity. Creation (science shows us more and more) was from its inception\na process of absolutely related causes and effects--a whole system\nreared up through millions and millions of years upon a structure\ninvolving infinite millions of lives and deaths--and the whole a\nperfect sequence of causal happenings.\n\nThat is \u201clife\u201d as it is presented to man\u2019s reason and understanding;\nand if his reason and understanding are not to faint utterly, he must\nin his search for a moral principle \u201cfind God (as the Psalmist puts\nit) in the land of the living,\u201d or not at all. For as he estimates\nthe moral value of things solely by that empyric sense which has been\nevolved in him through a faithful recognition of the inevitable laws of\ncause and effect, so must he become demoralised, if he is to be taught\nthat what he has regarded as inevitable can be capriciously suspended\nby a power independent of those laws which life has taught him to\nreverence.\n\nDo not think, for a moment, that I am questioning the power of faith\nor the power of prayer. It is a tenable proposition that they are the\nmost tremendous power in the world; and yet we may hold that they take\neffect through the natural law alone, and have come into existence\nthrough the courses of evolution--or, if you like to put it so--in a\nfaithful following of the Will which, in the act of Creation, made a\ncompact and kept it.\n\nBut if the compact of Creation was not kept, if that impact of spirit\nupon matter (which through such vast eras and through such innumerable\nphases of life worked by cause and effect) was ever tampered with so\nthat cause and effect were suspended, then the whole process becomes\ndiscredited to our moral sense, and its presiding genius is discredited\nalso.\n\nAre we to suppose that through the earlier millions of years, when only\nthe elementary forms of life were present upon this globe, cause and\neffect went on unsuspended and unhindered, and that these processes,\nhaving once been started (engendered, let us assume, by the Immanent\nWill), held absolute sway over the development of life for millions and\nmillions of years, until a time came when humanity appeared, and the\nidea of religion and a Deity entered the world; and that this process\nthen became subject to a dethronement? Are we to believe that then\nintervention in a new form, and upon a different basis (not of cause\nand effect) began to take place? If that is the proposition, then, it\nseems to me, we are asked (having accepted the idea of a Creator) to\nimpute to Him discreditable conduct--to believe that a point came in\nthese causal processes which He had instituted when He could no longer\n\u201cplay the game\u201d without arbitrary interference with its rules, and\nthat the appearance of man upon the globe was the signal for a fatal\nweakening to His character.\n\nI have seen a clergyman cheat at croquet. He was the by-word of the\nneighbourhood for that curious little weakness; but I assure you that\nthe spectacle of that reverend gentleman surreptitiously pushing his\nball into better position with his foot instead of depending upon the\nlegitimate use of his mallet, was no more ignoble a spectacle than\nthat which I am asked to contemplate by believers in miracle when they\npresent to my eyes a Deity who (upon their assertion) does similar\nthings.\n\nTest upon this basis of morality the most crucial of all events in\nChristian theology.\n\nThe idea of the Incarnation of God in human form as the final\nand logical fulfilment of the Creative purpose and process--the\nmanifestation of the Creator in the created--has had for many great\nthinkers a very deep attraction. But if the process which brings Him\ninto material being--the so-called Virgin-Birth--is not a process\nimplicit in Nature itself and one that only depends for its realisation\non man\u2019s grasp of the higher law which shall make it natural and normal\nto the human race--if the Virgin-Birth is miracle instead of perfectly\nconditioned law revealing itself, then, surely, such a device for\nbringing about the desired end is \u201cdiscreditable conduct\u201d--because\nit discredits that vast system of evolution through cause and effect\nwhich we call \u201clife.\u201d From such an Incarnation I am repulsed as from\nsomething monstrous and against nature; and the doings and sayings of\na being so brought into the world are discredited by the fact of a\nhalf-parentage not in conformity with creative law.\n\nNow when one ventures to question the moral integrity of so fundamental\na religious doctrine, and to give definite grounds as to why adverse\njudgment should be passed on it, there will not be lacking theologians\nready to turn swiftly and rend one something after this manner: \u201cWho\nare you, worm of a man, to question the operations of the Eternal mind,\nor dare to sit in judgment on what God your maker thinks good?\u201d\n\nThe answer is \u201cI don\u2019t. It is only your interpretation of those\noperations that I question.\u201d But on that head there is this further to\nsay: \u201cBy the Creative process God has given to man a reasoning mind;\nand it is only by the use of the reason so given him that man can\nworship his Maker.\u201d To give man the gift of reason and then to take\nfrom him the right fully to exercise it, is discreditable conduct.\n\nThat tendency I attribute not to the Deity but to the theologian--more\nespecially as I read in the Scriptures that where God had a special\nrevelation to make to a certain prophet who thought a prostrate\nattitude the right one to assume under such circumstances, divine\ncorrection came in these words, \u201cStand upon thy feet, and I will speak\nto thee.\u201d Some people seem to think that the right attitude is to stand\nupon their heads.\n\nIt is told in some Early Victorian memoirs that a group of Oxford\ndons were discussing together the relations of mortal man to his God,\nand one postulated that the only possible attitude for man to assume\nin such a connection was that of \u201cabject submission and surrender.\u201d\nBut even in that dark epoch such a doctrine was not allowed to go\nunquestioned. \u201cNo, no,\u201d protested another, \u201cdeference, not abject\nsubmission.\u201d And though it is a quaint example of the Oxford manner,\nsurely one must agree with it. Reason being man\u2019s birthright, \u201cStand\nupon thy feet and I will speak to thee,\u201d is the necessary corollary.\nEven if there be such a thing as divine revelation--the revelation\nmust be convincing to man\u2019s reason, and not merely an attack upon his\nnerves, or an appeal to his physical fears.\n\nSimilarly any form of government or of society which does not allow\nreason to stand upon its feet and utter itself unashamed is a\ndiscreditable form of discipline to impose, if reason is to be man\u2019s\nguide.\n\nNow I do not know whether, by characterising the device of a\n\u201cmiraculous\u201d birth as discreditable to its author, I am not incurring\nthe penalty of imprisonment in a country which says that it permits\nfree thought and free speech (at all events in peace-time). A few years\nago a man was sent to prison--I think it was for three months--for\nsaying similar things: a man who was a professed unbeliever in\nDivinity. And quite obviously the discreditable conduct in that case\nwas not of the man who acted honestly up to his professions, but of\nthis country which, professing one thing, does another. And the most\ndiscreditable figure in the case was the Home Secretary who, though\nentirely disapproving of this legal survival of religious persecution,\nand with full power to exercise the royal prerogative of mercy which\nhas now become his perquisite, refused to move in the matter, and said\nhe saw no reason for doing so. His discredit was, of course, shared by\nthe Cabinet, by Parliament and by the Country--which (without protest\nexcept from a few distinguished men of letters and leaders of religious\nthought) allowed that savage sentence to stand on grounds so antiquated\nand so inconsistent with our present national professions.\n\nNationally we are guilty of a good deal of discreditable conduct on\nsimilar lines. We profess one thing, and we do another.\n\nOur politicians tell us that they rely upon the voice of the people,\nyet often they employ the political machine which they control, for\nthe express purpose of evading it. A few years ago a Liberal statesman\nwas appointed to Cabinet-rank, and had in consequence to go to his\nconstituency for re-election. He belonged to the party which makes a\nparticular boast of its trust in the popular verdict. But in order\nto make his election more safe--before his appointment became public\nproperty--he communicated to his party agent his ministerial knowledge\nof the coming event so that the date of the bye-election could be\ncalculated. And the agent proceeded to book up all the public halls\nin the constituency over the period indicated. Then, in order that\nthe scandal might not become too flagrant he generously released a\nproportion of his bookings to his Conservative opponent, but refused to\nrelease any at all to his Labour opponent; and on those nicely arranged\nconditions he fought his election--and got beaten.\n\nNow that was surely discreditable conduct, for here was a statesman\nwho, while ostensibly appealing to the voice of the people was doing\nhis level best behind the scenes to deny to it a full and a free\nopportunity of expression. Yet the whole political world was in so\ndiscreditable a condition that there were actually people who thought\nthen--and perhaps still think to-day--that that budding politician\nwas unfairly and hardly treated when he was thereafter pursued from\nconstituency to constituency by his cheated opponent, and successfully\nprevented from re-entering Parliament even to this day. Probably in\nother branches of life he was an upright and honourable man, but\npolitics had affected him, as religion or social ambition has affected\nothers, and made him a discreditable witness to the faith which he\nprofessed.\n\nNow when you have great organisations and great institutions thus\ndiscrediting themselves by conniving at the double-dealings of those\nwhom they would place or keep in authority--you cannot expect the\nhonestly critical observer to continue to place their judgment above\nhis own, or to believe (when some difficult moral problem presents\nitself) that there is safety for his own soul in relying upon their\nsolution of it.\n\nThe sanction of the popular verdict in a community which is true to\nits professions is very great and should not lightly be set aside. But\nthe sanction of a community or of an organisation which is false to\nits professions is nil. And it is in the face of such conditions (to\nwhich Society and religion always tend to revert so long as their claim\nis to hold power on any basis of inequality or privilege) that the\nindividual conscience is bound to assert itself and become a resistant\nirrespective of the weight of numbers against it. And so, in any State\nwhere it can be said with truth that the average ethical standard for\nindividual conduct is better than the legal standard, the duty of\nindividual resistance to evil law begins to arise. \u201cBad laws,\u201d said a\nwise magistrate, \u201chave to be broken before they can be mended.\u201d And\nto be broken with good effect they must be broken not by the criminal\nclasses but by the martyrs and the reformers. It is not without\nsignificance that every great moral change in history has been brought\nabout by lawbreakers and by resistance to authority.\n\nWhen the English Nonconformists of two or three centuries ago were\nfighting governments and breaking laws, they were doing so in defence\nof a determination to hold doctrines often of a ridiculous kind and\nproductive of a very narrow and bigoted form of religious teaching--a\nform which, had it obtained the upper hand and secured a general\nallegiance, might have done the State harm and not good. But, however\negregious and even pernicious their doctrine, the justice (and even\nthe value) of the principle for which they contended was not affected\nthereby. The life of the spirit must take its chance in contact with\nthe life material, and Society must have faith that all true and vital\nprinciples will (given a free field and no favour) hold their own\nagainst whatever opponents. That is the true faith to which Society is\ncalled to-day--but which it certainly does not follow--especially not\nin war time.\n\nWe talk a great deal about liberty, democratic principle, and\ngovernment by majority; but if those ideals have any real meaning, they\nmean that--given free trade in ideas and in propaganda on all ethical\nand moral questions--you have got to trust your community to choose\nwhat it thinks good. And to refuse to the general community the means\nof deciding for itself by the utmost freedom of discussion, is--in\na State based on these principles--the most discreditable conduct\nimaginable.\n\nBut of what worth, you may ask, is this moral sanction of a majority?\nI am not myself greatly enamoured of majority rule in the sense of a\nmajority exercising compulsion on a minority. Compulsion by a majority\nI should often think it a duty to resist. But to the testimony of a\nmajority that refrained from compulsion I should attach the greatest\npossible weight. There you would get a public opinion which by its own\nself-restraint and scrupulous moderation of conduct would be of the\nhighest moral value. For Society fearlessly to admit the full and open\nadvocacy of that which it disapproves is the finest proof I can imagine\nof its moral stability, and of its faith in the social principles it\nlives by.\n\nBroadly speaking--with the exception I have already referred to--that\nview is now admitted in matters of religion; you may hold and you\nmay advocate what religious principles you like. But you are not so\nfree to hold and advocate social and ethical principles. The veto of\nSociety has shifted, and you are far less likely to incur opprobrium\nand ostracism to-day if you advocate polytheism than if you advocate\npolygamy or pacifism. And the reason for this, I take to be, that the\nreligion of modern Society is no longer doctrinal but ethical; and so\nour tendency is to inhibit new ethical teaching though we would not for\na moment countenance the inhibition of new doctrinal teaching.\n\nThat is our temptation, and I think that in the coming decade there\nwill be a great fight about it; we are not so prepared as we ought to\nbe to allow a free criticism of those social institutions on which our\nideas of moral conduct are based, even when they cover (as at present\nconstituted) a vast amount of double-dealing.\n\nTake for instance this Western civilization of ours which bases its\nsocial institutions of marriage, property, and inheritance on the\nmonogamic principle, but persists in moral judgments and practices\nwhose only possible justification is to be found in the rather\ndivergent theory that the male is naturally polygamous and the female\nmonogamous.\n\nThese two ideals, or social practices, make mutually discrediting\nclaims the one against the other. I am not concerned to say which I\nthink is right. But on one side or the other we are blinking facts, and\nare behaving as though they had not a determining effect upon conduct\nand character which Society ought straightforwardly to recognise.\n\nThe man who maintains that it is impossible for the male to live\nhappily and contentedly in faithful wedlock with one wife and then\ngoes and does so, commits himself by such matrimonial felicity to\ndiscreditable conduct--discreditable to his professions, I mean. And it\nis, of course, the same if his inconsistency takes him the other way\nabout.\n\nThere may, however, be an alternative and more honest solution to this\nconflict of claims; both may contain a measure of truth. It may be true\nthat monogamy--or single mating--faithfully practised by man and woman\nalike, is ideally by far the best solution of the sex-relations, and\nthe best for the State to recognise and encourage by all legitimate\nmeans; just as vegetarianism and total abstinence may be the best\nsolution of our relation to food, or non-resistance of our relation\nto government, or abject submission of our relation to theological\nteaching. But though these may be ideals to strive for, it does not\nfollow that human nature is so uniformly constructed upon one model\nas to justify us in making them compulsory, or in turning round and\ndenouncing as moral obliquity either plural mating or the eating of\nmeat, or the drinking of wine, or rebellion against civil authority, or\nfree thought in matters of religion.\n\nIf the community deliberately decides that one of these courses gives\nthe better social results, it is within its power to discourage the\nother course, without descending to compulsion; and I am inclined to\nthink that this may, in the majority of cases, be done by treating the\ndesires and appetites of resistant minorities as taxable luxuries. If\nthe State finds, for instance, that alcoholism increases the work of\nits magistrates and police, and diminishes the health and comfort of\nhome-conditions, it may quite reasonably tax beer, wine and spirits,\nnot merely to produce revenue but to abate a nuisance. But it would be\nfoolish, were it to go on to say that everybody who incurred such taxes\nwas guilty of moral obliquity.\n\nIn the same way, if the State wishes to discourage vegetarianism and\ntemperance, it will tax sugar, currants, raisins, tea, cocoa and\ncoffee, and will continue to tax them till it has diminished the\nconsumption; and incidentally it will let meat go free. But it will\nnot pass moral judgments--having the fear of human nature before its\neyes--on those who conscientiously bear the burden of those taxes\nrather than give up what they think good for them.\n\nI could imagine the State, in its wisdom, seeking to discourage luxury\nand the accumulation of wealth into the possession of the few, by\nimposing a graduated income tax of far more drastic severity than\nthat which is now depleting the pockets of our millionaires--but not\ntherefore saying that all who incurred income tax above a certain scale\nwere guilty of moral obliquity.\n\nWe have seen a State which required an increase of its population\nsetting a premium on children so as to encourage parents to produce\nthem; and I can imagine a State which required a diminution in the\nincrease of its population setting a tax on children, but not therefore\njoining in the cry of the Neo-Malthusians that every married couple\nwho produced more than four children were guilty of a kind of moral\ndepravity. And further, I can imagine a State which wished to encourage\npure and unadulterated monogamy putting a graduated tax, practically\nprohibitive in price, on any other course of conduct productive of\nsecond or third establishments. But I do not see why the State, as\nState, should concern itself further, or why Society should concern\nitself more deeply about sexual than it does about commercial and trade\nrelations, wherein it allows far more grievous defections from the\nideal of human charity to exist.\n\nLeaving it to the individual is not to say that your views as to\nthe desirability of such conduct will not influence your social\nintercourse, and perhaps even affect your calling list. A great many\nthings affect our calling lists, without any necessity for us to be\nself-righteous and bigoted about the principle on which we make our\nown circle select. There are some people who will call upon the wives\nof their doctors, but not of their dentists; there are others who will\nnot call upon the organist who conducts them to the harmonies of Divine\nService on Sunday, but would be very glad to call upon Sir Henry Wood,\nwho conducts their popular concerts for them during the week. We make\nour selection according to our social tastes and aspirations, and\nsometimes those social tastes may include a certain amount of moral\njudgment. But that moral judgment need not make us interfere; if it\nkeeps us at a respectful and kindly distance from those whom we cannot\nregard with full charity, it keeps us sufficiently out of mischief.\n\nTake the public hangman, for instance. I, personally, would not have\nhim upon my calling list. I would like to put a graduated tax upon\nhim and tax him out of existence. I think he is lending himself to a\nbase department of State service; but I also think that the State is\ntempting him; and I think that, in a symbolical way, all of you who\napprove of capital punishment ought to put the public hangman upon\nyour calling list--or not exclude him because of his profession (which\nyou regard as useful and necessary), but only because he happens to\nbe personally unattractive to you. If you exclude him, because of\nhis profession, while you consider his profession a necessity--you\nare guilty, I think, of discreditable conduct, and in order to stand\nmorally right with yourselves you had better go (I speak symbolically)\nand leave cards on him to-morrow.\n\nWhat I mean seriously to say is this: there is a great danger to\nmoral integrity in any acceptance of social conditions which you\nwould refuse to interpret into social intercourse. If you believe\nprostitution to be necessary for the safety of the home--which is the\ndoctrine of some--you must accept the prostitute as one who fulfils an\nhonourable function in the State. If you accept capital punishment,\nyou must accept the hangman. If you accept meat, you must accept the\nslaughterman; if you accept sanitation you must accept the scavenger.\nIf you accept dividends or profit from sweated labour, you must\naccept responsibility for sweated conditions, and for the misery, the\nill-health, the immorality and the degradation which spring from them.\n\nWe may be quite sure that far worse things come from these conditions\non which we make our profit than are contained in the majority of those\nlives which, because of their irregularities or breaches of convention,\nwe so swiftly rule off our calling lists. If we are not willing to\nforego the dividends produced for us out of our tolerated social\nconditions, why forego contact with that human material which they\nbring into being? But if you accept contact there, then you will have a\ndifficulty in finding any human material of greater abasement to deny\nto it the advantage of your acquaintance.\n\nI have purposely put my argument provocatively, and applied it to\nthorny and questionable subjects, because I want to reach no halfway\nconclusion in this matter, and because the real test of our spiritual\ntoleration is now shifting from matters religious to matters social,\nfrom questions of doctrine to questions of daily life. To-day we must\nbe prepared to tolerate a propaganda of social ideas--the products of\nwhich, if they succeeded in obtaining a hold, would in the estimation\nof many be as regrettable as were the products of Calvinism or\nPuritanism in the past, when they were much more powerful than now.\n\nOur hatred of these new social ideas may be just as keen as the hatred\nof Catholicism for Protestantism or of Protestantism for Catholicism,\nin days when religious doctrine seemed to matter everything. More\nkeen it could not be. The dangers these new ideas present could not\nbe greater in our eyes than in the eyes of our forefathers were the\ndangers of false doctrine three centuries ago. But the principle\nwhich demands that they shall be free to state their case and to make\nconverts remains always the same. Nevertheless it is unlikely to be\ngranted without struggle except by an intelligent minority.\n\nThe religious movement of the twentieth century, I say again, is not\ndoctrinal but social; and its scripture is not the Bible or any written\nword, but human nature itself.\n\nWe are on the brink of great discoveries in human nature, and many\nof our ethical foundations are about to be gravely disturbed. The\nold Manichee dread of the essential evil--the original and engrained\nsin--of human nature remains with us still, and there will be a great\ntemptation, as there always has been, not merely to controvert (which\nis permissible) but to persecute and suppress those who preach new\nideas. It is against such discreditable conduct that we have now to be\non our guard.\n\nAt the threshold of this new era to which we have come, with our old\ncivilisation so broken and shattered about us by our own civilising\nhands, the guiding spirit of man\u2019s destiny has its new word to say,\nto which we must listen with brave ears. And first and foremost it is\nthis, \u201cStand upon thy feet--and I will speak with thee.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nWHAT IS WOMANLY?\n\n(1911)\n\n\nThe title of my lecture has, I hope, sent a good many of you here--the\nwomen of my audience, I mean--in a very bristling and combative frame\nof mind, ready to resent any laying down of the law on my part as to\nwhat is or what is not \u201cwomanly.\u201d I hope, that is to say, that you are\nnot prepared to have the terms of your womanliness dictated to you by a\nman--or, for that matter, by a woman either.\n\nFor who can know either the extent or the direction of woman\u2019s social\neffectiveness until she has secured full right of way--a right of way\nequal to man\u2019s--in all directions of mental and physical activity, or,\nto put it in one word, the right to experiment?\n\nThere are, I have no doubt, many things which women might take it into\ntheir heads to do, which one would not think womanly at their first\nperformance, but which one would think womanly when one saw their\nresults at long range. No rule of conduct can be set up as an abstract\nright or wrong; we must form our ethics on our social results; and in\nthe world\u2019s moral progress the really effective results have generally\ncome by shock of attack upon, or of resistance to, some cherished\nconventions of the day.\n\nTake, for example, a thing which has seemed to concern only the male\nsex, but which has really concerned women just as intimately--the\nhistory of our male code of honour in relation to the institution of\nduelling. There was a time in our history when it would have been very\ndifficult to regard as manly the refusal to fight a duel. But it is\nnot difficult to-day to see in such a refusal a very true manliness.\nWe in this country have got rid of the superstition that honour can in\nany way be mended by two men standing up to take snap-shots at each\nother; and now that we are free from the superstition ourselves, we can\nunderstand, looking at other countries--Germany, for instance--that it\nmust often require more courage to refuse to fight than to consent. But\nwe have arrived at that stage of enlightenment only because in our own\nhistory there have been men courageous enough and manly enough to dare\nto be thought unmanly and cowardly. And as with our manhood so with\nour womanhood; you cannot judge of what is womanly merely on the lines\nof past conventions, produced under circumstances very different from\nthose of our own days. You must give to women as you give to men the\nright to experiment, the right to make their own successes and their\nown failures. You cannot with good results lay upon men and women, as\nthey work side by side in the world (very often under hard competitive\nconditions) the incompatible rules which govern respectively a living\nlanguage and a dead language. A living language is constantly in\nflux, inventing new words for itself, modifying its spelling and its\ngrammatical construction, splitting its infinitives. In a dead language\nthe vocabulary is fixed, the spelling is fixed, the construction is\nfixed; but the use and the meaning often remain doubtful. And so, if\nyou attempt to determine the woman\u2019s capabilities merely by her past\nrecord, and to fix the meaning of \u201cwomanliness\u201d in any way that forbids\nflux and development, then you are making the meaning and the use of\nthe word very doubtful.\n\nNow, obviously, if to be \u201cwomanly\u201d means merely to \u201cstrike an average,\u201d\nand be as like the majority of women as possible--womanliness as a\nquality is not worth thinking about; it will come of its own accord,\nand exists probably a good deal in excess of our social need for it. It\nstands on a par with that faculty for submission to the unconscionable\ndemands of others which makes a sheep sheepish and a hen prolific.\nTo be what Henry James calls \u201cintensely ordinary\u201d is, from the\nevolutionary point of view, to be out of the running.\n\nWe see this directly we start applying the word \u201cmanly\u201d to men.\nFor we do not take that to mean merely average quality--if it did,\nover-eating, over-drinking, and that form of speech which I will call\nover-emphasis--would all be manly qualities--and the evolution of the\nrace would, according to that doctrine, lie on the lines of all sorts\nof over-indulgence. But when we say \u201cmanly,\u201d we mean the pick and\npolish of those qualities which enable a man to possess himself and to\ndevelop all his faculties; and if it denotes discipline it also denotes\nan insistence on freedom--freedom for development, so that all that is\nin him may be brought out for social use.\n\nNow, the great poverty which modern civilization suffers from, is the\nundevelopment or the under-development of the bulk of its citizens.\nAnd the great wastage that we suffer from lies in the misdirection\ntoward the over-indulgence of our material appetites--of the energies\nwhich should make for our full human development. And you may be quite\nsure that where in a community of over-population and poverty such as\nours, the average man, as master, is demanding for himself more of\nthese things than his share, there the average woman (where she is in\neconomic subjection) is getting less than her share. Yet there are\nmany people who (viewing this problem of woman\u2019s subjection where the\nsavage in man is still uppermost) will tell you that it is \u201cwomanly\u201d\nto be self-sacrificing and self-denying; they will say that it is the\nwoman\u2019s nature to be so more than it is the man\u2019s; for, like Milton, in\nhis definition of the ideal qualities of womanhood, they put the word\n\u201csubjection\u201d first and foremost. That condition, which, according to\nScripture, only followed after the curse as its direct product, was,\nyou will remember, predicated by Milton, quite falsely, as essential\neven to the paradisal state; and when in _Paradise Lost_ he laid down\nthis law of \u201csubjection\u201d as the right condition for unfallen womanhood,\nhe went on to describe the divinely appointed lines on which it was to\noperate. The woman was to subject herself to man--\n\n\n                             \u201cwith submission,\n     And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay.\u201d\n\n\nThose, surely, are the qualifications of the courtesan for making\nherself desired; and it is no wonder, if he had such an Eve by his side\nas was invented for him by Milton, that Adam fell.\n\nWhere true womanliness is to end I do not know; but I am pretty sure\nof this--that it must begin in self-possession. It is not womanly\nfor a woman to deny herself either in comforts or nourishment, or\nin her instincts of continence and chastity in order that someone\nelse--whether it be her children or her husband--may over-indulge.\nIt _is_ womanly (it is also manly), when there is danger of hurt or\nstarvation to those for whom you are responsible, to suffer much rather\nthan that they should suffer; but it is not in the least womanly\nor manly to suffer so that they may indulge. The woman who submits\nto the starving of herself or of her children by a drunken or a\nlazy husband is not in any positive sense womanly--for she is then\nproving herself ineffective for her social task. And she would be more\neffective, and therefore more womanly, if she could, by any means you\nlike to name, drive that lazy husband into work, or abstract from that\ndrunken husband a right share of his wages. And if by making his home\na purgatory to him she succeeded, she would be more womanly in the\nvaluable sense of the word than if (by submission to injustice) she\nfailed, and let her children go starved.\n\nThen, again, a woman may see that the children she and her husband\nare producing ought never to have been born. And if that is so, is it\nwomanly for her to go on bearing children at the dictates of the man,\neven though St. Paul says, \u201cWives, obey your husbands\u201d? Is she any more\nwomanly, if she knowingly brings diseased offspring into the world,\nthan he is manly in the fathering of them?\n\nBut now, come out of the home into Society--not into any of those\ndepartments of unsolved problems where humanity is seen at its\nworst--pass all those by for the moment--and come to the seat of\nadministration--into that great regulator of Society, the law-courts\n(in the superintendence and constitution of which woman is conspicuous\nby her absence). There, as in matters connected with the male code of\nhonour, any duty of initiative on the part of women may seem, at first\nsight, to be far removed. But let us see! In the law-courts you meet\nwith a doctrine--a sort of unwritten law--that there are certain cases\nto which women must not listen. And occasionally \u201call decent women\u201d are\nrequested to leave the court, when \u201cdecent\u201d men are allowed to stay.\nNow, in the face of that request it must be a very painful thing indeed\nfor a woman to hold her ground--but it may be womanly for her to do\nso. It may be that in that case there are women witnesses; and I do\nnot think our judges sufficiently realise what mental agony it may be\nto a woman to give evidence in a court where there are only men. I am\nquite sure that in such cases, if the judge orders women generally out\nof court, he ought to provide one woman to stand by the woman in the\nwitness-box. How would any man feel, if he were called before a court\ncomposed only of women, women judges, a woman jury, women reporters,\nand saw all men turned out of the court before he began his evidence?\nWould he feel sure that it meant justice for him? I think not.\n\nNow these cases to which women are not to listen almost always\nspecially concern women; yet here you have men claiming to deal with\nthem as much as possible behind the woman\u2019s back, and to keep her in\nignorance of the lines on which they arrive at a conclusion. Surely,\nthen, it would be well for women of expert knowledge and training to\ninsist that these things shall not be decided without women assessors,\nand to be so \u201cwomanly\u201d as to incur the charge of brazenness and\nimmodesty in defending the woman\u2019s interest, which in such matters is\nalso the interest of the race.\n\nBut it is only very gradually--and in the face of immemorial\ndiscouragement--that this communal or social spirit, when it began to\ndraw woman outside her own domesticity, has fought down and silenced\nthe reproach raised against it, of \u201cunwomanliness,\u201d of an intrusion\nby woman into affairs which were outside her sphere. The awakening of\nthe social conscience in women is one of the most pregnant signs of\nthe time. But see what (in order to make itself effective) it has had\nto throw over at each stage of its advance--things to which beautiful\nnames have been given, things which were assumed all through the\nVictorian era to be essential to womanliness, and to be so engrained in\nthe woman\u2019s nature, that without them womanliness itself must perish.\nThe ideal of woman\u2019s life was that she should live unobserved except\nwhen displayed to the world on the arm of a proud and possessive\nhusband, and the height of her fortune was expressed in the phrase\nenviously quoted by Mrs. Norton, \u201cHappy the woman who has no history.\u201d\nNow that ideal was entirely repressive of those wider activities which\nduring the last fifty years have marked and made happy, in spite of\nstruggle, the history of woman\u2019s social development; and every fresh\neffort of that social spirit to find itself and to become effective has\nalways had to face, at the beginning of each new phase in its activity,\nthe charge of unwomanliness.\n\nCompare that attack, fundamental in its nature, all-embracing in\nits condemnation, with the kind of attack levelled against the\ncorresponding manifestations of the social or reforming spirit in\nman. In a man, new and unfamiliar indications of a stirring-up of the\nsocial conscience may earn such epithets of opprobrium as \u201crash,\u201d\n\u201chot-headed,\u201d \u201cill-considered,\u201d \u201cimpracticable,\u201d \u201cutopian\u201d--but\nwe do not label them as \u201cunmanly.\u201d Initiative, fresh adventure of\nthought or action in man have always been regarded as the natural\nconcomitant of his nature. In a woman they have very generally been\nregarded as unnatural, unwomanly. The accusation is fundamental: it\ndoes not concern itself with any unsoundness in the doctrines put\nforward; but only with the fact that a woman has dared to become their\nmouthpiece or their instrument. Go back to any period in the last 200\nyears, where a definitely new attempt was made by woman toward civic\nthought and action, and you will find that, at the time, the charge\nof \u201cunwomanliness\u201d was levelled against her; you find also that in\nthe succeeding generation that disputed territory has always become\na centre of recognised womanly activity. Take, for instance, the\nestablishment of higher training for girls; there are towns in this\ncountry where the women, who first embarked on such a design, were\njeered and laughed at, and even mobbed. And the same thing happened in\nan even greater degree to the women who sought to recover for their own\nsex admission to the medical profession: and while the charge levelled\nagainst them was \u201cunwomanliness,\u201d it was yet through their instincts\nof reserve and sex-modesty that their enemies tried to defeat them.\nEven when they gained the right of admission to medical colleges there\nwere lecturers who tried, by the way they expressed themselves in their\nlectures, to drive them out again.\n\nOr take the very salient instance of Florence Nightingale. When she\nvolunteered to go out and nurse our soldiers in the Crimea, the\nopposition to a woman\u2019s invasion of a department where men had shown a\nhopeless incompetence at once based itself on the plea that such a task\nwas \u201cunwomanly.\u201d Though in their own homes from time immemorial, women\nhad been nursing fathers, brothers, sons, uncles, cousins, servants,\nmasters, through all the refined and modestly-conducted diseases to\nwhich these lords of creation are domestically subject, directly one\nwoman proposed to carry her expert knowledge into a public department\nand nurse men who were strangers to her, she was told that she was\nexposing herself to an experience which was incompatible with womanly\nmodesty. Well, she was prepared to let her womanly modesty take its\nrisk in face of the black looks of scandalised officials of Admiralty\nor War Office; and she managed to live down pretty completely the\ncharge of unwomanliness. But the example is a valuable one to remember,\nfor there you get the claim of convention to keep women from a great\nwork of organisation and public service, although already, in the home,\ntheir abilities for that special service had been proved. And so,\nbreaking with that convention of her day Florence Nightingale went to\nbe the nursing mother of the British Army in the Crimea, and came home,\nthe one conspicuously successful general of that weary and profitless\ncampaign, shattered in health by her exertions, but of a reputation so\nraised above mistrust and calumny that through her personal prestige\nalone was established that organisation of nursing by trained women\nwhich we have in our hospitals to-day.\n\nTake again the special and peculiar opposition which women had to face\nwhen they began to agitate against certain laws which particularly\naffected the lives of women and did cruel wrong to them even in their\nhome relations. Read the life of Caroline Norton, for instance--a woman\nwhose husband brought against her a public charge of infidelity, though\nprivately admitting that she was innocent; and when, after that charge\nwas proved to be baseless, she separated from her husband, refusing to\nlive with him any more, then he, in consequence of that refusal cut\nher off absolutely from her children, though they were all under seven\nyears of age. That wrong, which our laws had immemorially sanctioned,\nroused her to action, and it was through her efforts, so long ago as\n1838, that the law was altered so as to allow a mother of unblemished\ncharacter right of access to her own children during the years of early\ninfancy!\n\nAnd that is how the law still stands to-day--a woman\u2019s\ncontribution--the most that could be done at the time for justice\nto women. But there is no statue to Caroline Norton in Parliament\nSquare--or anywhere else, so far as I know.\n\nBut what I specially want to draw attention to is this--that when\nshe wrote the pamphlet with which she started her agitation all\nher relatives entreated her not to publish it, because it would be\nan exposure to the world of her own private affairs. By that time,\nhowever, Caroline Norton had learned her lesson in \u201cwomanliness,\u201d and\nshe no longer said \u201cHappy is the woman who has no history.\u201d Her answer\nwas: \u201cThere is too much fear of publicity among women: with women it\nis reckoned a crime to be accused, and such a disgrace that they wish\nnothing better than to hide themselves and say no more about it.\u201d\nDoes not that set forth in all its weakness the conventional womanly\nattitude of the period?\n\nThe Bill which, through her efforts, was brought three times before\nParliament, was at first defeated. How? By the votes of the Judges,\nto whom the House of Lords left the matter to be decided. And Lord\nBrougham, in speaking against that Bill used this line of argument:\nThere were, he said, several legal hardships which were of necessity\ninflicted on women; therefore we should not relieve them from those\nwhich are not necessary--the necessary hardships being the greater;\nand it being bad policy to raise in women a false expectation that\nthe legal hardships relating to their sex were of a removable kind!\nWas ever a more perverted and devilish interpretation given to the\nScripture, \u201cTo him that hath shall be given, and from her that hath not\nshall be taken even that which she hath.\u201d\n\nLet us remember that we are the direct descendants and inheritors of\nthe age and of the men who pronounced these unjust judgments, and that\nno miracle has happened between then and now to remove the guilt of\nthe fathers from the third and the fourth generation. Heredity is too\nstrong a thing for us to have any good ground for believing that our\neyes, even now, are entirely opened. There are many of us who cannot\ndrink port at all, because our grandfathers drank it by the bottle\nevery night of their lives.\n\nWe inherit constitutions, personal and political--we also inherit\nproverbs, which express so vividly and in so few words, the full-bodied\nand highly-crusted wisdom of former generations. Those proverbs\nexpressed once--else they had not become proverbs--an almost universal\ncontemporary opinion. Some of them are now beginning to wear thin, have\nof recent years been dying the death, and will presently be heard no\nmore. But their source and incentive are still quite recognisable; and\ntheir dwindled spirit still lives in our midst.\n\nThere was one, for instance, on which genteel families were brought up\nin the days of my youth--a rhymed proverb which laid it down that--\n\n\n     A whistling woman and a crowing hen\n     Are hateful alike to God and men.\n\n\nNow let us look into the bit of real natural history which lies at\nthe root of that proverb. A crowing hen is a disturbance, but so is a\ncrowing cock. But the hen is not to crow because she only lays eggs,\nand because the bulk of hens manage to lay eggs without crowing. They\nmake, it is true, a peculiar clutter of their own which is just as\ndisturbing; but that is a thoroughly feminine noise and a dispensation\nof Providence; and they don\u2019t do it at all times of the night, and\nwithout a reason for it, as cocks do. But as a matter of fact it is far\nmore easy to prevent a cock from crowing than a hen from cluttering;\nyou have only to put a cock in a pen the roof of which knocks his head\nwhenever he rears himself up to crow and he will remain as silent as\nthe grave, though he will continue to do that spasmodic duty by his\noffspring which is all that nature requires of him. But no such simple\nmethod will stop the cluttering of a hen when her egg is once well and\ntruly laid; the social disturbance caused by the pomp of masculine\nvain-glory is far less inevitable than the disturbance caused by the\ncircumstances of maternity. Yet the normal masculine claim to pomp of\nsound is more readily allowed in our proverbial philosophy than the\noccasional feminine claim.\n\nAnd that is where we have gone wrong; it is really maternity which\nunder wholesome conditions decides the social order of things; and we\nhave been fighting against it by putting maternity into a compound\nand setting up paternity to crow on the top rail. We have not learned\nthat extraordinary adaptability to sound economic conditions which we\nfind in many birds and in a few animals. There exists, for instance,\na particular breed of ostriches, which mates and lays its eggs in a\ncountry where the days are very hot and the nights very cold; and as\nit takes the female ostrich some 13 or 14 days to lay all her eggs\nand some weeks to incubate, she cannot as she does in other countries\ndeposit them in the sand and leave the sun to hatch them, because\nafter the sun has started the process, the cold night comes and kills\nthem. The mother bird finds, therefore, that she cannot both produce\nand nurse her eggs; yet directly they are laid somebody must begin\nsitting on them. Well, what does she do? She goes about in flocks,\n13 or 14 females accompanied by an equal number of the sterner sex.\nAnd on a given day, all the hens lay each an egg in one nest, and one\nof the father birds is selected to sit upon them. And so the process\ngoes on till all the males are sedentarily employed in hatching out\ntheir offspring. And I would ask (applying for the moment our own\nterminology to that wonderfully self-adaptive breed of sociologists)\nare not those male ostriches engaged in a thoroughly \u201cmanly\u201d\noccupation? Could they be better engaged than in making the conditions\nof maternity as favourable and as unhampered as possible? Yet how\ndifficult it is to make our own countrymen see that the strength of a\nnation lies mainly--nay, entirely--in eugenics, in sinking every other\nconsideration for that great and central one--the perfecting of the\nconditions of maternity.\n\nBut let us come back for a moment to whistling. It is an accomplishment\nwhich, as a rule, men do better than women; it is the only natural\ntreble left to them after they reach the age of puberty; and they are\ncuriously proud of it; perhaps, because women, as a rule, have not\nthe knack of it. Now, the real offence of a woman\u2019s whistling was not\nwhen she did it badly (for that merely flattered the male vanity) but\nwhen she did it well; and no doubt it was because some women managed\nto do it well that the proverb I speak of was invented. We should not\nhave been troubled with such a proverb if crowing hens and whistling\nwomen had been unable to raise their accomplishment above a whisper.\nYet whistling is really quite beautiful, when it is well done; and why\nis woman not to create this beauty of sound, if it is in her power\nto create it, merely because it finds her in a minority among her\nsex? Does it make her less physically fit, less capable of becoming a\nmother--less inclined, even, to become a mother? No; it does none of\nthese things; but it distinguishes her from a convention which has laid\nit down that there are certain things which women can\u2019t do; and so,\nwhen the exceptional woman does it, she is--or she was the day before\nyesterday--labelled \u201cunwomanly.\u201d\n\nI do not suggest that whistling is a necessary ingredient for\nthe motherhood of the new race; but, as a matter of fact, I have\nnoticed that those women who whistle well have, as a rule, strength\nof character, originality, the gift of initiative and a strong\norganising capacity; and if these things do go together, then surely\nwe should welcome an increase of whistling as a truly womanly\naccomplishment--something attained--which has not been so generally\nattained hitherto.\n\nLet us pass now to a much more serious instance of those artificial\ndivisions between masculine and feminine habits of thought and\naction which have in the past seemed so absolute, and are, in fact,\nso impossible to maintain. For you can have no code or standard of\nmanhood that is not intimately bound up with a corresponding code or\nstandard of womanhood. What raises the one, raises the other, what\ndegrades the one degrades the other; and if there is in existence,\nanywhere in our social system, a false code of manliness, there\nalongside of it, reacting on it, depending on it, or producing it, is a\nfalse code of womanliness.\n\nTake, for example, that matter of duelling already referred to, in\nrelation to the male code of honour, and the manliness which it is\nsupposed to encourage and develop. You might be inclined to think that\nit lies so much outside the woman\u2019s sphere and her power of control,\nas to affect very little either her womanliness or her own sense of\nhonour. But I hope to show by a concrete example how very closely\nwomanliness and woman\u2019s code of honour are concerned and adversely\naffected by that \u201cmanly\u201d institution of duelling--how, in fact, it\nhas tended to deprive women of a sense of honour, by taking it from\ntheir own keeping and not leaving to them the right of free and final\njudgment.\n\nHere is what happened in Germany about seven years ago. A young married\nofficer undertook to escort home from a dance the fianc\u00e9e of another\nofficer; and on the way, having drunk rather more than was good for\nhim, he tried to kiss her. She resented the liberty, and apparently\nmade him sufficiently ashamed of himself to come next day and beg her\npardon. Whether she would grant it was surely a matter for herself to\ndecide; she accepted his apology, and there, one would have thought,\nthe matter might have ended. But unfortunately, several months later,\nword of this very ordinary bit of male misdemeanour reached the ears\nof the lady\u2019s betrothed. It at once became \u201can affair of honour\u201d--his\naffair, not the lady\u2019s affair--his to settle in his own way, not hers\nto settle in her way. Accordingly he calls out his brother officer,\nand, probably without intending it, shoots him dead. The murdered\nman, as I have said, was married, and at that very time his wife was\nin expectation of having a child. The child was prematurely born to a\npoor mother gone crazed with grief. There, then, we get a beautiful\neconomic product of the male code of honour and its criminal effects on\nSociety; and if traced to its source we shall see that such a code of\nhonour is based mainly on man\u2019s claim to possession and proprietorship\nin woman--for, had the woman not been one whom he looked upon as his\nown property, that officer would have regarded the offence very lightly\nindeed. But because she was his betrothed the woman\u2019s honour was not\nher own, it was his; she was not to defend it in her own way--though\nher own way had proved sufficient for the occasion--he must interfere\nand defend it in his. And we get for result, a man killed for a petty\noffence--the offence itself a direct product of the way in which\nmilitarism has trained men to look on women--a woman widowed and driven\nto the untimely fulfilment of her most important social function in\nanguish of mind, and a child born into the world under conditions which\nprobably handicapped it disastrously for the struggle of life.[1]\n\nNow, obviously, if women could be taught to regard such invasions\nof their right to pardon offence in others as a direct attack upon\ntheir own honour and liberty--a far worse attack than the act of\nfolly which gave occasion for this tragedy--and if they would teach\nthese possessive lovers of theirs that any such intrusion on their\nwomanly prerogative of mercy was in itself an unforgivable sin against\nwomanhood--then such invasions of the woman\u2019s sphere would quickly come\nto an end. They might even put an end to duelling altogether.\n\nSee, on the other hand, how acceptance of such an institution trains\nwomen to give up their own right of judgment, to think even that\nhonour, at first hand, hardly concerns them. Is it not natural that, as\nthe outcome of such a system from which we are only gradually emerging,\nwe should hear it said of these conventionally womanly women that they\nhave \u201ca very low sense of honour.\u201d\n\nLow it must naturally be. For that attitude of complaisant passivity\non the part of the woman while two male rivals fight to possess her is\nthe normal attitude of the female in the lower animal world; but it is\nan attitude from which, as the human race evolves into more perfect\nself-government, you see the woman gradually drawing away. While it\npleases something in her animal instincts, it offends something in her\nhuman instincts; and while to be fought over is the highest compliment\nto the female animal, it is coming to be something like an insult to\nthe really civilized woman--the woman who has the spirit of citizenship\nawake within her. One remembers how Candida, when her two lovers are\ndebating which of them is to possess her--brings them at once to their\nsenses by reminding them that it is not in the least necessary that\nshe should be possessed by either of them; but she does in the end\ngive herself to the one who needs her most. That may be the truest\nwomanliness under present conditions; as it may once have been the\ntruest womanliness for the woman to give herself to the strongest. But\nit may be the truest womanliness, at times, for the woman to bring men\nto their senses by reminding them that it is not necessary for her to\ngive herself at all. To be quite sure of attaining to full womanliness,\nlet her first make sure that she possesses herself. In the past men\nhave set a barrier to her right of knowledge, her right of action,\nher right of independent being; and in the light of that history it\nseems probable that she will best discover her full value by insisting\non right of knowledge, on right of way, and on right of economic\nindependence. So long as convention lays upon women any special and\nfundamental claim of control--a claim altogether different in kind\nand extent from the claim it lays upon men--so long may it be the\nessentially womanly duty of every woman to have quick and alive within\nher the spirit of criticism, and latent within her blood the spirit of\nrevolt.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[1] It may be noted that the war has caused a recrudescence of this\nbrutal \u201ccode of honour\u201d in our own country. But here it has not\ntroubled to resume the obsolete form of the duel. The \u201cdefender of his\nwife\u2019s honour\u201d simply commits murder, and the jury acquits.\n\n\n\n\nUSE AND ORNAMENT\n\n(OR THE ART OF LIVING)\n\n(1915)\n\n\nI suppose you would all be very much surprised if I said that not use\nbut ornament was the object of life.\n\nI refrain from doing so because so definite a statement makes an\nassumption of knowledge which it may always be outside man\u2019s power to\npossess. The object of life may for ever remain as obscure to us as its\ncause. It seems, indeed, likely enough that the one ignorance hinges\nnecessarily on the other, and that without knowing the cause of life\nneither can we know its object.\n\nThe writers of the Scottish Church Catechism, it is true, thought\nthat they knew why man was created. The social products of their\ncocksure theology cause me to doubt it. I would prefer to worship more\nignorantly a more lovable deity than the one which is there presented\nto my gaze.\n\nBut though we may never know why we are here, we may know, by taking a\nlittle thought and studying the manifestations of the life around us,\nwhat aspects of it make us glad that we are here. And gladness is as\ngood a guide as any that I know to the true values of life.\n\nExamining life from that standpoint I know of nothing that gives me\nmore delight than the decoration and embellishment with which man has\noverlaid all the mere uses of existence--things which without those\nembellishments might not delight us at all--or only as a dry crust of\nbread delights in his necessity the starving beggar, or ditch-water one\ndying of thirst.\n\nI can scarcely think of a use in life which I enjoy, that I do not\nenjoy more because of the embellishment placed about it by man, who\nclaims to have been made \u201cin God\u2019s image.\u201d Nothing that my senses\nrespond to with delight stays limited within the utilitarian aspect\non which its moral claims to acceptance are too frequently based--or\nremains a benefit merely material in its scope.\n\nWhen we breathe happily, when we eat happily, and when we love happily,\nwe do not think of the utilitarian ends with which those bodily\ninstincts are related. The utilitarian motive connects, but only\nsubconsciously, with that sense of well-being and delight which then\nfills us; and the conscious life within us is happy without stooping to\nreason.\n\nUnderlying our receptivity of these things is, no doubt, the fact that\nour bodies have a use for them. But were we to consider the material\nuses alone, our enjoyment would be less; and if (by following that\nprocess) we absorbed them in a less joyous spirit, our physical\nbenefit, so science now tells us, would be less also.\n\nFor some reason or another, which is occasionally hard to define, you\nfind pleasure in a thing over and above its use; and I want to persuade\nyou that the finer instinct, the genius of the human race, tends always\nin that direction--not to rest content with the mere use of a thing,\nbut to lay upon it that additional touch of adornment--whether by\nwell-selected material, or craftsman\u2019s skill, or social amenity, which\nshall make it a thing delightful to our senses or to our intelligence.\n\nTake, for instance, so simple a thing as a wine-glass, or a\nwater-glass. Materially, it is subject to a very considerable\ndrawback; it is brittle, and if broken is practically unmendable.\nFrom the point of view of utility, strength, cheapness, cleanliness,\nit has no advantage over hardware or china. But in its relation to\nbeverages beautiful in colour and of a clear transparency, glass has a\ndelightfulness which greatly enhances the pleasure of its use. There\nis a subtle relation between the sparkle of the glass, and the sparkle\nproduced in the brain by the sight and the taste of good wine (or--let\nme add, for the benefit of temperance members of my audience--of good\nginger-ale). I think one could also trace a similar delight to the\nrelations subsisting between glass in its transparency and a draught of\npure water.\n\nThat relationship set up between two or more senses (in this case\nbetween the senses of sight, taste and touch) brings into being a new\nvalue which I ask you to bear in mind, as I shall have a good deal to\nsay about it later--the value of association. The more you examine into\nthe matter, the more you will find that association is a very important\nelement for evoking man\u2019s faculties of enjoyment; it secures by the\ninter-relation of the senses a sort of compound interest for the appeal\nover which it presides. And it is association, with this compound\nappeal, which again and again decides (over and above all questions\nof use) what material is the best, or the most delightful, to be\nemployed for a given purpose. You choose a material because it makes a\ndecorative covering to mere utility. That beauty of choice in material\nalone is the beginning of ornament.\n\nWhen I began, I spoke for a moment as though use and ornament were\nopposite or separate principles; but what I shall hope soon to show\nis that they are so interlocked and combined that there is no keeping\nthem apart when once the spirit of man has opened to perceive the true\nsacramental service which springs from their union, and the social\ndiscordance that inevitably follows upon their divorce. But as man\u2019s\nordinary definition of the word \u201cuse\u201d is sadly material and debased,\nand as his approval and sanction of the joys of life have too often\nbeen limited by a similar materialism of thought, one is obliged, for\nthe time being, to accept the ordinary limiting distinction, so that\nthe finer and less realised uses of beauty and delight may be shown\nmore clearly as the true end to which all lesser uses should converge.\n\nLife itself is a usage of material, the bringing together of atoms into\nform; and we know, from what science teaches of evolution, that this\nusage has constantly been in the direction of forms of life which,\nfor certain reasons, we describe as \u201chigher.\u201d Emerging through those\nforms have come manifestations or qualities, which quite obviously give\ndelight to the holders of them; and we are able to gather in watching\nthem, as they live, move, and have their being, that for them life\nseems good. It is no part of their acceptance of what has come that\nthey are here not to enjoy themselves.\n\nThus we see from the upward trend of creation a faculty for enjoyment\nsteadily emerging, and existing side by side with fears, risks, and\nhardships which the struggle for existence entails--probably an even\nincreased faculty for enjoyment, as those fears and risks become more\nconsciously part of their lives. And I question whether we should think\nthat the wild deer had chosen well, could it resign its apprehension\nof death at the drinking-place for the sake of becoming a worm--the\nwriggling but scarcely conscious prey of the early bird.\n\nMan (the most conscious prey of death) has also his compensations;\nbut, wishing to eat his cake and have it, he insists that his increased\nself-consciousness is the hall-mark of an immortality which he is\nunwilling to concede to others. He sees (or the majority of those see,\nwho preach personal immortality after death) no moral necessity for\nconceding immortality to the worm because the early bird cuts short\nits career, or to the wild deer because it enjoys life, shrinks from\ndeath, and endures pain; or to the peewit, because she loves her young;\nor to the parrot, because it dies with a vocabulary still inadequate\nfor expressing that contempt for the human species with which the caged\nexperience of a life-time has filled its brain. Yet, for these and\nsimilar reasons applied to himself, man thinks that immortality is his\ndue.\n\nIn doing so, he does but pursue, to a rather injudicious extent, that\ninstinct for the ornamentation and embellishment of the facts of life\nwhich I spoke of to begin with. For whether it be well-founded or not,\na belief in immortality gives ornament to existence.\n\nOf course, it may be bad ornament; and I think it becomes bad ornament\nthe moment he bases it upon the idea that this life is evil and not\ngood. If he says \u201cLife is so good that I want it to go on for ever and\never,\u201d and thinks that he can make it better by asserting that it will\ngo on for ever and ever, that is a playful statement which may have\nquite a stimulating effect on his career, and make him a much more\ncharming and social and imaginative person than he would otherwise be.\nBut if he wants a future life merely because he regards this life as a\n\u201cvale of misery\u201d--and wants that future life to contain evil as well\nas good--a Hell as well as a Heaven (in order that he may visualise\nretribution meted out on a satisfactory scale upon those whom he cannot\nsatisfactorily visit with retribution to-day) then, I think, that it\ntends to become bad ornament, and is likely to make him less charming,\nless social, and less imaginatively inventive for the getting rid of\nevil conditions from present existence than he would be if he had not\nso over-loaded his brain with doctrinal adornments.\n\nStill, it is ornament of a kind; and with ornament, good or bad (the\nmoment he has got for himself leisure or any elbow-room at all in the\nstruggle for existence) man cannot help embellishing the facts of\nlife--the things that he really knows.\n\nNow that instinct for embellishment is of course latent in Nature\nitself, or we should not find it in man; and it comes of Nature (the\ngreat super-mathematician) putting two and two together in a way which\ndoes not merely make four. When two and two are put together by Nature,\nthey come to life in a new shape; and man is (up-to-date) the most\nappreciative receptacle of that fact which Nature has yet produced. Man\nbuilds up his whole appreciation of life by association--by studying\na method of putting two and two together which comes to something very\nmuch more than a dead numerical result.\n\nThis, as I have said, is Nature\u2019s way of giving to our investments in\nlife a compound interest. Man throws into life his whole capital, body,\nsoul, and spirit; and as a result of that investment Nature steadily\nreturns to him year by year--not detached portions of his original\noutlay, but something new and different. Out of every contact between\nman\u2019s energy and Nature\u2019s, something new arises. And yet, though new,\nit is not strange; it has features of familiarity; it is partly his,\npartly hers; and if his spirit rises above the merely mechanical, it\nis endeared to him by and derives its fullest value from association.\nAll beautiful work, all work which is of real use and benefit to the\ncommunity, bears implicitly within it this mark of parentage--of the\nway it has been come by, through patience, skill, ingenuity, something\nmore intimate and subtle than the dead impenetrable surface of a thing\nmechanically formed without the accompaniment either of hope or joy.\n\nThis creation of new values by association (which you can trace through\nall right processes of labour) is seen even in things which have very\nlittle of human about them.\n\nThe germ of its expression is to be found in that simplest of\narithmetic propositions to which I have just referred: two and two\nmake--not two twos but four, which is, in fact, a fresh concept; and\nthe mind that can embrace so much--the idea of four as a number with\nan identity of its own has already raised itself above the lowest\nlevel of savagery. In that mind something has begun out of which the\nsocial idea may presently be developed; for the man who has conceived\nthe number four will presently be identifying his new concept with a\nvariety of correspondencies under fresh aspects: he will discover that\ncertain animals have four legs, whereas, until then, his view of them\nwas rather that of the child who said that a horse had two legs in\nfront, two legs behind, and two at each side--a statement which shows,\nindeed, that the horse has been earnestly considered from as many\npoints of view as are sometimes necessary to enable a Cabinet Minister\nto make up his mind, but, for all that, never as a whole; and in such a\nmind, though the identity of the horse may be established from whatever\npoint of view he presents himself, the thought of the horse, as a being\nof harmoniously related parts, having order and species, has not yet\nbeen established. Until a man can count, and sum up the results of\nhis counting in synthesis, Nature is composed merely of a series of\nunits--and the mind cannot begin that grouping and defining process\nwhich leads to association and from that to the development of the\nsocial idea.\n\nYou will remember in _Alice through the Looking Glass_, when the two\nQueens set to work to test her educational proficiency--you will\nremember how the White Queen says (in order to discover whether Alice\ncan do addition) \u201cWhat\u2019s one, and one, and one, and one, and one, and\none?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d says Alice, \u201cI lost count.\u201d\n\n\u201cShe can\u2019t do addition,\u201d says the White Queen.\n\nWell--she \u201clost count,\u201d and, therefore, that series of ones failed to\nhave any fresh meaning or association for her.\n\nIn the same way the primitive savage loses count; beyond three, numbers\nare too many for him--they become merely a \u201clot.\u201d But war and the\nchase begin to teach him the relative value of numbers; and he finds\nout that if one lot goes out to fight a bigger lot, the smaller lot\nprobably gets beaten; so that, before long, calculation of some sort\nbecomes necessary for the preservation of existence. He finds out also\n(and this is where ornament begins to come in) that a certain amount of\nwilful miscalculation has a beauty and a value of its own. So, after\ngoing out to fight ten against ten, and defeating them, he comes back\nand says to his wives and the surrounding communities by whom he wishes\nto be held in awe--\u201cMy lot killed bigger lot--much, much bigger lot.\u201d\nAnd so, when he comes later on to set down his wilful miscalculations\nin records of scripture, he provides delightful problems for the Bishop\nColensos of future ages--problems the undoing of which may shake to\nthe foundations the authority of documents which some mid-Victorian\nschool of Christianity has hitherto held to be divinely and verbally\ninspired--not realising that the normal tendency of human nature is\nto be decorative when writing its national history or when giving its\nreasons for having plunged into war.\n\nYou begin now, then, to perceive (if you did not before), the\nimportance of ornamental association, even when confined to matters of\narithmetic; and the moral value to future ages not merely of calculated\ntruths but of calculated untruths.\n\nBut this merely figurative illustration of the quickness of the human\nbrain, in its primitive stage, to use mathematics to unmathematical\nends (or science to ends quite unscientific) does not bring us very far\nupon the road to that self-realisation, in ornament rather than in use,\nwhich I hope to make manifest by tracing to their most characteristic\nforms of expression the higher grades of civilization.\n\nAnd I shall hope, by and by, to show that you cannot be social without\nalso being ornamental; it is the beginning of that connecting link\nwhich shall presently make men realise that life is one, and that all\nlife is good.\n\nTake, to begin with, the earliest instruments by which primitive man\nbegan raising himself from the ruck of material conditions; his\nweapons--first of the chase, and then of war. No sooner had he proved\ntheir use than he began to ornament them--to make them records,\ntrophies, and so--objects of beauty. He cannot stop from doing so;\nhis delight in the skill of his hands breaks out into ornament. It is\nthe same with the arts of peace, the work of the woman-primitive--she\nmoulds a pot, or weaves a square of material, and into it--the moment\nshe has accomplished the rudiments--goes pattern, beauty, something\nadditional and memorable that is not for use material, but for use\nspiritual--pleasure, delight.\n\nAnd that quite simple example, from a time when man was living the\nlife, as we should now regard it, of a harried and hunted beast--with\nhis emergence from surrounding perils scarcely yet assured to him--goes\non consistently up and up the scale of human evolution; and the more\nstrongly it gets to be established in social institutions, the more\nnoble is likely to be the form of civilization which enshrines it. And\nthe less it shows, the less is that form of civilization likely to be\nworthy of preservation, or its products of permanent value to the human\nrace.\n\nIt is not the millionaire who leaves his mark on the world so that\nhereafter men are glad when they name him; it is the \u201cmaker\u201d who\nhas turned uses into delights; not the master of the money-market,\nbut the Master of Arts. The nearest thing we have on earth to that\nimmortality which so many look to as the human goal lies in those forms\nof ornament--of embellishment over and above mere use--which man\u2019s\ngenius has left to us in architecture, poetry, music, sculpture, and\npainting. Nothing that stops at utility has anything like the same\nvalue, for the revelation of the human spirit, as that which finds its\nsetting in the Arts--the sculptures of Egypt and Greece, the Gothic\nand Romanesque cathedrals of France, England, Germany and Italy, the\npaintings of the Renaissance, the masterpieces of Bach and Beethoven,\nthe poems and writings all down the ages of men comparatively poor in\nmonetary wealth, but rich beyond the dreams of avarice in their power\nto communicate their own souls to things material and to leave them\nthere, when their own bodies have turned to dust. In the embellishment\nthey added to life they bestowed on the age in which they lived its\nmost significant commentary. There you will find, as nowhere else, the\nmeaning and the interpretation of the whole social order to which these\nforms were as flower and fruit. Ancient Greece is not represented to us\nto-day by its descendants in the flesh (as an expression of that life\nthey have ceased to exist) but by those works of art and philosophy\nthrough which men--many now nameless--made permanent the vision of\ndelight to which, in the brief life of the flesh, they had become\nheirs. The self-realisation of that age--all the best of it that we\ninherit--comes to us through embodiment in forms transcending material\nuse.\n\nRun your mind\u2019s eye through the various peoples and nationalities of\nEurope--of the world--and you will find that their characteristic\ncharm--that which is \u201cracy\u201d of their native soil, marking the\ndistinction between race and race, lies in the expression they have\ngiven to life over and above use. If we had kept to use, race would\nhave remained expressionless. Race expresses itself in ornament; and\neven among a poor peasant people (and far more among them than among\nthe crowded and over-worked populations of our great cities where\nwe pursue merely commercial wealth) comes out in a characteristic\nappreciation of the superabundance of material with which, at some\npoint or another, life has lifted them above penury. In the great\ncivilizations it extends itself over a rich blend of all these, drawn\nfrom far sources; and the more widely it extends over the material uses\nof life, the higher and the more permanent are the products of that\nform of civilization likely to be. What does it mean but this?--man is\nout to enjoy himself.\n\nHaving said that, need I add that I put a very high interpretation upon\nthe word \u201cjoy\u201d?\n\nTo that end--man\u2019s enjoyment of life--all art is profoundly useful. I\nput that forward in opposition to the specious doctrine of Oscar Wilde\nthat \u201call art is entirely useless.\u201d But it is usefulness extended in a\nnew direction; leaving the material uses, by which ordinary values are\nmeasured, it shifts to the spiritual; and by the spiritual I mean that\nwhich animates, vitalizes, socializes.\n\nTo that end it may often be--and is generally the case--that, in the\nmaterial sense, art is a useless addition or refinement upon that which\nwas first planned merely for the service of man\u2019s bodily needs. Yet\nwhere the need is of a worthy and genuine kind, art never ceases to\nrejoice at the use that is underlying it. This can be clearly seen in\narchitecture, where the beauty of design, the proportion, the capacity\nof the edifice--though far transcending the physical need which called\nit into being--remain nevertheless in subtle relation thereto, and give\nto it a new expression--useless indeed to the body--but of this use to\nthe mind, that it awakens, kindles, enlivens, sensitizes--making it to\nbe in some sort creative, by perception of and response to the creative\npurpose which evoked that form. You cannot enter a cathedral without\nbecoming aware that its embracing proportions mean something far more\nthan the mere capacity to hold a crowd; its end and aim are to inspire\nin that crowd a certain mental attitude, a spiritual apprehension--to\ndraw many minds into harmony, and so to make them one--a really\ntremendous fact when successfully achieved.\n\nNow nothing can be so made--to awaken and enlarge the spirit--without\nsome apparent wastefulness of material or of energy. A cathedral will\nabsorb more stone, and the labour of more men\u2019s lives, before it is\nfinished, than a tenement of equal housing capacity which aims only at\nproviding warmth and a cover from the elements. To provide so much joy\nand enlargement to the human spirit, a kind of waste, upon the material\nplane, is necessary; and the man without joy or imagination in his\ncomposition is likely to say on beholding it: \u201cWhy was all this waste\nmade?\u201d\n\nBear in mind this accusation of waste which can constantly be made,\nfrom a certain standpoint against all forms of joy evolved by the art\nof living--possibly against all forms of joy that you can name; for all\njoy entails an expenditure of energy, and for those who do not realise\nthe value of joy such expenditure must necessarily seem wasteful.\n\nBut when a man employs hand or brain worthily, straightway he discovers\n(latent within that connection) the instinct of delight, of ornament.\nHe cannot rejoice in his craftsmanship without wishing to embellish\nit--to place upon it the expression of the joy which went with the\nmaking. All that he does to this end is apparently (from the material\npoint of view) useless; but from the spiritual it is profoundly useful;\nand from the spirit (and this I think is important) it tends to re-act\nand kindle the craftsman to finer craftsmanship than if he had worked\nfor utility alone.\n\nNow if spirit thus acts on matter--achieving its own well-being only\nthrough a certain waste of material, or expenditure of labour upon the\nlower plane, yet communicating back to matter influences from that\nstate of well-being to which it has thus attained--may it not be that\nwaste of a certain kind (what I would call \u201cselective waste\u201d _versus_\n\u201chaphazard waste\u201d) is the concomitant not only of spiritual but of\nmaterial growth also? May it not be that evolution has followed upon a\ncourse of waste deliberately willed and insisted on--and that without\nsuch waste, life--even material life--had not evolved to its present\nstage?\n\nWe see a certain wastefulness attaching to many of the most beautiful\nbiological manifestations in the world. Up to a certain point, the\nconstruction of flower, bird, beast, fish, shows a wonderful economy of\nstructure, of means to end (it is the same also in the arts). But there\ncomes a point at which Nature, \u201cletting herself go,\u201d becomes fantastic,\nextravagant--may one not say \u201cwilful\u201d?--in the forms she selects for\nher final touches of adornment. And is it not nearly always when the\nmatter in hand is most closely related to the \u201cwill to live\u201d--or, in\nother words, in relation to the amative instincts--that the \u201cart of\nliving\u201d breaks out, and that Nature quits all moderation of design and\nbecomes frankly ornamental and extravagant? Just at the point where to\nbe creative is the immediate motive, where, in the fulfilment of that\nmotive, life is found to be a thing of delight, just there, Nature,\nbeing amative, becomes playful, exuberant and ornamental.\n\nThere are some birds which, in this connection, carry upon their\npersons adornments so extravagant that one wonders how for so many\ngenerations they have been able to live and move and multiply, bearing\nsuch edifices upon their backs, their heads, their tails--that they\nwere not a crushing hindrance to the necessary affairs of life. They\ncertainly cannot have been a help; and yet--they still persist in them!\n\nTaking, then, these natural embryonic beginnings as our starting point,\nI would be inclined to trace out the living value of art and ornament\nsomewhat upon these lines: Exuberance--the emergence of beauty and\nadornment, in addition to the mere functional grace arising out of\nfitness for use--has always been going on through the whole process\nof creation among animate nature. We see it established in a thousand\nforms, not only in bird, beast and reptile, but in the vegetable\nworld as well. The tendency of all life that has found a fair field\nfor its development, is to play with its material--to show that it\nhas something over and above the straight needs imposed on it by the\nstruggle for existence, which it can spare for self-expression.\n\nIt has been lured on to these manifestations mainly by that \u201cwill\nto live\u201d which underlies the attractions of sex. That exuberance\nis an essential feature of the evolutionary process at the point\nwhere self-realisation by self-reproduction is the game to play.\nUnder that impulse the selective principle begins to assert itself,\nand straightway the outcome is ornament. Self-realisation (by\nself-reproduction under all sorts of images and symbols) is the true\nbasis of ornament and of art: self-realisation!\n\nThe spirit of man, moving through these means, impresses itself\nreproductively on the spirits of others with a far better calculation\nof effect than can be secured through bodily inheritance. For in\nphysical parentage there is always the chance of a throw-back to\ntainted origins; the sober and moral citizen cannot be sure of sober\nand moral children in whom the desire of his soul shall be satisfied.\nThey may be drawn, by irresistible forces, to take after some giddy and\ndisreputable old grandfather or grandmother instead of after him; for\nin his veins run the parental weaknesses of thousands of generations;\nand over the racial strain that passes through him to others he\npossesses no control whatever. But the man who has given ornament to\nlife in any form of art--though he commits it to the risks and chances\nof life, the destructive accidents of peace and war--is in danger\nof no atavistic trick being played upon the product of his soul; he\nis assured of his effect, and so long as it endures it reflects and\nrepresents his personality more faithfully than the descendants of his\nblood.\n\nNow for the satisfaction of that instinct, the perpetuation of name\nand identity is not necessary. The artist would not (if told that his\nself-realisation was destined to become merged anonymously in the\nexistence of fresco, or canvas, or mosaic)--he would not therefore lay\ndown his mallet or his brush, and say that in that case the survival\nof these things to a future age was no survival for him. The maker of\nbeautiful inlay would not lose all wish to do inlay if the knowledge\nthat he, individually, as the craftsman were destined to oblivion.\nLet the future involve him in anonymity as impenetrable as it liked,\nhe would still go on expressing himself in ornament; self-realisation\nwould still be the law of his being.\n\nThat is the psychology of the artist mind--of that part of humanity\nwhich produces things that come nearest, of all which earth has to\nshow, to conditions of immortality, and so presumably are the most\nsatisfying to man\u2019s wish for continued individual existence. The makers\nof beauty do not set any great store on the continuance of their\nnames--the continuance of their self-realisation is what they care\nabout.\n\nBut the possessors of these works of beauty do very often make a great\npoint of having their own names perpetuated, even though the vehicle is\nanother personality than their own. And so very frequently we have the\nnames passed down to us of these parasites of immortality--the tyrants\nfor whom palaces, or arches, or temples were built--but not the names\nof the artists who designed them, whose immortality they really are.\nAnd though the official guide may refresh our memory with snippets\nof history, and say this, that, or the other about the name to which\nthe temple remains attached--the really important thing that lives,\nsurvives, and influences us is not the externally applied name, but the\ninvested beauty which has no name, but is soul incarnate in stone to\nthe glory of God--the self-realisation of a being who (but for that)\nhas passed utterly from remembrance.\n\nThat, as I have said before, is the nearest thing to immortality that\nwe know. And it comes to us, in a shape which, (so to be informed with\nimmortality) cannot limit itself to the demands of use. When all the\nclaims of use are satisfied, then the life of personality begins to\nshow--the fullest and the most permanent form of self-realisation known\nto man on earth lies in ornament.\n\nOf course, when I say \u201cornament,\u201d I use the word in a very wide sense.\nWhat I have said of sculpture, painting or architecture, applies\nequally to poetry, music or philosophy. I would even go further, and\napply it in other directions where no material matrix for it exists.\nEvery department of mental activity has its ornament--the culminating\nexpression of that particular direction of the human will. Faith is\nthe ornament of destiny, Hope the ornament of knowledge, Love the\nornament of sex. Without these ornaments destiny and knowledge and sex\nwould have no beauty that the soul of man should desire them. Those\nadditions or glosses were quite unnecessary to existence--up to a\npoint; for millions of years the world did without them, and Evolution\nmanaged to scramble along without faith, without hope, without love.\nBut Evolution itself brought them into being; and then for millions of\nyears they existed in germ, without self-consciousness; but steadily,\nas they germinated, they produced beauty and a sense of design in\ntheir environment. Co-ordination, dovetailing (peaceful word!), the\nharmonising and gentle effect of one life upon another, as opposed to\nthe savage and predatory, began to have effect. And in response came\nornament; faith, hope and love showed their rudimentary beginnings even\nin the lower animals.\n\nOne of the most perfectly decorative objects that I have ever seen in\nthe animal world (you will find it in still-life form in our Natural\nHistory Museum) is the device by which a certain small possum has\ntaught her young to accompany her from branch to branch. Along her back\nshe seats her litter, then over their heads like the conducting-wire\nof a tram-line she extends her tail--and then (each like an electric\nconnecting rod) up go the little tails, make a loop, adjust themselves\nto the maternal guide-rope, and hang on. And there, safe from upset, is\nthe family-omnibus ready to start!\n\nOf course, you may say that is use; but it is use in which the\nspiritualities, faith, hope and love, begin to appear; and in the\ngentleness of its intention it forms a basis for the up-growth\nof beauty. Now all the arts are, in the same way, first of all\nstructural--having for their starting-point a sound and economic use of\nthe material on which they are based. Music, architecture, poetry, and\nthe rest were all, to begin with, the result of an instinctive choice\nor selection, directed to the elimination of superfluities, accidents,\nexcrescences--which to the craftsman\u2019s purpose are nothing.\n\nNature, in her seed-sowing, has gone to work to propagate by profusion;\nher method is to sow a million seeds so as to make sure that some may\nlive; thus she meets and out-matches the chances that are against her.\nThe seed of Art sprang up differently; maker-man took hold of the one\nselected seed, not of a dozen, or of a thousand dozen promiscuously,\nand bent his faculties on making that one seed (his chosen material)\nfit to face life and its chances: if a house--walls and roof\ncalculated to keep out the rain and resist the force of storms: if a\ntextile--fabric of a staple sufficient to resist the wear and tear to\nwhich it would be subjected: if a putting together of words meant to\noutlast the brief occasion of their utterance--then in a form likely\nto be impressive, and therefore memorable; so that in an age before\nwriting was known they might find a safe tabernacle, travelling from\nplace to place in the minds of men. And similarly with music--a system\nof sounds so ruled by structural law as to be capable of transmission\neither by instrument, or by voice disciplined and trained to a certain\ncode of limitations. And being thus made memorable and passed from\nmouth to mouth, from one place to another, and from age to age, they\nacquired a social significance and importance; till, seeing them thus\nlifted above chance, man set himself to give them new forms of beauty\nand adornment.\n\nAnd the governing motive was, and always has been, first man\u2019s wish to\nleave memorable records--beyond the limits of his own generation--of\nwhat life has meant for him; and secondly (and this is the more\nintimate phase) the delight of the craftsman in his work, the\nexuberance of vital energy (secure of its structural ground-work)\nbreaking out into play. \u201cSee,\u201d it says, \u201chow I dance, and gambol, and\ntriumph! This superfluity of strength proves me a victor in my struggle\nto live.\u201d\n\nNothing else does; for if (having survived the struggle) man only lives\nmiserably--scrapes through as it were--the question in the face of so\npoverty-stricken a result, may still be--\u201cWas the struggle worth it?\u201d\nAnd so by his arts and graces, by his adornment of his streets, temples\nand theatres, by his huge delight in himself, so soon as the essentials\nof mere material existence are secured to him, man has really shown\nthat life is good in itself, that he can do well enough without the\nassurance of personal immortality held out to him by the theologians.\nWhether that be or be not his reward hereafter, he will still strive to\nexpress himself; but for that end mere use alone will not satisfy him.\n\nWe have seen, then, how man, in his social surroundings, begins to\nsecure something over and above the mere necessities of life; and so,\nafter providing himself with a certain competence of food, clothing\nand shelter, has means and energy left for the supply of luxuries,\nornaments, delights--call them what you will. And according to\nthe direction in which he flings out for the acquisition of these\nsuperfluities--so will his whole manhood develop, or his type of racial\nculture be moulded.\n\nFar back in the beginnings of civilization one of the first forms\ntaken by this surplus of power and energy over mere necessity was the\nacquisition of slaves and wives. Civilization then began to ornament\nitself with two modes of body-service--the menial attendance of the\nslave upon his master, and the polygamous sexual attendance of the\nwoman upon her lord.\n\nTo-day we think that both those things were, from a moral point of\nview, bad ornament. But you cannot look into the history of any\ncivilization conducted on those lines without seeing that they\ndecorated it--and that, out of their acceptance, came colour,\npomp, splendour, means for leisure, for enjoyment--for a very keen\nself-realisation of a kind by the few at the expense of the many. And\nthe masterful few made that form of decorated civilization more sure\nfor themselves by extending a good deal of the decorative element\nto the subservient lives around them. The slaves wore fine liveries\nand lorded it over lower slaves, the favourite wives lived in luxury\nand laziness, eating sweets and spending their days in the frivolous\nmysteries of the toilet.\n\nAt a certain point in the social scale this form of ornamental\nexistence produced great misery, great hardships, great abasement. But\nit was not instituted and maintained for that reason. Those underlying\nconditions were a drawback, they were a misuse of human nature employed\nas a basis for that ornamental superstructure to build on. And out of\nthat underlying misuse came the weakness and the eventual decay of that\nonce flourishing school of ornament.\n\nBut when that school of ornament was threatened by other schools, it\nwas ready to fight to the death for its ornamental superfluities--for\npolygamy, for slavery, for power over others, which had come to mean\nfor it all that made life worth living! Life was quite capable of\nbeing carried on without those things--was, and is, happily lived by\nother races to the accompaniment of another set of ornaments which\nthose races think more enjoyable. But no race will consent to live\nwithout some sort of ornament of its own choosing; and when its choice\nof ornaments, or of social superfluities, over and above the needs\nof existence, is seriously threatened from without it declares that\nit is fighting not merely for liberty but for existence. Yet we know\nquite well that the people of invaded and conquered States continue\nin the main to exist--they continue even to wear ornaments; but these\nare apt to be imposed ornaments galling to the national pride. And so\nto-day, in the midst of a vast belligerency, we have committees and\nconsultations going on, to see to it lest, at the end of the war, under\nGerman dominance, our women should have their future fashions imposed\non them from Berlin instead of from Paris, a fearful doom for any lady\nof taste to contemplate.\n\nThe example may seem frivolous, but it is a parable of the truth;\nwe call our ornaments our liberties, and if we cannot ourselves die\nfighting for them, we make others die for us.\n\nLet us take up (for illustration of the same point) another stage\nof civilization--that of ancient Greece. In Greece the city was the\ncentre of civilization, and its public buildings became the outward and\nvisible sign of the people\u2019s pride of life and of their sense of power.\nThe fact that their private dwellings were very simple, and that they\nexpended nearly the whole of their artistry upon public works (things\nto be shared and delighted in by all the citizens in common) had a\nprofound influence upon their civilization. That new social ideal of\ncivic pride found its way irresistibly into ornament. You could not\nhave had civic pride in anything like the same degree without it.\n\nBut Greek civilization did not fall into decay because of the beauty\nand perfection with which it crowned itself in the public eye, but\nbecause of certain underlying evils and misuses in the body politic--in\nwhich again slavery and the subjection of women had their share. Greek\ncivilization fell because it failed to recognise the dignity of all\nhuman nature; it reserved its sense of dignity for a selected race\nand class; it failed to recognise the dignity of all true kinds of\nservice, and prided itself in military service alone--in that and in\nthe philosophies and the arts. It built a wonderful temple to its gods,\nbut failed in a very large degree to take into God the whole body of\nhumanity over which it had control. And so, Greek civilization broke up\ninto portions of an unimportant size and perished.\n\nAt a later day--and again with the city as centre to its life of\nself-realisation--we get the great period of the Italian Renaissance,\na period in which civic and feudal and ecclesiastical influences\nalternately jostled and combined.\n\nAnd out of these three prides arose a wonderfully complex\nart--tremendously expressive of what life meant for that people. And\nyou got then (for the first time, I think), grouped under the civic\narm, a new life-consciousness--the consciousness of the guilds, the\nworkers, and the craftsmen. The dignity of labour began to assert\nitself; and when it did, inevitably it broke into ornament on its own\naccount--not at the bidding of an employer, but for the honour and\nglory of the worker himself. And so, from that date on, the homes and\nhalls and churches of the guilds became some of the noblest monuments\nto what life meant for men who had found joy in their labour.\n\nNow that did not come till the craftsman had won free from slavery\nand from forced labour; but when he was a freeman, with room to turn\nround, he built up temples to his craft, to make more evident that the\ntrue goal of labour is not use but delight. And only when it fell back\ninto modern slavery at the hands of commercial capitalism, only then\ndid labour\u2019s power of spontaneous expression depart from it and become\nimitative and debased.\n\nI could take you further, and show you (among the survivals from our\nEngland of the Middle Ages) the \u201cjoy of the harvest\u201d expressed in the\ngreat granaries and tithe-barns which still crown like abbey-churches\nthe corn-lands of Home. Concerning one of these William Morris said\nthat it stood second in his estimation among all the Gothic buildings\nof Europe! Think of it!--of what that means in the realisation of\nlife-values by the age which had a mind so to celebrate man\u2019s rest\nafter the labour of the harvest! In those days England was called\n\u201cmerry\u201d and foreigners who came to her shores reported as a national\ncharacteristic the happy looks of her people: even their faces showed\nadornment! And thus it is that beautiful use always clothes itself in\nbeauty.\n\nI have said that all art is useful. To many that may have seemed a\nvery contentious statement. But how can one separate beauty from use\nif one holds that everything which delights us is useful? On that\nstatement there is only one condition I would impose. The use in\nwhich we delight must not mean the misuse or the infliction of pain\non others. In those periods of civilization to which I have referred\n(so magnificent in their powers of self-discovery and self-adornment),\nthere were always dark and cruel habitations where the \u201cart of living\u201d\nwas not applied. They were content that the beauty on which they prided\nthemselves should be built up on the suffering, the oppression, or the\ncorruption of others. In the lust of their eyes there was a blind spot,\nso that they cared little about the conditions imposed by their own\ntoo arrogant claim for happiness on the lives that were spent to serve\nthem. And out of their blindness came at last the downfall of their\npower.\n\nSo it has always been, so it always must be. I believe that beauty,\ndelight, ornament, are as near to the object of life as anything that\none can name, and that through right uses we attain to these as our\ngoal. But it is no good claiming to possess delightful things if we do\nnot see to it that those who make them for us have also the means to\nlive delightfully.\n\nIf man cannot make all the uses and services of life decent and\nwholesome as a starting-point, neither can he make life enjoyable--not,\nI mean, with a good conscience. If he would see God through beauty, he\nmust see Him not here and there only, but in the \u201cland of the living\u201d;\nelse (as the psalmist said) his spirit must faint utterly.\n\nOur life is built up--we know not to what ultimate end--on an infinite\nnumber of uses, functions, mechanisms. These uses enable us to live;\nthey do not necessarily enable us to enjoy. You can quite well imagine\nthe use of all your senses and organs so conditioned that you could\nnot enjoy a single one of them, and yet they might still fulfil their\nutilitarian purpose of keeping you alive.\n\nI need not rehearse to you in troublesome detail conditions of life\nwhere everything you see is an eyesore, every touch a cause of\nshrinking, every sound a discord, where taste and smell become a revolt\nand a loathing.\n\nOur modern civilization derives many of its present comforts from\nconditions such as these under which thousands, nay millions, of\nsubservient human lives become brutalised. So long as we base our\nideal of wealth on individual aggrandisement, and on monetary and\ncommercial prosperity, and not (as we should do) upon human nature\nitself--making it our chief aim that every life should be set free for\nself-realisation in ornament and delight--so long will these things be\ninevitable.\n\nBut when we, as men and women, and as nations, realise that human\nnature is the most beautiful thing on earth (in its possibilities, I\nmean) then surely our chief desire will be to make that our wealth here\nand now, and out of it rear up our memorial to the ages that come after.\n\n\n\n\nART AND CITIZENSHIP\n\n(1910)\n\n\nThe most hardened advocate of \u201cArt for Art\u2019s sake,\u201d will hardly deny\nthat Art, for all its \u201csacred egoism,\u201d is a social force. The main\nquestion is where does your Art-training begin?\n\nThe conditions of the home, the workshop, and of social industries\ndo more than the schools and the universities to educate a nation;\nand more especially, perhaps, to educate it toward a right or a wrong\nfeeling about Art.\n\nAnd if, in these departments, your national education takes a wrong\nline, then (however much you build schools over the heads of your\npupils and intercept their feet with scholarships, and block their\nnatural outlook on life with beautiful objects produced in past ages\nand in other countries) your Art-training will partake of the same\ncondemnation.\n\nTrue education, as opposed to merely commercial education, is a\ntraining of mind and body to an appreciation of right values; values,\nnot prices. The man who has an all-round appreciation of right values\nis a well-educated man; and he could not have a better basis either for\nthe love or the practice of Art than this appreciation of what things\nare really worth.\n\nBut, in the present age, which prides itself on its inhuman system\nof specialisation as a means to economy, such a man is rather a\nrare phenomenon; for it is about as difficult to get out of present\nconditions a true appreciation of life values--a true Art-training--as\nit is to get a true artist. Where your national conditions shut down\nthe critical faculties, and make their exercise difficult, there too,\nyour creative artistic faculties are being shut down and made difficult\nalso. They are far more interdependent than your average Art-teacher\nor Art-student is generally willing to admit. The idea that he has to\nconcern himself with conditions outside his own particular department\nthreatens him with extra trouble, and the burden of a conscience\nthat the doctrine of \u201cArt for Art\u2019s sake,\u201d will not wholly satisfy;\nand so he is inclined to shut his eyes, and direct his energies to\nthe securing of favourable departmental instead of right national\nconditions.\n\nBut the man, or woman, who embarks whole-heartedly on Art-training\nmust in the end find himself involved in a struggle for the recovery\nof those true social values which have been lost (or the acquisition\nof those which are as yet unrealised) and for the substitution, among\nother things, of true for false economics. He cannot afford to live\na life of aloof specialisation, when the conditions out of which he\nderives and into which he is throwing his work are of a complementarily\ndisturbing kind. If, that is to say, the give-and-take conditions\nbetween artistic supply and social demand have become vitiated, if\nthe conditions of the market, or of society, are unfavourable to the\nreception of products of true worth, then the artist must to some\nextent be an active party in the struggle for getting things set right.\n\nThat does not mean that, if he has a gift for the designing of\nstage-scenery, he should necessarily be involved in a struggle to\nsecure a good drainage system (though even that should have an interest\nfor him) but it does mean very much that he should be tremendously\ninterested in the education of his own and the public mind to the point\nof receiving good drama rather than bad, in order that his art may have\nworthy material to work upon; and as good drama largely arises from a\nlively conscience and the quickening in the community of new ideas, he\nwill wish his public a keen and open mind on all social questions.\n\nSimilarly a man who designs for textile fabrics should be very much\nconcerned indeed in getting cleanly conditions and pure air in the\ntowns and dwelling-houses where his designs have to live and look\nbeautiful, or grow ugly and rot. And there you get set before you in\nsmall, the opposition between the interests of Art and the supposed\ninterests of trade. It is--or it is supposed to be--in the interest of\ntrade that things should wear out or get broken, and be replaced by\nother things. It is in the interest of Art that they should not wear\nout, that they should last; that everything worthy which is given to\nman\u2019s hand to do should have secured to it the greatest possible length\nof life. And the reason is that the artist, if he be a true artist,\nrealises the value of things, the life value; that he is on the side of\ncreation and not of destruction, of preservation and not of waste. He\nhas within his nature an instinct that the greatest possible longevity\nis the right condition for all manual labour; that when a man sets his\nhand to a thing he should have it as his main aim to give good value,\nto make it so that it will endure. And in this connection I would like\nto substitute for the words \u201cart training\u201d the word \u201ceducation.\u201d It\nis in the interests of education that things should be made to last,\nand that only things should be made of any lasting material that\ndeserve lasting. Nothing should be produced the value of which will\nbecome negligible before it is honestly worn out. And so it is in the\ninterest of education, as of Art, that we should eliminate as much as\npossible the passing and the ephemeral, the demand of mood and fashion,\nthe thing cheaply chosen, cheaply acquired, and cheaply let go; and\nsubstitute the thing that we shall have a long use for, and should like\nto keep permanently--the thing acquired with thought and care, and\nthoughtfully and carefully preserved because it has in itself a value.\n\nBut you won\u2019t get any broad exercise of that kind of choice between\nevil and good until you get a sense of right values--going far away\nfrom what apparently touches art--in the mind, and the public and\nprivate life of the community. And so, as I started by saying, true Art\nis bound up with true education and social conditions. Good citizenship\nis one of the conditions for setting national Art upon a proper basis.\nA lively sense of your duty to your neighbour cannot fail to have an\neffect upon your taste in art.\n\nNow I want to bring this view of things home to you. So I will ask\neveryone here to think for a moment of their own homes, their own\nliving-rooms, and especially of their parlours or drawing-rooms, which\nare by their nature intended to express not so much our domestic\nnecessities as our domestic sense of the value of beauty, recreation,\nand rest. And to begin with, how do you show your sense of duty to\nthe architect, who has (if you are fortunate) designed for you rooms\nof pleasant and restful proportions? How many of the objects in those\nrooms help at all to give a unifying and a harmonious effect, or are\nin themselves in any way beautiful--things, that is to say, which (if\nnot of actual use) we love to set our eyes on, and feel what fineness\nof skill in handling, what clean human thought in design went to their\nproduction? Have those things been put there quite irrespective of\ntheir price and the display they make of their owner\u2019s \u201ccomfortable\ncircumstances\u201d? Are they subordinated to a really intelligent sense\nof what a living-room should be? Or are they merely a crowd, a\nlitter, things flung into the room pell-mell by a house-mistress\nbent on securing for her parlour-maid a silly hour\u2019s dusting every\nday of objects--not of virtue--and for herself the recognition by\nher neighbours that she has money enough to throw away in making her\nliving-room a silly imitation of a shop for bric-a-brac. Can you, even\nthose of you who do not live in streets where you have to safeguard\nyour privacy--can you look out of the window without being tickled in\nthe face by lace curtains, blind-tassels, or potted palm-leaves? Can\nyou sit down to the writing-table without entangling the legs of your\nchair in a woolly mat and your feet in the waste-paper basket, or get\nat the drawer of the cabinet without moving two or three arm-chairs,\nor play the piano without causing the crocks which stand upon it to\njangle? Is the rest and recreation you get in that room anything else\nbut a sense of self-complacency based upon pride of possession? I ask\nyou to think what your furnishing of your rooms means, and remember\nthat to every person who comes into those rooms--and more especially\nperhaps to the maids whom you set to dust them--you are helping to give\neither an Art-training or an anti-Art-training, a training in true uses\nand values, or in misuses and mere waste and wantonness.\n\nOf course I know that to some extent you are victims. You have dear\nfriends who will give you presents, and you can\u2019t hurt their feelings\nby not putting up another shelf, or erecting another glass-shade,\nwhere neither are wanted, or driving another peg into the wall to hang\na picture where no picture can be properly seen. And probably the\nreason you cannot is because you have shown yourself so thoughtless\nand haphazard in all your ideas about decoration and house-furnishing\nthat even in that house, which you falsely assert to be your castle,\nyou stand defenceless before this invasion of ornamental microbes!\nObviously the house is not yours if others can break in and spoil its\nborders with their own false taste. But I can assure you that those\ninroads do not happen to people whose rooms show a scrupulous sense of\nselection. You inspire then (even in the thoughtless) a certain dread\nand respect. Though they regard you as uncanny and call you a crank,\nyou are beginning their Art-training for them.\n\nI remember, in this connection, a Quaker acquaintance whose friends\ndescended upon him at the time of his marriage with certain household\nmonstrosities which he was expected thereafter to live down to. It was\na cataclysm which he could not avert; but he found a remedy. He became\na passive resister to the Education rate, and year by year he placed\nat the disposal of the distraining authorities a selection of his\nwedding-presents till his house was purged of them. I have said that\nyou cannot separate Art-training from general education; and here, at\nall events, you find the two happily combined--a war on bad art and on\na bad educational system joined economically in one.\n\nSo much, then, for thoughtless superfluity as an impediment to a\nrecognition of true values. I want now to come to the importance of\npermanence as a condition underlying the aim of all production if\nit is to be wholesome in its social results. I have said that an\ninstinct for permanence is what differentiates artistic from supposed\ntrade interests. Take architecture. Do you imagine that architects or\nbuilders are likely to design or build in the same style for a system\nof short leaseholds as they might for freeholds? And is the building\nwhich is calculated just to \u201csave its face\u201d until the lease expires\nlikely to be so good either in design or workmanship?\n\nRead, in that connection, what Coventry Patmore says in his essay on\n\u201cGreatness in Architecture\u201d:\n\n\u201cThe house and cottage builder of the sixteenth and seventeenth\ncenturies was,\u201d he says, \u201cfully aware that the strength of a rafter\nlay rather in its depth than its breadth, and that, for a time at\nleast, a few boards two inches thick and ten inches deep, set edgeways,\nwould suffice to carry the roof, which nevertheless it pleased him\nbetter to lay upon a succession of beams ten inches square. It is the\nreality, and the modest ostentation of the reality, of such superfluous\nsubstantiality that constitutes the whole secret of effect in many an\nold house that strikes us as \u201carchitectural,\u201d though it may not contain\na single item of architectural ornament; and, in the very few instances\nin which modern buildings have been raised in the same fashion, the\nbeholder at once feels that their generous regard for the far future\nis of almost as poetical a character as the aged retrospect of a\nsimilar house of the time of Henry VII. or Elizabeth. A man,\u201d he goes\non, \u201cnow hires a bit of ground for eighty or ninety years; and, if he\nhas something to spare to spend on beauty, he says to himself: \u2018I will\nbuild me a house that will last my time, and what money I have to spare\nI will spend in decorating it. Why should I waste my means in raising\nwall and roof which will last five times as long as I or mine shall\nwant them?\u2019 The answer is: Because that very \u2018waste\u2019 is the truest and\nmost striking ornament; and though your and your family\u2019s enjoyment of\na house thus magnanimously built may last but a tenth of its natural\nage, there lies in that very fact an \u2018ornament\u2019 of the most noble and\ntouching kind, which will be obvious at all seasons to yourself and\nevery beholder, though the consciousness of its cause may be dormant;\nwhereas the meanness of the other plan will be only the more apparent\nwith every penny you spend in making it meretricious.\u201d\n\nAgain, are you likely to get so good an architectural design where you\ncannot be fairly sure that the use for which the building is raised\nis likely to be permanent? And do our modern trade conditions and\npresent enormous demand for thoughtless superfluities tend to make that\nprospect more probable? If not, then instability of trade, or trade\ndirected to the satisfaction of frivolous and ephemeral demands is bad\nfor architecture, and hinders any worthy development in it of national\ncharacteristics.\n\nBut there, mind you, in trade, lies to-day the very life of the nation;\nfor the life of our teeming millions depends on it. By our industrial\nspecialisation in the pursuit of wealth vast numbers of us have ceased\nto be self-supporting in the necessaries of life. And the question for\nartists is, are we basing our national life on conditions that cannot\nsecure permanence and stability in the things which we produce? Is it\na necessary condition of our industrial development that things should\nhave a shorter life and we a shorter use for them than in the old days?\nTo the artist the drawback of machine-made things is not necessarily\nin the mechanism of their production (for in some cases your machine\nrelieves the human hand of a hard and wearing monotony), but there is\na very obvious drawback if it imposes upon the worker merely another\nform of hard and wearing monotony, and at the same time shortens the\nlife of the thing produced. If handicraft does not offer to the worker\nworthier conditions for hand and brain, and insure longer life in the\nthing produced, it is no good pinning our faith to it. Eliminate it,\nand let machinery take its place. You have not, then, in the transfer,\ndestroyed any right values, and you are not going counter to the\nconditions which tend to produce national Art.\n\nBut, as an example of the particular value which does sometimes attach\nto hand labour (irrespective of its artistic value), I have here a\nsmall unused sample of chair-cover material of English make, produced\nabout eighty years ago, at a probable cost--so I am told by experts--of\nunder \u00a32 the square yard. The chairs it was made to cover are now\nin my possession. During the twenty-five years of my own personal\nacquaintance with them they have had plenty of hard wear; but even at\nthe corners that material has not yet begun to wear out; and the colour\nhas only become softer and more mellow in quality.\n\nWithin the last ten years I endeavoured to get that covering matched in\na modern material, and I paid for the nearest match I could get about\none-fifth of the price I have quoted. That material has already gone\nshabby; and where it is most worn and faded the colour, instead of\nmellowing, has gone dead and dirty in quality. The older material will\nprobably outlast my time.\n\nThere, then, are the comparative values of the old and the new\nmaterial. You pay the higher price for the old, but in the end it is\nmore economical. And it has this double advantage (or what would be a\ndouble advantage in a State where industrial conditions were sound),\nthat it inclines its possessor to adopt a more permanent style of\nfurnishing, by making age beautiful and change unnecessary; and so it\nsets free a great amount of human labour for other purposes; not merely\nthe labour of the textile workers who have not to provide new covers,\nbut the labour of the upholsterers, who are not called upon to rip off\na series of old covers and fit on new ones, dragging old nails out and\ndriving fresh nails in, with the result that the framework of the chair\nitself is presently worn out and a new one required in its place. All\nthat labour is saved.\n\nThat small example is important because it exemplifies those\npossibilities of permanence attaching to certain forms of hand-labour\nout of which can be developed a school of textile manufacture\nindigenous in character--indigenous in that you give it time to become\nembedded in its domestic setting, and to make for itself domestic\nhistory. It enables you to develop an appreciation for subtleties\nof colour, and to secure tones and harmonies which you cannot get\nready-made in a shop: it gives to a piece of furniture life-value.\n\nBut it is bad for trade!\n\nNow why is it bad for trade? It is bad for trade because our modern\nindustrial conditions have brought us to this pass, that it is no\nlonger our national aim to direct labour and set it free for other\nwork that really needs to be done. Our national problem is rather to\nfind work for people, at times even to invent needs, and to create a\nfictitious turnover in trade so that we may not have upon our hands an\nenormous increase of the unemployed problem. And as hands go begging,\nas we have more hands in the country than we can employ on useful and\nfit labour (fit, I mean, for such fine implements as these and for the\nbrains behind them), therefore hands are inevitably put to degrading\nuses, and the joy goes out of work; and for the delight (or at least\nthe intelligent patience) of true craftsmanship is substituted the\nsoul-destroying bondage of mechanical labour at something which is not\nreally worth producing.\n\nYou may take that, I think, as a test whether a State is in industrial\nhealth or disease--whether, namely, it tends more in the direction\nof setting labour free for other and higher purposes (through the\npermanent quality of its products), and so evolving an aristocracy of\nlabour; or whether (owing to their ephemeral quality) it constantly\ntends to invent work of a lower and more trivial kind, and to provide\njobs of an ephemeral character which are not really wanted.\n\nNow bad and wasteful taste is directly productive, not so much of trade\nas of fluctuations in trade, because that sort of taste soon tires\nand asks for change; and the consequence is that thousands of workers\n(especially women, whose industries used to be home industries before\nmachinery drew them out of the homes) are in this country constantly\nbeing thrown out of one useless employment into another, and very often\nhave to pass through a fresh apprenticeship at a starvation wage.\nAnd so, when we create frivolous demands for things that we shall not\nwant the day after to-morrow, we are not (as we too often think) doing\nanything that is really good for trade, but only something much more\nhorrible, which you will understand without my naming it.\n\nYou see, then, how very closely the artist\u2019s inclination toward\npermanence of taste may be connected with morality. And if that\ninstinct for permanence (with an accompanying adaptation of material\nand design to making things last their full time without waste) is not\npresent in the craftsmanship of our day, then we have not got the true\nbasis, either in spirit or material, for Art to build upon.\n\nNow I am going to put before you some quite homely instances, because\nI think they will stick best in your memories, in order to show\nyou that the real struggle of the artist to-day is not so much to\nsecure appreciation of beauty in line and texture, as honesty of\nconstruction, and real adaptation of form to utility and of production\nto lastingness. I have been noticing, with quite simple objects of\ndomestic use, that the trade-purpose toward them seems almost the\nopposite. The trade purpose is to present us with an article which,\napparently sound in construction, will break down at some crucial point\nbefore the rest of it is worn out. A watering can, a carving fork,\na kettle, a dustbin, a coal scuttle, the fixings of a door-handle,\nare generally made, I find, on an ignobly artful plan which insures\nthat they shall break down just at that point where the wear and tear\ncome hardest, so that an article otherwise complete shall be scrapped\nwastefully or go back to the trade to be tinkered.\n\nBut leave things the actual design of which you cannot control, and\ncome to dress, our own daily wearing apparel. I do not know if the men\nof my audience are aware that undergarments wear out much quicker if\nthey are tight-fitting and worn at a stretch than if they are loose,\nbut that is so. And, in consequence, a smart shopman has the greatest\nreluctance to sell you anything that is, as he conceives it, one size\ntoo large for you. The reason being that the looser fit lasts longer\nand is bad for trade--that it makes for endurance instead of for\ngalloping consumption.\n\nIn the majority of houses whose cold water systems I have inspected\nthe pipes are nearly always run at the most exposed angle of the\ncontaining walls, so that if there is a frost, the frost may have a\nchance of getting at the pipes and bursting them, and so give the trade\na fresh job. Again, every housewife knows that in the ordinary daily\nconflicts between tea-sets and domestic service more cups get broken\nthan saucers. And I suppose every household in London has got some\ncorner shelf piled with superfluous saucers (useless widowers mourning\nthe departure of their better halves); but it is very exceptional--only\nin one shop that I know--that one is able to replace the cup (in\ncertain stock patterns) without encumbering oneself with the saucer\nwhich one does not want. The saucers continue to be made in wasteful\nsuperabundance, because waste of that sort is \u201cgood for trade.\u201d\n\nI have been assured by an observant housewife that certain articles do\nnow and again appear upon the market specially designed to safeguard by\nlittle constructive devices, the main point of wear-and-tear through\nwhich they become useless, and that presently these things disappear\nand are unobtainable, presumably because they prove too lasting, and so\nare \u201cbad for trade.\u201d And they are allowed to disappear because we, as a\ncommunity, have not sufficiently set our hearts and minds against waste\nand uselessness. We buy cheaply because we think cheaply, and because\nwe have lost our sense of honour towards the products of men\u2019s hands,\nand toward that wonderful instrument itself which we are content to\nput to such base uses, letting the workers themselves see how much we\ndespise the things they have made.\n\nI have seen in London a comic music-hall \u201cturn\u201d in which the comedy\nlargely consisted in a continuous breakage of piles of plates by a\nburlesque waiter, who, in the course of his duties, either drops them,\nfalls against them, sits on them, or kicks them. During the turn I\nshould say some thirty or forty plates get broken. They were cheap\nplates, no doubt; but it seems to me that if there is any fun in this\nmonotonous repetition of destruction, then the greater the cost and\nwaste of human labour the more irresistibly comic should the situation\nappear; and the management which provided Worcester or Dresden china\nfor its low-comedy wits to play upon would have logical grounds for\nconsidering that it was thereby supplying its audience with livelier\nentertainment more satisfying to its taste.[2]\n\nNow what I want you to see is that such a production would not be\nentertaining to an audience which had not come to regard the labour of\nman\u2019s hands with a licentious indifference--which had not developed the\ngambler\u2019s contempt for the true relations between labour and value.\nAnd here I want to put before you a proposition which may at first\nshock you, but which I hope to prove true. And that is that labour in\nitself, apart from its justification in some useful result, is bad and\ndegrading; the man who is put to work which he knows is to have no\nresult comes from that work more degraded and crushed in spirit than\nthe man who merely \u201cloafs\u201d and lives \u201cnaturally.\u201d\n\nPerhaps the readiest example of that is the old treadmill system which\nwas once employed in our prisons, where the prisoner was set to grind\nat a crank artificially adjusted to his physical strength, but having\nno useful result; and I believe that the main reason why prisoners\non those machines were not allowed to grind their own bread or put\ntheir strength to any self-supporting industry was because it was \u201cbad\nfor trade\u201d and brought them into competition with the contractors who\nsupplied food to his Majesty\u2019s prisons. It was not the monotony half\nso much as the consciousness that it was without result which made\nthat form of labour so degrading and so utterly exhausting to mind and\nbody. You might think it was the compulsion; but I am not sure that\ncompulsion to work may not sometimes be very moral and salutary. At any\nrate, here is an instance of the same thing presented under voluntary\nconditions. A man out of work applied to a farmer for a job; the\nfarmer had no job for him, and told him so; but as the man persisted\nhe started him at half a crown a day to move a heap of stones from one\nside of the road to the other. And when the man had done that and asked\nwhat next he was to do, he told him to move them back again! But though\nthat man was out of work, and was on his way to earn the half-crown,\nrather than submit his body to the conscious degradation of such\nuseless labour, he did as the farmer had calculated on his doing, and\nthrew up the job.\n\nThat same quality of outrage and degradation attends on all labour that\nis subject, within the worker\u2019s knowledge, to wanton destruction, or is\nobviously of no real use or of \u201cfaked\u201d value. And the finer the skill\nemployed the greater the anguish of mind, or else the hard callousness\nof indifference which must result. Call upon men to make useless\nthings, or things which you mean wantonly to destroy the day after\nto-morrow, or to which by the conditions you tolerate you make a fair\nlength of life impossible--call upon labour to do those things, and you\nare either filling its spirit with misery and depression, or you are\nmaking it, in self-defence, callous and hard.\n\nIndustrial conditions which encourage the building of houses that are\nonly intended to last a lease; which permit the destruction of our\ncanal system because that means of transit has proved a dangerous\nrival to the railway system; which impose a quick change in fashions\non which depend various kinds of ephemeral and parasitic industries;\nwhich encourage a vast production of ephemeral journalism and\nmagazine illustration which after a single reading is thrown aside\nand wasted--all these things, which have become nationalised in our\nmidst, are a national anti-Art training. We English have, as the\nresult of these things, no national school of architecture; we have\nno national costume (though I myself can remember the time when in\nour Midland counties not only the farm labourer, but the small yeoman\nfarmer himself went to church as well as to labour in the beautiful\nsmock-frock worn by their forefathers) and we have killed out from our\nmidst one of the most beautiful national schools of popular art that\never existed, the school of the illustrators of the \u2019sixties; and we\nhave done these things mainly from our increasing haste to get hold of\nsomething new, and our almost equal haste, when we have it, to throw it\naway again.\n\nWe have cast our bread upon the waters. The sort of wealth to the\npursuit of which nations have committed themselves needs (it now\nappears) an enormous amount of protection. And it cannot have been\nwithout some demoralising effect upon the mind of the community that\nwe have been driven by our outstanding necessities to build every\nyear six or seven of those enormous engines of destruction called\n\u201cDreadnoughts,\u201d whose effective lease of life is about 20 years,\nsomething considerably shorter than the lease of life which we allow\nfor our most jerry-built lodging-houses! And on these short-lived\nproducts of industry (which are to-day the sign and symbol and\nsafeguard of our world-power), our aristocracy of labour has been\nspending its strength, and the nation has now to depend on them for\nits safety. The cost of building a \u201cDreadnought\u201d is about the same\nas the cost of building St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral. Imagine to yourself a\nnation building every year six or seven St. Paul\u2019s Cathedrals, with the\nconsciousness that in twenty-five or thirty years they will all again\nbe levelled to the dust, and you will get from that picture something\nof the horror which an artist is bound to feel at the necessity\nwhich thus drives us forward, even in peace-time, to the continuous\ndestruction, on such a colossal scale, of the labour of men\u2019s hands.\nAnd the more it is revealed to us to-day (by the present catastrophe)\nas an absolute political necessity, the more is the disorder of\ncivilization we have arrived at condemned.\n\nWell, I must leave now, in that example I have set before you, the\nwasteful aspect of modern industry, in order to touch briefly on\nanother, and an almost equally hateful aspect, which I will call \u201cthe\nvivisection of modern industry.\u201d I mean its subdivision into so many\nseparate departments, or rather fragments, that it loses for the mind\nof the worker all relation to the thing made--that time-saving device\nat the expense of the human hand and brain, which we glorify under the\nterm \u201cspecialisation.\u201d Now, however much you may defend that system on\nground of trade competition, the artist is bound by his principles to\nregard it as a national evil; for anything which tends to take away\nthe worker\u2019s joy and pride in the distinctiveness of his trade and\nto undo its human elements is anti-Art training. And so that inhuman\nspecialisation which (for the sake of trade cheapness) sets down a man\nto the performance of one particular mechanical action all his life,\nin the making of some one particular part of some article which in its\nfurther stages he is never to handle, or a woman to stamp out the tin\nskeleton of a button, with her eyes glued to one spot for ten hours\nof the day--all these dehumanising things are anti-Art because they\nare destructive of life-values. We have erected them into a system,\nand while cutting prices by such means at one end, we are mounting up\ncosts at the other. We are promoting, maybe, a quicker circulation of\nthe currency of the realm, but we are impoverishing the currency of\nthe race. For that hard mechanical efficiency we are paying a price\nwhich is eating up all our real profits; quite apart from its effect\nin the increase of lunacy and of the unfit birth-rate and death-rate\namong children, it is helping to implant in the whole world of labour\na bitter and a revengeful spirit which we have no right to wonder at\nor to blame. And the results affect us not only in our workshops but\nin our pastimes, by driving those whose labour is so conditioned into\na more consumptive form of pleasure-seeking and relaxation. You cannot\nput people into inhuman conditions for long hours of each day, and\nexpect them to be normal and humane when you turn them out to their\nshort hours of leisure. I am pointing to conditions which you know\nprobably as well as, or better than, I do; but I am pointing to them\nfor the express purpose of saying that you cannot dissociate them from\nyour national appreciation of Art. The more you can connect the worker\nwith the raw material on the one hand and the finished product on the\nother, the more surely you are establishing conditions out of which\nnational Art can grow; and the more you dissociate him from these two\nends of his material the more you make national Art impossible.\n\nI will give you an instance, quite away from sweated labour conditions,\nwhere you will see at once how wasteful and opposed to Art is this\nsystem of breaking up craftsmanship into departments. It was an\narchitect who told me that the following system is quite frequently\nfollowed in dealing with the stone out of which we build the outside\nwalls of our modern churches. It is hewn at the quarries into a rough\nsurface, thoroughly expressive of the stonemason\u2019s craft, and not in\nany way too rough for its purpose. It is then taken and submitted by\nmachinery to a grinding process which makes it mechanically smooth, and\nit is then handed over to other workmen who give back to it a chiselled\nsurface of an absolutely uniform and mechanical character which\nexpresses nothing. And with that wanton and wasteful lie we are content\nto set up temples to the God of Truth!\n\nNow if the Church has become so blind to the values of life, and so\nlacking in any standard of honour toward the labour of men\u2019s hands, as\nto allow itself to be so clothed in falsehood, yet I do still plead\nthat those who call themselves artists shall protest by all means in\ntheir power against the systematisation of such indignities toward\nhandicraft. That is the sort of thing against which any national Art\ntraining we have ought to fight.\n\nHow can we fight? Best of all, I believe, by establishing a standard\nof honour toward manual labour; and, quite definitely, wherever we\nhave Art schools, by training all students to hate and despise shams\nand to loathe all waste of labour. But, perhaps, the most direct way\nwould be for the State to set up, in every town, in connection with\nits Art schools and its technical schools, a standard of honesty by\npractical demonstration, in the staple industry of the locality. I\nwould not trouble, so long as that industry had a useful purpose,\nhow much or how little it was connected with Art; but I would give\nthe youth of that place the chance of an honest apprenticeship under\ntrue human conditions to the trade in which they might be called upon\nto spend their lives. I would not have those schools of labour adopt\nany amateurishness of method or standard; they should not obstinately\nreject the aid of machinery where machinery can relieve monotony, but\nthey should very carefully consider at what stage the dehumanising\nelement came in, either by substituting mechanism for skill, or by\nseparating the worker too much from his work in its completed form.\nAnd from those schools of labour I would allow people to purchase all\nthe work of these State-apprentices which their master-craftsmen could\npass as being of a standard quality. They would not compete in point\nof cheapness with the trade article, for their price would almost\ncertainly be higher, but they would, I trust, compete in point of\nquality and design; and by exhibiting a standard, and making the thing\nprocurable, they might create a demand which the very trade itself\nwould at last be forced to recognise.\n\nThis is but a very bald and brief statement of the kind of extension I\nmean; but what I want to put to you is this, that wherever a nation has\nturned from agriculture to trade, there, if you want national Art you\nmust invade those trade conditions and set up your standard of honour,\nnot outside, but in the trades themselves; you must get hold of those\nwho are going to be your workers and craftsmen and put into them (by\nexhibiting to them manual labour under right human conditions) the old\ncraftsman\u2019s pride which existed in the days of the Guilds, when the\ntrade unions were not merely organisations to secure good wages, but\nto secure good work, and to maintain a standard of honour in labour.\nBut you must not stop there. To make your training in any true sense\nnational you must make it characteristic, or rather it must make\nitself. It must aim at bringing out racial and local character; and\nbefore it can do so we must recover that love of locality which we have\nso largely lost. A mere multiplication of schools and classes where a\ndepartmental system evolved at some city centre is put in force, is not\nnational: it is only metropolitan, perhaps only departmental. You can\nput such a system, in a certain superficial way, into the heads and\nhands of your local students, but you cannot put it into the blood.\nUnless your Art training enters into and links up the lives of those\nyou would teach with a larger sense of citizenship, it isn\u2019t national.\nThey won\u2019t carry it away with them into their daily pursuits, they\nwon\u2019t make a spontaneous and instinctive application of it; they will\nonly come to it at class-hours, and, when class-hours are over, quit\nagain. I have spoken of the necessity of a standard of honour toward\nlabour, but we need also a standard of honour toward life. It is still,\nyou see, values--life-values--that I am trying to get at as a basis for\nArt.\n\nNow to some of you I must have seemed, in all conscience, gloomy\nand pessimistic in my outlook on present conditions; and therefore,\nbefore I end, I will try to emit a ray of hope. There are certain\nsocial developments going on around us which make me hope that we\nmay yet emerge from this valley of the shadows through which we are\nstill stumbling. One is that there has been in the last generation a\nvery general breakdown of the old artificial class notion of the kind\nof work which was compatible with \u201cgentility.\u201d And one meets to-day\npeople, whose culture has given them every chance to develop that\nstandard of honour toward life (without which their claim to be gentry\nmeans nothing); you meet with many such people nowadays who have come\nback to manual labour in various forms, in farming, in horticulture,\nand in craftsmanship--some also, I am glad to say, who have become\nshopkeepers--and who are bringing, presumably, their standard of honour\nto bear on those trades on which they no longer foolishly look down.\nAmong these a definite revival of handicraft is taking place, and\nwhere they are doing their work honestly and well they are undoubtedly\ninculcating a better taste. It is especially among this class which\nhas come back to handicraft that one meets with domestic interiors of\na fine and scrupulous simplicity which we may eventually see imitated\n(meretriciously, perhaps, but on the whole beneficially) even in\nlodging-houses which are at present the dust-hung mausoleums of the\naesthetic movement of thirty years ago.\n\nAnother matter for congratulation--not a movement, but a survival--is\nthe unspoiled tradition of beauty which still exists in the cottage\ngardens of England. There, in our villages, you find a note of beauty\nthat has scarcely been touched by the evil of our modern conditions.\nAnd I take it as a proof that where, by some happy chance, we have\nmanaged to \u201clet well alone,\u201d there the instinct for beauty and for\nfitness is still a natural ingredient of industrial life. That survival\nof taste in our cottage gardens is culture in the best sense of the\nword; and it is still popular. We do not yet dig our gardens by\nmachinery; when we do they will die the death.\n\nAnd two other bright points of movement, which I look to as having in\nthem the basis of a true Art training, are the widespread revival,\nin so many of our towns and villages, through the efforts of Miss\nMary Neal, Mr. Cecil Sharp and others, of our old folk-songs and\nMorris dances, and lastly--perhaps I shall surprise you--the Boy Scout\nmovement.\n\nComing into contact with these two movements, I have found that they\nhave in them certain elements in common. Instituted with a rare\ncombination of tact and enthusiasm, they have taken hold of the blood;\nthey have got home at a certain point in boy and girl nature which has\nalready made them become native. I find that these two organisations\ntend to develop among their members grace and vigour of movement, good\nmanners, a cheerful spirit, a more alert interest in the things about\nthem, a feeling of comradeship, and best of all, a certain sense of\nhonour toward life. And therefore, even in a place technically devoted\nto the training of students, I say boldly that I see nowhere better\nhope of a sound basis for national Art than in this revival of village\ndancing and folk-song and in the Boy Scout movement.\n\nThe assertion may perhaps seem strange and ironic to some of you\nthat it is not from a study of beautiful objects that the sense of\nbeauty can be made national, but only in the recovery of an ordered\nplan for our social and industrial life, and in the finding of a true\nand worthy purpose for all that our hands are put to do. But in that\nconnection you may remember how Ruskin maintained that great Art has\nonly flourished in countries which produced in abundance either wine or\ncorn; in countries, that is to say, where the greatest industries were\nthose with which we most readily associate that note of joy which has\nbecome proverbial, the joy of the harvest. It is perhaps too much to\ndream that we shall ever again see England living upon its own corn;\nand the greatest forms of Art may, therefore, remain for ever beyond\nour reach. But until a nation does honour to the human hand as the\nmost perfect and beautiful of all instruments under the sun, by giving\nit only honourable and useful tasks--until then I must rather wish\nyou to be good valuers, keen--indignantly keen--to destroy the false\nvalues which you see about you, than that you should be either good\ndraughtsmen or good artists.\n\nYou can do honest and good work as designers and illustrators and\narchitects, as workers in wood and metal and stone; but you are\nhampered and bound by the conditions of your day, and you cannot by\nyour best efforts make Art national till you have established joy in\nlabour. No great school of Art can ever arise in our midst in such a\nform as to carry with it through all the world its national character,\nuntil the nation itself has found that voice (which to-day seems so\nconspicuously absent, even when we close our shops to make holiday); I\nmean the voice of joy.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[2] _By that reckoning we in Europe are to-day the best comedians the\nworld has ever seen. Out of peace-conditions nations produce their\nwars._\n\n\n\n\nCONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS IMMORTALITY.\n\n(1915.)\n\n\nWe are frequently told (more especially by those whose profession it is\nto preach belief in a revealed religion), that if man be not endowed\nwith an immortal soul, then the game of life is not worth the candle.\nIncidentally we are warned that if the bottom were knocked out of that\nbelief, morals would go to pieces and humanity would become reprobate.\n\nNow I can imagine a similar sort of claim put forward in other\ndepartments of life for other pursuits which seem to their advocate to\nmake life more appetising.\n\nI can imagine sportsmen saying that without sport men would cease to\nbe manly, morals and physique would deteriorate and life be no longer\nworth living. I can imagine the butcher saying that without meat, and\nthe licensed victualler that without beer, men were of all things the\nmost miserable. I have recently seen advertisements which say that\nonly by supporting the cinema (made beautiful by the feet of Charlie\nChaplin), can we hope to be victorious in the present war.\n\nThe assertion that man cannot do without certain things which, as a\nmatter of fact, vast numbers of his fellows are constantly doing\nwithout--(and with no very marked set-back as regards health,\nefficiency, or general morals)--is a questionable way of forcing home\nconviction that these things or beliefs are indispensable. It is quite\npossible that beer, meat, the pursuit of game, the personality of\nCharlie Chaplin, and a belief in immortality are all alike capable of\ngiving stimulus to the human soul (especially to those souls which\nhave come by habit to depend upon them). But it is quite certain that\nother human souls have found without them sufficient stimulus to make\nlife worth living. And though, against that fact, it may be argued\nthat these unconsciously receive their driving force, their social\nand ethical standards, from those whose motive power they reject as\nsuperfluous, and that we, who do not go to see Charlie Chaplin on the\nfilms, are winning this war somewhat circuitously through the powers of\nthose who do--the argument is hardly a convincing one, since it remains\nfor ever in the nature of an unproved hypothesis.\n\nBut when the majority of those who believe in personal immortality are\nasked for the ground of their belief, it generally resolves itself into\nthis: they have an intense individual conviction that it is so--so\nintense that to hold the contrary becomes \u201cunthinkable.\u201d But that\nintense, individual conviction, over things we greatly care about, is\na constant phenomenon of the working of the human mind, and is not\nlimited to belief in a future state. To a convinced Liberal it is\n\u201cunthinkable\u201d that he should ever pass into such a state of mental\nannihilation as to become a Conservative. To a convinced Conservative\nit is unthinkable that he should fall from the grace which guides\nhim into the slough of Liberalism. It is the same with Protestant or\nCatholic, with Socialist, Universalist, or Sectarian: conviction always\npresents an adamantine front to opposing forces and arguments--so long\nas it lasts.\n\nThe same phenomenon constantly occurs in the domain of the amative\npassion. The lover (if he be really in love), believes that his love\nwill last for ever--that nothing can possibly change it; and all the\nevidence in the world that lovers of a like faith have too often lived\nto see the immortal dream put on mortality, will fail to convince him\n(while he is in the toils) that his own love is liable to any such\nchange as theirs.\n\nThe reason is that strongly vitalised forces always carry with them a\nsense of permanence.\n\nThe vital spark (focused within us by strong conviction or emotion),\nis but an individually apprehended part of a great whole: for this\nthread of life passing through us has already stretched itself out\nover millions of years, and countless atavisms have touched it to\nindividual ends which were not ours; the will to live has clung to it\nby myriads of adhesions, feelers, tentacles, and not by human hands\nalone (though our palms still moisten, and our arms fly upward to\nthe imaginary branch overhead when danger of falling threatens us,\nbecause the instinct of our arboreal ancestry still prevails in us over\nreason). And through those atavisms, the struggle to secure survival\nfor the family, the clan, the race, has left an impress which may\nvery naturally convey from the general to the individual a sense of\nimmortality.\n\nFor of all these constituent forces the majority knew and thought\nvery little about death, except in their instinctive and spasmodic\nefforts to escape from it; and when at last man began to envisage death\nconsciously and philosophically, straightway, with all these atavisms\nbehind him, he belittled it with dreams of a future life.\n\nIt was as perfectly natural a thing to do as for the lover to declare\nthat his love for his mistress was eternal and not merely for a\nseason, since any lesser statement would fail to convey adequately\nthe intensity of the force by which he was moved. Moreover, though\nin millions of individual cases the statement and the sincere belief\nthat the love experienced will remain changeless and eternal, are\ncontradicted by later fact, it is at least true that the passion itself\nis an ever-recurring phenomenon of life, and does, by its infinite\nrecurrence and resurrection in form beyond form through evolving\ngenerations, present to finite minds an aspect of immortality. Just as\nthe water we drink is an imperishable thing, though after drinking it\nwe shall thirst again, so is that love, which satisfies the lover\u2019s\nsoul, a principle of life extending illimitably beyond his own use for\nit. And if that be true about love, why should it not be true about\nlife?\n\nFor surely (put it thus), when across limited vision a thread passes,\nof which the eye can see neither the beginning nor the end, and\nwhen upon that thread, for the time being, the limited life hangs\nall its hopes, is it not quite natural for that clinging life to\nidentify itself, through the closeness of its momentary contact,\nwith the spiritually apprehended whole, and to identify with that\nconcept of a general continuity its own present degree of individual\nconsciousness. Moreover, in a world governed by cause and effect, it\ncan hardly be predicated that the results either of love or hatred,\nindividually indulged, are not, or may not be illimitable, even though\nthe individual spirit be not there to preside consciously over their\nextended operations.\n\nWhen, therefore, so much is true, when so many elements which pass\nthrough our lives have (by association), links and connections which\nto finite minds seem infinite, they may well impress us (by reason of\nthe close identification established between us and them for the time\nbeing) with a sense that our own individual share and apprehension of\nthem are addressed also to a universal goal.\n\n\u201cUniversal,\u201d for surely mere continuity--a stretching out of length\nwithout corresponding breadth--ought not to be the limit of our\nclaim. Yet it is significant that, in their demand for personal\nimmortality, so many thinkers have found sufficient satisfaction in\nthe idea of an extended survival through time into eternity, without\nmaking a corresponding demand for extension into unity through space.\nThey are willing, that is to say, to put up for all eternity with\nthose limitations of personality which they enjoy--the relations of\n_meum_ and _tuum_ upon which the possessive life of the senses is\nbased, but not with those limitations (the prospect of which they do\nnot enjoy), the termination of those same relationships imposed by\ndeath. It seems rather a one-sided way of doing things--this narrowing\nof the claim in a two-dimensional direction (one might almost say\nin a one-dimensional), yet it has been very generally done--I shall\npresently hope to show why--and most of our Western theology has built\nup our future hopes for us entirely on those lines. Personality,\nthe sort of personality we have learned to enjoy, is based upon\nlimitations. Abolish limitations in your conception of future life, and\nfor the majority of those pious minds which now clamour for it as their\ndue you abolish personality also; it is swallowed up not in death but\nin a life from which the individual power to focus and to enjoy has\ndisappeared.\n\nIt is true that there has now begun, in modern socialistic\nChristianity, a yeasting of desire for an all round, or expansive,\nas well as a forward, or extensive personality after death; that an\nall-embracing and not merely an all-surviving consciousness is more\nand more predicated for the full satisfaction of man\u2019s spiritual need.\nBut that was by no means the form of moral hunger which permeated\nprimitive or medi\u00e6val Christianity, and sufficed, we are to suppose,\nto keep poor human nature from that depravity into which it will fall\nif belief in personal immortality is surrendered. Oregon, as we know,\nlooked forward to finding in the nether groans of the damned a full\ncompletion of the orchestral harmonies of Heaven; and in the whole\nconception of immortality as it has illumined the path of the Church\nfrom its beginning down to quite modern times, individualism has been\nrampant. On that basis, so long as it satisfied his moral conscience,\nman did great things with it, making it shine as a great light by the\nunflinching witness which he bore to its efficacy through suffering and\nthrough martyrdom.\n\nIt is probably true that an individualistic form to the doctrine was\nthen, and always will be, necessary to attract those whose lives have\nbeen run from a highly individualised standpoint; and that, for them,\ndeath-bed consolation would hardly be achieved in the presentation of\na doctrine so defined as to threaten annihilation to all the fetish\nworship and social values of the past.\n\n\u201cGod would think twice,\u201d said a courtly French Abb\u00e9 of the seventeenth\ncentury to a King\u2019s mistress who, upon her death-bed, was seized by\nspiritual qualms--\u201cGod would think twice before damning a lady of your\nquality.\u201d And no one who holds by class-distinctions really wishes to\nfind in the New Jerusalem any abolition of that respect for persons\nor prejudices which has, in this world, been the main ground on which\ntheir self-esteem and their estimate of personality have been based.\n\nTo them the most \u201cunthinkable\u201d proposition would be not the contraction\nof the future world to narrower and more select limits than those of\nthe one they know, but a future world conducted on any code of morals\nwhich had not their own entire approval and sanction.\n\nWe are told that the late Queen Victoria looked forward with very\ngreat interest to a future meeting with the Hebrew patriarchs, with\nAbraham, Moses, and Elijah, but hoped to be excused from any personal\nacquaintance with King David on account of his affair with Bathsheba.\nAnd when we realise how very often the hope of Heaven is really a\nspecies of self-love and self-applause, conditional on Heaven being\nwhat we ourselves want it to be, one is led to wonder whether the real\ncondition for entry into that state of bliss may not prove to be the\nprecise opposite, and whether the disciplinary motto upon its portal\nmay not be those mystic words, hitherto attributed to another place,\n\u201cAll hope abandon ye who enter here.\u201d That, after all, is only a more\nemphatic way of stating what Christ Himself laid down as the path by\nwhich man should attain; that only those namely who were ready to\nlose life should find it. And I rather question whether our Christian\nindividualists have, up till now, been honestly prepared to \u201close life\u201d\nin the full sense, without condition or reserve, and whether, (if they\nhave not), they have yet attained the spiritual standpoint necessary to\nbring them within the terms of the promise.\n\nSo far I have dealt with the doctrine of immortality as presented to us\nfrom the individualistic basis alone. But, in some form or another, the\ndoctrine of immortality belongs to many religions and schools (indeed,\none might almost say to all) and has, therefore, most varied and even\ncontradictory meanings attached to it. In some schools, as we have\nseen, it sets great store on the survival of the individual; in others\nindividuality is held to be of small account--a diminishing rather than\na persistent factor in the ultimate ends of life viewed as a whole.\n\nI remember in that connection discussing with the late Father George\nTyrrell, in the days before Rome\u2019s excommunication fell on him, the\ndivergent views as to immortality of Christianity and Buddhism; and\nat that time he held that the superiority of the Christian faith\nlay in its insistence on the personal immortality, conscious and\nself-contained, of every human being. Some years later, a month before\nhis death, we discussed the matter again; and I asked him then, in what\ndegree, if at all, his view as to personal immortality had changed.\nHis answer gave me a curious instance of those scientific analogies by\nwhich Modernism has been seeking to deliver the Roman Church from its\nmedi\u00e6val entanglements.\n\n\u201cIn the main,\u201d he said, \u201cI have only changed in my apprehension of what\n\u2018personality\u2019 really is. Just as one may find in an hysterical subject\nfive or six pseudo-personalities which reveal themselves in turn, each\none of which is a character quite separately and consistently defined,\nbut not one of them (however completely in possession for the time) a\nreal person, so it seems to me must we regard all those limitations\nof \u2018personality\u2019 which find expression in individual form. There is\nonly one true personality, and that is Christ; anything less than the\none all-embracing whole is but a simulacrum, concealing rather than\nrevealing the true substance and form.\u201d\n\nI cannot pretend to give his actual words, but I believe that I have\naccurately stated the sense of them; and you will see, I think, that\nthey go a long way toward the adaptation of the Christian to the\nBuddhistic standpoint. That tendency, I believe, we shall find more\nand more at work in the Christian Church as time goes on--not merely\nbecause by such a definition the doctrine will be better able to hold\nits own against the inroads of science--but because it gives also a\nbetter response to that socialising genius of the human race which\nis coming more and more to demand a perfect unity as the ultimate\nexpression of good.\n\nThat, then, we shall probably find to be the future tendency of\nidealism. There remains, of course, the Rationalistic school of\nthought, by which the possibility of individual or personal survival\nafter death is from first to last either absolutely denied or very\nseverely discountenanced as an idea based upon wholly insufficient\nevidence.\n\nNevertheless, in some form or another, immortality, conscious or\nunconscious, personal or impersonal, is accepted by all schools alike;\nthe scientific law of the conservation of energy being one form of it\nwhich human reason would now find it very difficult to deny.\n\nLet us for one moment apply that law to our own individual lives and\nconsciousness.\n\nHas life convinced us that we are all self-contained persons? Through\nsocial contact we have undergone many changes, many damages, and\nmany repairs. Parts of us have gone to other people, parts of other\npeople have come, to us. We have shed and have absorbed quite as much\nspiritually as materially; and though through our material changes we\nretain a certain likeness, so that friends meeting us after a seven\nyears\u2019 absence recognise us again in bodies no particle of which have\nthey ever seen before; and though similarly we can recognise our\ninner selves across wider intervals of time, have we any reason to\nsuppose that our identity is more fixed in the spiritual substance\nthan in the material? For myself, I hope not. May one not prefer the\nidea of interchange between life and life, to the notion that one is\nto remain for ever fixed and self-possessed--a thing apart? The more\nwe are compounded of other lives, the more we have contributed to\nthe lives of others--the more can we recognise our entrance into the\nonly eternal life that we can demonstrably be sure about, or that can\n(so it must seem to many of us), be sensibly desired or deserved. Is\nEternal Bliss, in the individual sense, a more tolerable doctrine than\neternal Hell-fire? Though, indeed, this latter may be but a scientific\nstatement of fact perverted and made foolish by the theologians.\nFor life, after all, is but a form of combustion for ever going on,\nand outside of it we know nothing. No doubt the atoms of our being,\nwhether physical or spiritual, will forever form part of it; but I see\nno reason why our spirits should not be as diffused, through proper\nelemental changes, as our bodies are now being diffused from day to\nday; or why I should repine that I personally shall not always be there\nto preside over the operation and find it good. Even if, at the far end\nof this earth\u2019s history, everything is again to be reabsorbed in the\nheat and light out of which it came, I can trust the suns and planets\nto fulfil their mission of progress--or the will of God--quite as well\nas, or better than, in my own small sphere I can trust Constitutional\nGovernments or Established Churches. And since these lesser lights,\nin their foolish and providential dealings, do not confound my faith,\nneither do the stars in their courses fight against it. Rather do they\nconfirm me in my sense that even the most acute perceptions with which\nhuman life is endowed fail of themselves to justify me in any claim to\na larger lease of life than can naturally belong to them; for I see in\nthe universe things far greater than any individual man, doing service\nand sustaining the life of countless millions, (which without them\ncould not live at all), without any prospect of so great a reward.\n\nThe eye of the sun itself is blind; and for ever, while it dazzles\nus with its light, blind it must remain. Nay, what need has it for\nsight at all, if in blindness it be able to fulfil its mission? And\nyet implicit within its vast energies, there lies the gift of sight.\nFor that blind Eye of Heaven taught us to see; our substance came from\nit, our eyes were made by it, and without it was not anything made on\nearth that was made. And if, by this gift of sight, it has opened to us\nso vast a space for our understanding to dwell in--bestowing so huge\na conception of life on this frail vessel of clay--if by so giving\nof itself through long aeons of time it has opened to us so much more\nthan it knows itself, cannot we render back without grudging these\nshorter, frailer lives of ours, whose brevity, perhaps, is the very\nprice required of us for their enjoyment, since without such limits our\nfar-reaching comprehension of space and its possessions could never\nhave been gained. Should there be any despair, or any depression in\nthe thought that from the blind eye of day and from the powers of its\nheat was developed the human brain? For if from that apparent Blindness\nof our Universe came really the eyes of life by which we perceive all\nthings, can we not commit our spirits back to its keeping with an\nequal trust that what lies ahead will be at least as good as what lies\nbehind, though we be not there to see it?\n\nBut the law of the conservation of energy does not in the least satisfy\nthe aspirations of those who are out for personal immortality in the\nindividual sense. To these it seems a grievance that they should have\nbeen called into being for any end not wholly satisfying to that\nEgo which is now laying upon their consciousness the weight of its\npossessive limitations. This separative quality of the Ego is to them\nthe whole principle of existence; without it they cannot see life.\nTo them, life in any less focused or more diffused form would be no\nbetter than annihilation, an obvious setting-back of the evolutionary\nprocess by which creation has led step by step to that degree of\nself-consciousness realised in the human race.\n\nDo not these objectors forget not merely how considerable a part of\nhuman nature already moves and has its being on the lines of a diffused\nand rather decentralised subconsciousness, but also how largely the\ngenius of the human race has committed to such conditions of separation\nfrom all possible enjoyment by the Ego, some of the rarest gifts and\nhighest efforts at self-realisation that the world has ever seen? It\nis a condition attaching to all the more permanent forms of expression\nin the arts, to everything that man designs and makes for the delight\nof the generations that come after. It is a condition willingly\naccepted by all who rejoice in their power to throw the influence of\ntheir personalities beyond the material uses of their own present\nexistence. And in that willingness to lose out of themselves for\nfuture generations--to turn aside from mere physical enjoyment--the\nlife-forces within them, in that willingness artist, poet, and thinker,\nhave come far nearer to the finding of life than those who live\nindulgently for ends finished by their own absorption thereof.\n\nNow it is the supporters of the individualistic school of thought who\nhave generally urged that grave moral dangers would befall the human\nrace were a belief in personal immortality to perish; and it is at\nleast arguable (by minds that can only see values individually), that\nif man is not to be permanently rewarded or punished for his present\nand future conduct, he has no reason for conducting himself as a decent\npart of the social whole, and that it would be better for him to break\nout on entirely individual lines, live a short and merry life, and\nthrowing all altruistic and ethical considerations to the winds, enjoy\nhimself as much as he can while the material is to him.\n\nOn paper that consideration may seem to hold strong ground; but when it\nis put into practice the facts of life are found to be overwhelmingly\nagainst it. For one thing excess and self-indulgence fail to produce\nenjoyment, for another the socialising of life by mutual aid tends\nquite obviously to the increase of comfort, safety, and happiness. And\nwhere apparently it does not is mainly at that point where rampant\nindividualism grasps and warps it to its own ends, making the social\norganism subserve not the goodwill of the many but the ill-will of the\nfew.\n\nBut the ethical argument about the bad effects of non-belief in\npersonal immortality has been considerably discounted by the growing\nsensitiveness of the modern conscience--more especially among those who\nare in a serious sense \u201cfree-thinkers\u201d--toward the social ills lying\naround us. Generally speaking, our sense of duty toward our neighbour\nis much more lively than it was in the mid-Victorian era; but our\nconviction of personal immortality is probably far less. The two things\ndo not go together: the diminution of church attendance in the last\nfifty years has not worsened the conditions of labour.\n\nIt may, however, be argued that an instinct for immortality is still\nsubconsciously at work within us, colouring our actions and directing\nus on right ethical lines. But if it be a subconscious direction\nwhich thus works in us for righteousness, it may equally be to a\nsubconscious end. The subconscious impulse may merely be guiding us to\na subconscious realisation which would not at all satisfy the advocates\nof conscious immortality after death. What works subconsciously can in\nall probability find satisfaction in a subconscious reward. The chemic\nprocesses of the stomach and of the blood, for instance, are largely\nsubconscious in their operation; and their needs may be subconsciously\nappeased without the brain being told anything about it through the\nusual intermediaries of taste and mastication. We have a preference for\na conscious performance of the functions of life which we have always\nbeen accustomed to perform consciously; but a very large proportion of\nour life-functions work themselves out subconsciously and independently\nof our will. Our hearts beat, our blood circulates, our nails grow,\nour stomachs digest, our wounds heal, whether we tell them to or no,\nand yet we are quite happy about them. We do not consider (because\nthey operate by a volition of which we are unaware), that therefore we\ncarry about with us a body of death from which our conscious ego must\nneeds shrink in disgust--a dead heart, dead stomach, dead blood--that\nthe unconsciousness which accompanies health is a state nearer to\nannihilation, and so less to be desired, than the pains accompanying\nfunctional disturbances.\n\nWhen those things happen--functional disturbances--we are conscious\nof something more immediately relating to death than to life: it is\nbecause of local mortification that we become so much aware of things\nwhich our immortal part helps us to use unconsciously and without\nthought. Virtue itself, when engrained, tends to become instinctive and\nsubconscious instead of an effort.\n\nThere is quite as much evidence, therefore, in our own bodies that\nunconsciousness is the real gate to immortal life, and the condition\ntoward which all that is best and highest in us is seeking, as of the\ncontrary teaching that increased self-consciousness is man\u2019s final\ngoal. In the functional working of our own bodies an enormous amount of\nself-consciousness has been eliminated, and we do not for our happiness\nor self-realisation wish it restored to us; whole tracts and areas are\nimmune from it, or only make a spasmodic grab at our consciousness when\nthings go ill with them. \u201cIf you go on doing that,\u201d they say, when\nyou misuse them, \u201cwe will make you know that we are here.\u201d And so you\nbecome conscious of them: but that doesn\u2019t make you happier. Yet in a\nsort of way, I suppose, a man would realise himself more completely if\nhe had sciatica all over him, and could count up his nerves, and tell\nall his bones by the aches and pains attaching to them.\n\nNow it is easy enough for a man to say (I think it was H. M. Stanley,\nthe explorer, who did say so) that he would rather endure torment for\nall eternity than accept a state of annihilation. In thus protesting\nhe is talking through his hat of something too far beyond human\nexperience for the mind to realise. Toothache he has probably always\nfound bearable, because he knew that in course of time it would end. On\nthe other hand, sound dreamless sleep is probably not less bearable to\nhim because during that sleep he has not a ghost of a notion that he\nwill ever wake up again. He is carried, that is to say, every day of\nhis life while in health, into a state closely resembling annihilation\nof consciousness, in which such annihilation has no terrors for him\nat all; he accepts it as a comfortable part of existence, and goes to\nit with delight when his faculties are tired. Its attractions for him\nwould naturally be less while all his senses were alert and fresh.\n\nBut the waking man is not the whole man; the subconscious life,\nacquiescent to imposed conditions, occupies by far the larger part\nof him. He can, therefore, only predicate the inclinations of his\nwaking hours; in sleep he may revert to a very strong affinity for that\nannihilation of self-conscious life against which, in his waking hours,\nhe protests his dread.\n\nAnd now a further word of comfort for those moral teachers who assure\nus that if once we let go the idea of personal immortality, with its\naccompanying implications of eternal reward or punishment, the conduct\nof the human race is bound to degenerate, and that man\u2019s only logical\nmotto will then be, \u201cLet us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we\ndie.\u201d\n\nTo refute that deduction we have but to remember that sociology is a\nthing of ancestry and evolution, and has committed us to a weight of\nfacts against which precept and theory are powerless. We have only\nto look back into Nature to see how persistently (without, one must\nsuppose, any promise of future reward after death) a contrary instinct\nemerges from the establishment of the social bond in nest and herd and\nhive. And why--if that emerging instinct leads on, in man\u2019s reasoned\nestimation, to foolishness--why do we so specially admire the communal\nlife of ant and bee, and incline sometimes to wonder whether (behind so\nmarvellous an order of altruistic energy) there be not concealed more\nand not less of spiritual apprehension than in the more individualistic\nforms of insect and animal life? And why, on the contrary, has the\nwise cuckoo become a sort of byword for the singular economy with which\nit has disentangled its life from care or responsibility?\n\nIt is surely very unfair thus to erect the cuckoo into a moral emblem\nfor reprobation, if it is only doing by instinct, what man would do by\nreason and logic were the darkness of his own destiny made clear to him.\n\nAnd similarly, it is surely disingenuous on our part to exalt as a\nmoral emblem the instinct of ant and bee to subordinate the life of the\nindividual to the general--if we deny to ant and bee the immortality\nby which alone such altruism can be recompensed; or if we are to\nbelieve that a clearer knowledge of their future lot would cause them\nin logic and reason to declare that life on those terms was not worth\nliving, and that \u201cto eat, drink, and die to-morrow\u201d were better than to\nlive longer and labour for a vain repetition of lives like their own\nindefinitely multiplied. It is ridiculous to impose the moral emblem\nunless you grant also the justifying conditions.\n\nBecause the bee and the ant live unconscious of their impending doom,\nare we, therefore, to regard them as a hoodwinked race, set to labour\nat the dictates of the Creative capitalist on terms which contain in\nthem no adequate reward? Suppose, for a moment, that revelation could\ndescend upon ants\u2019 nest and hive, and tell these workers that beyond\ndeath the future held for them no store--that their immortality\nwas the immortality not of individual but of race; and suppose that\nthereupon they all struck and went forth to die each singly in their\nown way--would that moral emblem impress us, do you think, as a thing\nworthy of imitation or of praise?\n\nBut why (let us think) is the predication of such an event so\nimpossible and so grotesque? Is it not because the life, the individual\nlife of ant or bee is so impregnated with that instinct of communalism\nwhich gives the species its distinctive character, that it is\nimpossible to sunder them, or to imagine the individual capable (while\nin the social _milieu_) of pursuing individual ends alone, after a\nfollowing, over millions of years, of life in the communal form. Life,\nthe thread of life which runs through them, is too much engrained with\ncommunism for separatist principles ever again to prevail.\n\nAnd surely it is the same with man. Individualism, separatism,\nself-obsessionism, though still present in the phenomena of existence,\nare more and more subject to qualifications from which they cannot\nescape. And even the most evil form of individualism has to be\nparasitic or predatory; it cannot exist alone; even against its\nwill it becomes conditioned by other lives. And the communal sense\nof man, implicit within the innumerable forms of life through which\nhe has evolved, will continue to lay its hold on the parasitic and\nthe predatory, and will do so quite effectively on the basis of an\nevolutionary past, the tendencies of which were established before ever\ntheological definitions came to give them impulse and strength.\n\nIs it not almost ludicrous to suggest that that communal instinct\nwill cease to play, if the hope of individual reward after death is\nwithdrawn from the human race? Will man--because he is nobler than\nthe beast, because at his best he does things more altruistic, more\nself-sacrificing, more self-forgetting, more self-transcending than any\nof these--do less nobly because he envisages destiny, which (if he see\nit as destiny) he will see as the logical outcome of evolutionary law?\n\nIt is possible, it is even probable, that all phases of theological\nthought have had their use in giving direction and stimulus to the\nhuman brain; if they have done nothing but stimulate rebellion against\nobscurantist authority they have had value of a positive kind. But\nwe may go even further than this, for \u201ceverything possible to be\nbelieved,\u201d says Blake, \u201cis an image of truth.\u201d And under many a\nconcept, distorted by ignorance or guile, has lain a germ of the true\nlife which draws man on to communal ends. In time that germ puts off\nthe husk that seemed once (perhaps in some cases actually was) the\nprotective armoury through which alone it could survive for the use\nof a later day. But though old reasons have been shed, the essential\nvalue has not changed; and often it is less by logic and reason than\nby the strong and subtle links of association that we preserve what is\ngood of past credulities.\n\nThe doctrine of conscious immortality, however much belittled by its\nappeal to selfish individualism, has done a work for the human race.\nIt has held the germ of an ideal for unity which is receiving a more\nuniversal interpretation to-day than the earlier theologians would ever\nhave allowed, or than man, in his then stage of development, could have\nthought it worth while to hand on to his intellectual heirs. Perhaps\nonly because he conceived it in just such a form have its values been\npreserved.\n\nI am reminded in this connection of the method by which the wild swine\nof the New Forest were taught to obey the voice of the horn by means\nof which the swine-herd, called them back each night from their free\nroaming in the forest. The way he did it was this. Having first formed\nhis herd, some four or five hundred strong, he penned them in a narrow\nspace where water and warm shelter were to be found; and there, in the\nallotted enclosure, according them no liberty, he fed them daily to the\nsound of the horn. Food and music became a sort of celestial harmony to\npig\u2019s brain--when they heard the one, good reason was given them for\nexpecting the other.\n\nPresently, in a well-fed condition, they were set free to roam; and\nbeing full and satisfied they did not roam far; and at night the horn\nsounded them back to an ample meal, and continued to sound while again\nthey ate and were satisfied.\n\nSo at last, by association, the horn came to have such a beneficent\nmeaning that the mere sound of it sufficed to bring them back at\nnightfall to their appointed place of rest. They might roam for miles\nand miles during the day, but night and the sound of the horn brought\nthem all back safe to fold. And when that habit had become established,\nthey did not cease to return even though the swineherd no longer\nsupplied the food which had first given music its charm to those savage\nbreasts.\n\nAnd, similarly, I doubt not, that, though all hope of material profit\nor reward be withdrawn from man\u2019s mind, that call of the horn which\nhe has heard of old will still bring his spirit to the resting-place\nat the appointed time; nor will he wish either to shorten his days or\ndebase his pleasures because the horn has ceased to provide the meal\nwhich it once taught him to expect.\n\nDo not let anything I have said be taken as suggesting that the\nspiritual forces of man\u2019s nature may not be conserved, transmuted,\nre-assimilated, or re-distributed, as surely and with as little waste\nas are the material elements of life which pass through disintegration\nand decay into new forms. The processes by which such changes are\nwrought may be, and may ever remain, a mystery to human sense. There\nmay be yet in the making a new order or plane of evolution by which\nthe process will be quickened and perfected. Soul of man may be in\nthe making, though it may be very far removed from that aspect of\nindividualism with which the anthropomorphic tendencies of theology\nhave burdened it. But--whether life thus rises by unknown law to\nfurther ends, or whether it passes out, like the life of leaves, into\nthe general decay with which autumn each year fertilises the bed of\nmother earth--of one thing I would ask you to be confident--that the\nbandying of words and theories, and the discussion, tending this way\nor that, of man\u2019s destiny after death, are not in any way likely to\nalter or to undo those forward-driving forces and communal desires with\nwhich, from an inheritance of so many millions of years, the life of\nhumanity has become endowed. The will to live will still lift up the\nrace and carry it forward to new ends, whether man thinks he sees in\ndeath the end of his personal existence, or only a new and a better\nbeginning. And whether he claims or resigns that prospect of reward he\nwill never be able to rid himself of the sense which revives after all\nfailures and crimes, that man is his brother-man--or be able to refrain\nat his best from laying down his life, without calculation of personal\nbenefit to himself, so that others may live.\n\nThe highest manifestations of human genius, the most perfected forms\nof self-realisation in art, in literature, and science, have been\ngiven to us--and will continue to be given to us--independent of any\nbargain that name and identity shall for ever remain attached thereto\nwhile posterity enjoys the benefit. The artist might foresee that his\nname would, in a brief time, become dissociated from his work, and his\nmemory blotted out from the book of the living; he would produce it all\nthe same. The reformer might know that his motives would be aspersed,\nthat his name would become after death a spitting and a reproach; but,\nfor the sake of the cause he believed in, he would still be willing to\ndie a dishonoured death and leave a reprobated name, to a world that\nhad failed to understand.\n\nThat is human nature at its best; and you will not change it or\nendanger it through any increased doubt thrown by modern thought or\nscience on the prospect of conscious immortality after death. For\nwhether we recognise it or not, a subconscious spirit, not perhaps of\nimmortality but of unity, permeates us all; and for furtherance and\nworship of that which his soul desires, the spirit of man will ever be\nready to work and strive, and to pass unconditionally into dust--if\nthat indeed be the condition on which he holds his birthright in a life\nworth living.\n\n\nW. H. Smith & Son, The Arden Press, Stamford Street, London, S.E.1\n\n\n\n\n+-------------------------------------------------+\n|Transcriber\u2019s note:                              |\n|                                                 |\n|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.  |\n|                                                 |\n+-------------------------------------------------+","title":"Ploughshare and Pruning-Hook: Ten Lectures on Social Subjects","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":61358}