{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_67463/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_67463","id":"gutenberg_67463","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67463","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Sociology","Ethics, Evolutionary","Social evolution"],"text":"A VISION OF THE FUTURE\n\n\n _BY THE SAME AUTHOR._\n\n Crown 8vo, 443 pp., price 8/6.\n\n\n Scientific Meliorism and the Evolution of Happiness.\n\n\u201cIn the Author we recognize an advanced thinker of a rare and high\norder.\u201d\u2014_Westminster Review._\n\n\u201cWe earnestly advise all to read this admirable book.\u201d\u2014_Weekly\nDespatch._\n\n KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., LONDON.\n\n Crown 8vo, 207 pp., cheap edition 6_d._\n\n\n Margaret Dunmore or A Socialist Home.\n\n\u201cThe story in the life in _La Maison_ is very well told.\u201d\u2014_Literary\nWorld._\n\n\u201cIn the chapter on _Unselfish Love_ there are some sound and sensible\nviews which might well be adopted without waiting for the advent of The\nUnitary Home.\u201d\u2014_Times._\n\n\u201cDecidedly entertaining.\u201d\u2014_Manchester Examiner._\n\n SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LONDON.\n\n\n\n\n A VISION OF THE FUTURE\n BASED ON\n THE APPLICATION OF ETHICAL PRINCIPLES\n\n\n By\n JANE HUME CLAPPERTON\n AUTHOR OF \u201cSCIENTIFIC MELIORISM\u201d, \u201cMARGARET DUNMORE\u201d, ETC.\n\n \u201c_HITCH YOUR WAGON TO A STAR_\u201d\n \u2014_Emerson._\n\n LONDON\n SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIMITED\n PATERNOSTER SQUARE\n\n 1904\n\n\n\n\n TO MY FRIEND\n GEORGE ARTHUR GASKELL\n\n\n\n\n To the Reader\n\n\nSocial Problems are the chief interest and study of my life.\n\nIn 1885 I published in London a work entitled _Scientific Meliorism and\nthe Evolution of Happiness_.\n\nThe world of thought has acquired new knowledge since then; and many\nsocial changes have occurred. The present volume is not a replica of\nthat work, although, as before, my aim has been to gather together the\ncurrents of meliorism pursuing diverse courses throughout society and to\nthrow upon these the light of fresh knowledge gained by investigators of\neconomic and social science; and, above all, the light emanating from\nphilosophic thinkers who recognize that the path of improved outward\nconditions, and the path of inward progress for man, lie parallel to\neach other. It is my belief that in this dawning epoch of conscious\nevolution man may, if he so chooses, push forward the actual life of\nto-day and merge it into the ideal life of to-morrow.\n\nThere has recently occurred a widespread commemoration of the birth of\nthat pure-souled American, who was pre-eminently a teacher of the ideal\nlife. This volume, I hope, will be read in America, and, to the memory\nof Emerson I tender homage, while adopting his phrase, \u201c_Hitch Your\nWagon to a Star_,\u201d as the motto of my book.\n\nThe toil of man\u2019s daily life alas! is indeed as the straining and\njolting of a lumbering wagon,\u2014it grovels, it wallows, it drags wearily,\nand the soul of the wagoner soars not.\n\nBut there are few thinkers who confront the great social question of the\nhour as not the rescue of the submerged tenth merely, not the elevation\nof the masses only, but the uplifting of _all Humanity_ to higher levels\nin the scale of being.\n\nWhen the great process of social reform is animated and ruled by that\nlofty aspiration, the lumbering wagon of toil will become a triumphal\nchariot of moral and spiritual progress.\n\n JANE HUME CLAPPERTON.\n\n\n\n\n Contents\n\n\n CHAP. PAGE\n Initial Chapter\u2014HAPPINESS 1\n\n\n Part I\u2014ECONOMICS IN MODERN LIFE\n\n I THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 23\n\n II ORGANIZED INDUSTRY 51\n\n\n Part II\u2014THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE SUBJECT\n\n I THE LAW OF POPULATION 79\n\n II THE PROBLEM OF SEX 97\n\n III EUGENICS OR STIRPICULTURE 114\n\n IV MARRIAGE 131\n\n V PARENTAGE 149\n\n\n Part III\u2014ABNORMAL HUMANITY\n\n THE ELIMINATION OF CRIME 163\n\n\n Part IV\u2014EVOLUTION OF THE EMOTIONS\n\n I THE SENTIMENTS OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 185\n\n II RAPACITY, PRIDE, LOVE OF PROPERTY 202\n\n III PERSONAL JEALOUSY, NATIONAL PATRIOTISM 218\n\n\n Part V\u2014EDUCATION, OR DIRECT TRAINING OF CHILDHOOD TO THE\n CIVILIZED HABIT OF MIND 237\n\n\n Part VI\u2014CONDITIONS IN AID OF HAPPY LIFE IN A DEVELOPING CIVILIZATION\n\n I THE NEEDS OF ADOLESCENCE 257\n\n II DOMESTIC REFORM 268\n\n\n Part VII\u2014RELIGION AND RELIGIOUS LIFE\n\n PRIMAL ELEMENTS IN HUMANITY\u2019S EVOLUTION 287\n\n\n SUMMARY 319\n\n\n SYNOPSIS 325\n\n\n\n\n INITIAL CHAPTER\n HAPPINESS\n\n The ultimate value of all effort is the production of happiness,\n and objects excite our interest in so far as we believe them to\n be conducive to that great and ultimate consummation of\n existence\u2014Happiness.\u2014J. C. CHATTERJI.\n\n\nThe age in which we live is one of great activity and general movement.\nWe are passing out of the mindless, genetic, into the rational,\nconscious epochs of evolution; and while, at every stage of human\nhistory, right conduct depends objectively on relatively true thinking,\nand subjectively, on good impulses, a transitional period such as the\npresent demands special efforts to attain to an adequate and clear\nconception of the problems of life.\n\nIf no correct philosophy of life comes to birth in the thinking centres\nof our social organism, general conduct will continue harmful to many\nand inimical to progress.\n\nHow may the truth of a philosophy be tested? No better answer, I think,\ncan be given than that of Buddha, of whom it is chronicled that he said\nin reference to a projected philosophy\u2014\u201cAfter observation and analysis\nif it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one\nand all, then accept it and live up to it.\u201d Our theory of life must\nappeal to the developed reason of civilized man and carry a conviction\nof its truth. Moreover, it must be all-embracing. Sectional aims and\naspirations will never suffice. The aim must be universal, i.e.,\ndirected to the well-being of all mankind.\n\nIn view of the question: \u201cWhat is the primary object of human life?\u201d two\nsignificant facts are apparent. First, the perpetual aim, conscious or\ninstinctive, of man, as of all physical beings, is to compass the\nsatisfaction of his desires, viz., contentment. Second, however diverse\nand conflicting may seem the opinions held by popular teachers on the\nsubject, there is nevertheless an essential unity. For all point to some\nkind of happiness, in the present or future, for oneself, or others, for\nindividuals, or for the race, as the ultimate end of existence.\n\nA close observation of actual life\u2014apart from theories of duty\u2014reveals\nincontestably that the instinct to seek pleasure and avoid pain is\nuniversal and paramount. It is the general force ruling individual\nconduct. A child shrinks from lessons and seeks play because the one\ncauses painful effort, the other gives pleasurable sensations, unless\nthere are the beginnings of an intellectual sense and the child is what\nwe call studious; in that case the sense of effort is overcome by the\npleasure of learning, and there is no unwillingness. Or when the\nrepresentative faculty is strong, the thought of a parent\u2019s or teacher\u2019s\napproval may be so clear in the young mind as to make the future\nhappiness counterbalance the present effort. But it is always pleasure\nat the moment, or pleasure in anticipation, or fear of punishment, viz.,\navoidance of pain, that gives the stimulus to work. The human nature of\na tender mother is much the same. She hates to hear her offspring cry,\nshe loves to see them smile. She _seems_ to sacrifice herself to them,\nbut in reality it is not so; for her greatest pains and pleasures reach\nher through them. Her personal desires, her dearest hopes, are centred\nin her children. She is proud of their acquirements, ambitious for their\nfuture, happy in their success. When she strives to check and discipline\nthem, it is because she dreads, for them and for herself, some baneful\nconsequences should she refrain. She does not act for a selfish end. Her\nnature is more complex, far wider and deeper than the child\u2019s; but her\naction is essentially the same. She is avoiding painful and seeking\npleasurable sensations, present and future, for herself and her\nchildren.\n\nNor with the poor man is the position different. The pain of hunger or\nthe dread of hunger, for himself or those beings whom he loves,\nstimulates to a life of continuous and wearing toil. If he submit to\npresent pain, it is that he may avoid remote pain, and secure the\nsatisfaction of his most pressing wants.\n\nThe leisured classes are differently situated. With conditions of life\nthat place them above the struggle for subsistence, they seek enjoyment\naccording to individual character and tastes. Whatever interests the\nmind and stirs the emotions pleasurably will be pursued. We speak of\nthis and that career as guided by genius, ambition, benevolence, and so\nforth, but in every case these qualities of mind have pushed choice in\nthe direction which will gratify the individual.\n\nIf we say goodness, not happiness, is the proper aim of life, we must\nallow that goodness means the aiding to bring happiness to mankind.\nReligions signifying less than this are unworthy the name of religion.\nNow it is emphatically the good who keenly suffer in the midst of an\nevil social state where poverty, misery and crime abound. It has been\ntruly said\u2014\u201cThe contrast between the ideal and the actual of humanity\nlies as a heavy weight upon all tender and reflective minds.\u201d These\nperceive that goodness, in their own case, has depended largely on the\nconditions of their lives, while thousands of their fellow-creatures\nhave had little scope for goodness, because born and brought up in\ndegraded, vile conditions they had no power to escape from. It is no\nconsolation to the good to point to a future happy state and to\nimmortality for themselves. The actual is what concerns them. Their\nfeelings get no rest, their intellects surge with perpetual efforts to\nconceive some means of radical reform, some method to secure more\ngoodness and more happiness for all, i.e. for every woman, man and\nchild, alive in the present day.\n\nTurning now to published opinions concerning the object of life, Carlyle\ntaught that conscientious work was the main business of civilized man.\n\u201cBe indifferent,\u201d he cried, \u201calike to pleasure and pain; care only to do\nwork, honest, successful work (no futilities) in this hurly-burly\nworld.\u201d He directed attention from abstract ideals of the future to the\nactual life of the present, pointing out the miseries and shams of the\nevil social state and powerfully inveighing against its corruptions. To\nmaintain an outward existence of active usefulness and an inward state\nof quietism and stoicism was Carlyle\u2019s conception of an individual\u2019s\nduty, but while there was to be no seeking for personal reward he\nbelieved this course would result in blessedness, and blessedness meant\nsomething purer, nobler, more desirable than happiness. If we take his\nown history set forth in the _Reminiscences_ as carrying out this\ntheory, we find that in his case it broke down. He toiled and plodded,\ndoing successful work to the end of what appeared a noble, victorious\ncareer, but the blessedness never came, or if it did, it was not nobler\nand purer than happiness. It was a gloomy state, bankrupt of hope and\nfull of querulous, dissatisfied egotism.\n\nGeorge Eliot gave us no theory of life in any of her works of genius.\nThe action of her influence is, however, unmistakeable. It was to\ndevelop social and sympathetic feeling, to make individuals tolerant and\ntender towards their fellows, judging none without due regard to his or\nher surroundings. She has accustomed her thoughtful readers to the\nscientific aspect of human nature and social life, to watch the manifold\nrelations between the two, the action and interaction of forces without\nand within, and to see the continuity of causation along with the\nreforming effect of ceaseless changes. The evolutional conception of\nlife underlies all her work. The pictures are realistic, there is no\nfalse colouring and vain delusions, no perfection of character\u2014but\naspiration, effort, broad humanity\u2014and no perfect happiness attained.\nShe indicated, however, that the social state wants altering, and\nreadjustments there would conduce to nobler life and greater happiness.\nShe hoped for progress by gradual changes in the outward social system\nand in inward human nature. \u201cWhat I look to,\u201d she once said, in\nconversation with a friend, \u201cis a time when the impulse to help our\nfellows shall be as immediate and irresistible as that which I feel to\ngrasp\u201d (and as she spoke she grasped the mantelpiece) \u201csomething firm if\nI am falling.\u201d Although George Eliot formulated no theory I conceive she\nheld the belief that happiness for all at all times is the object of\nlife, and to be arrived at, chiefly, through the development of the\naltruistic or sympathetic side of human nature.\n\nSome writers teach that culture is most to be desired. The rapid growth\nof wealth in this country has forced upwards in the social scale a class\nof people destitute of culture and refinement. This class dominates\nsociety and takes the lead in fashion. Luxury and ostentation are\neverywhere prominent; extravagant modes of living prevail without the\ncomfort of the former simpler and more genial modes, and this is side by\nside with poverty and destitution that do not decrease. Patronage, with\nits demoralizing influence on both classes, is the most conspicuous bond\nbetween the wealthy and the poor, and vulgarity of mind characterizes\nthe age. There is little to surprise us in the fact that gentle, refined\nnatures withdraw from public life into a narrow sphere, not necessarily\na selfish one, but a sphere bounded and circumscribed by their own\npersonal tastes and temperaments. Finding solace in intellectual\npursuits and a pure elevated enjoyment in the study of art and\nliterature, they adopt the theory that culture is the proper business of\nman. Sweetness and light have been held up as the panacea for all the\nills of life and the \u201celevation of the masses\u201d as the true social\nprogress.\n\nOther teachers, thinking less of intelligence than of moral sentiment,\npoint to perfection of character as the aim of life. They recognize the\nmarked diversity in human nature. Some intellects are slow and dull,\nincapable of being kindled into fervour or brightened into swift\nreflection, and culture for such is hopeless. But in God\u2019s sight,\nsurely, all men are equal. Birds without song have brilliant plumage to\ncompensate the defect, and so with man. The \u201claw of compensation\u201d holds\nthroughout humanity they have said, and, for the most part, hearts are\ndeep and tender even when heads are dull. Our finest works of literature\nand art may fail to give one pleasurable sensation for lack of the\nspecial faculty to apprehend their beauty, but kindness makes the whole\nworld kin. When the noble, generous, sympathetic side of human nature is\nappealed to there comes a quick response. Happiness is the aim of life,\nbut happiness implies excellence of character, the emotional and moral\nelevation of all mankind.\n\nThat Ruskin\u2019s views were similar to the above we learn from his _Crown\nof Wild Olive_. \u201cEducation,\u201d he says there, \u201cdoes not mean teaching\npeople to know what they do not know\u2014it means teaching them to behave as\nthey do not behave. It is not teaching the youth of England the shape of\nletters and the tricks of numbers, and then leaving them to turn their\narithmetic to roguery and their literature to lust. It is, on the\ncontrary, training them into the perfect exercise and kingly continence\nof their body and souls by kindness, by watching, by warning, by precept\nand by praise\u2014but, above all, by example.\u201d\n\nFrom the field of modern science there has come as yet no direct\nteaching on the subject of life\u2019s duties and purpose, but two of our\neminent scientists have thrown out hints that are important and\nsignificant. The late Professor Huxley says of his own career: \u201cThe\nobjects I have had in view are briefly these\u2014To promote the increase of\nnatural knowledge and forward the application of scientific method to\nall problems of life\u2014in the conviction that there is no alleviation for\nthe sufferings of mankind except veracity of thought and action and the\nresolute facing of the world as it is when the garment of make-believe\nby which pious hands have hidden its uglier features is stripped off.\u201d\n(_Methods and Results_, Essays by Thomas M. Huxley.)\n\nProfessor Sir Oliver Lodge has stated that new paths of investigation\nare opening up to science. Telepathy, clairvoyance and some other allied\npsychic states have been tested and found in the range of actual fact.\nThey reveal qualities in man which although special to a few individuals\nonly, are latent it may be in all, and point to an unknown province of\nnature to which man seems related independently of his five senses. It\nbecomes evident that by the \u201cresolute facing of the world as it is,\u201d\nscience is altering our conception of man\u2019s existence and nature, and\nextending our vista of his future.\n\nPositivist thinkers, who base their teaching on materialistic\nphilosophy, have bright anticipations for the human race, although ages\nmay elapse before the realization of their hopes; and the existence of\npoverty and misery in our midst is fully recognized, graphically\ndescribed, and feelingly deplored. The exponents of Positivism are\neloquent, cultured, refined. We want a new religion, they say, and\nwithout that, no rapid progress can be made. The public mind is all at\nsea, floating in a chaos of unfixed beliefs, and to reach settled\nconvictions and formulate a creed is the crying need of our times.\nReligion is a scheme of thought and life whereby the whole effort of\nindividual men and societies of men is concentrated in common and\nreciprocal activity with reference to a Superior Being which men and\nsocieties alike may serve. The Superior Being is collective humanity,\nand men\u2019s true business is to understand and seek to perfect human\nnature and the social state.\n\nA marked feature of present-day French literature, we are told, is a\nreaction of religious sentiment against the rule of scientific\nnaturalism, and religious sentiment dominates in the strangely pathetic\nand fascinating journal of the Swiss author, Amiel, which has been\nwidely read. \u201cTo win true peace,\u201d says Amiel, \u201ca man needs to feel\nhimself in the right road, i.e., in order with God and the Universe.\nThis faith gives strength and calm. I have not got it. Sybarite and\ndreamer,\u201d so he addresses himself, \u201cwill you go on like this to the end\nfor ever, tossed backwards and forwards between duty and happiness,\nincapable of choice and action? Is not life the test of our moral force?\nAre not inward waverings temptations of the soul?\u201d To the question\u2014Will\nall religions be suppressed by science? he replies: \u201cAll those that\nstart from a false conception of nature, certainly,\u201d and adds\nreflectively: \u201cIf the scientific conception of nature prove incapable of\nbringing harmony to man, what will happen?\u201d To which he answers: \u201cWe\nshall have to build a moral city without God, without an immortality of\nthe soul.\u201d Then, protesting against Emil de Laveleyes\u2019 notion that\ncivilization could not last without belief in God and a future life, he\nexclaims: \u201cA belief is not true because it is useful; and it is truth\nalone\u2014scientific, established, proved and rational truth\u2014which is\ncapable of satisfying now-a-days the awakened minds of all classes.\u201d\n\nI have here presented what is only a meagre reflection of portions of\nour mental atmosphere, but I know of no clearer, more definite thoughts\nemanating from influential teachers calculated to throw light on the\ngreat enigma of life. It may seem to my readers that on these mental\nheights unanimity exists as little as on the lower planes of man\u2019s\ndiscordant impulses, his confused and conflicting actions. Clearly we\nhave no philosophy of life as groundwork to orderly personal and social\naction, no religion of vital power to bind the nations in one, no moral\ncode adapted to the complexities of our social relations, and, above\nall, no steady belief in a universal love to sweeten society from end to\nend and create the requisite medium in which alone the nobler qualities\nof human nature will bud and blossom.\n\nNevertheless the diverse opinions held by the above thinkers are not\nirreconcilable. Carlyle\u2019s \u201cblessedness\u201d is the feeling of harmony with\nthe divine order of development in humanity and the universe, therefore\nit is identical with Amiel\u2019s \u201ctrue peace.\u201d The Positivists\u2019 \u201cSupreme\nBeing\u201d is the perfected man whose endowments of sympathetic fellowship,\nemotional sweetness, intellectual light, moral strength, kingly\ncontinence of body and soul, and knowledge of truth are specialized and\npointed to by George Eliot, Ruskin, Huxley and others. All have simply\ngiven expression to aspiration from the subjective side of their human\nnature conformably to the evolutionary process within themselves, and\nthe attitude of mind produced thereby in each. Partial, but not\ncontradictory views, characterise those thinkings. Beneath superficial\ndifferences there lurks a unanimous belief that harmony of life with\nconditions\u2014viz., happiness, is the legitimate _aim_ of life. A Humanity\nsteadily moving in a given direction may be infinitely varied in detail,\nand since the correct philosophy of life must be a wide generalization\nembracing all, we need not wonder at its slowness to appear. Modern\nnationalities are only now emerging from the individualistic to pass\ninto the socialistic stage of industrial development. Our popular\nwriters and teachers, springing from a specialized class\u2014not the main\nbody of the people\u2014instinctively show their limitations by\nindividualistic or sectional modes of thought. Mark, for instance, the\ninsufficiency, nay, the pathetic absurdity of the thought\u2014Culture will\ncure the ills of life, in face of the fact that thousands in our midst\nto-day possess no intellectual desires whatever, while the appetites\nbelonging to their physical nature which forms the very basis of life\nhave never been properly met and satisfied.\n\nIn setting forth a definition of happiness we have to recognize the\nmarvellous complexity of human nature. We have to take into account not\nonly variations distinctive in, and native to, separate individuals, but\nthe gradations and variations within each individual arising from\nprogress, or the reverse, in his or her outward condition and inward\ndevelopment. Contentment means the satisfaction of desire. But desire\nmay be directed to the physical plane, the emotional plane, the mental\nplane, the spiritual plane. The harmony of all life is happiness, and\nbrings blessedness or peace.\n\nHaving shown that practically infants, children, young men and women,\nadults and old people of every social class are similarly engaged in\nseeking happiness, each according to his tastes and tendencies\ncontrolled by his personal, social and spiritual development; having\nshown also that thinkers and writers offer no condemnation, I proceed to\npoint out that this universal habit is in harmony with evolution. It\ntends to personal evolution, i.e., to expansion and elevation of\ncharacter and capacities. Moreover, it tells favourably on general life.\nIt tends to social evolution, i.e., to expansion and elevation of the\nsocial organism or collective society so long as the method pursued by\neach individual is unhurtful to the other organic units incorporated in\nthat society.\n\nTo seek to attain happiness at the expense of other human beings whose\nhappiness is thereby sacrificed, is of course evil. It is anti-social,\nor vicious, i.e., it is wholly adverse to personal evolution and social\nevolution, in other words, to general progress. But given a society that\nhas carefully surrounded its units by conditions of personal freedom\n(harmonious with general well-being) in which to seek innocent\nhappiness, the normal man or woman on a level with the average of his\nrace is not in any danger of preferring the vicious course.\n\nThat we confuse a wholesome love of pleasure with selfishness arises\nfrom the fact that individual selfishness unhappily is developed by our\npresent evil system of life. Notwithstanding, it is easy to show the\nreal value of pleasure by its ready alliance with unselfishness. A\nsignificant feature is this\u2014people take pleasure in uniting for\npleasure. Sensuous pleasures are taken as a rule, socially, it being\nrecognized that to civilized man the presence of the enjoyment of others\nenhances his personal enjoyment. The physiological effect of pleasure is\nto promote health and activity. \u201cEvery pleasure raises the tide of life;\nevery pain lowers the tide of life,\u201d says Herbert Spencer. The pleasures\nof love are essentially and pre-eminently invigorating and social. It is\nonly when they are selfishly pursued that evil creeps in, and what\nshould produce the purest happiness becomes degraded into a source of\nmisery.\n\nIt seems hardly necessary to point out further that asceticism and\npurism are immoral because directed against an element in happiness.\nWhenever science finds out means to alleviate suffering or free the\ncondition of pleasure from accidental accompaniments that are evil, it\nis clearly the duty of man to hail the discovery and apply it that he\nmay add to the sum of human happiness.\n\nBefore touching on environment, i.e., the social condition under which\nalone general happiness becomes possible, I may classify desires into\nprimary and secondary in order to make the subject clearer. Primary\ndesires are those common to all physical beings, the satisfaction of\nwhich (in man) is necessary to healthful ordinary social life. Secondary\ndesires are those whose satisfaction is necessary to some individuals,\nbut not to all.\n\nDesires for food, clothing, shelter, also for work alternating with\nrest, and for love, belong to the first class. They are primary and\nfundamental. But desires that imply a development of cultured intellect,\nof delicate sensibilities, of high moral and emotional attainments, of\naesthetic tastes, and of spiritual life are secondary desires, i.e.,\nthey are not common to all at the present stage of the evolution of man.\nThat they may become so is devoutly to be desired; but if we expect to\nreach a high standard of life in the social organism without first\nsecuring for its individual units the satisfaction of primary needs, we\nindulge a vain delusion. Does a tree throw out fruitful branches before\nit is rooted in the soil at its base? Development depends on the\nsatisfaction of primary needs, and proportionally to these being made\nsecure will the satisfaction of the higher desires become necessary to\nhappiness.\n\nNow in relation to primary needs, the conditions which it is the duty of\nsociety as a whole to secure for the individual are, first: Freedom to\nact for the end of securing satisfaction of desire; second, opportunity\nfor acquiring the means of satisfaction; third, ability to adopt the\nmeans; fourth, protection of life and action. And these conditions have\na wide implication. The first implies some control of individual conduct\nas regards propagation, that each social unit may possess a sound\nconstitution and the comfort of physical health. The second implies\naccess to nature. The third implies education to give knowledge and\nskill. The fourth implies an organized society with an appropriate,\nscientifically arranged system of industry.\n\nThat our present confused industrial and social system\u2014the survival of\nan archaic state\u2014is inimical to happiness, few thinkers will deny.\nDiscontent is not confined to the poor. Where wealth abounds there is\nlittle, if any, real happiness. \u201cThe towers of Westminster,\u201d says Edward\nCarpenter, \u201cstand up by the river, and within, the supposed rulers\ncontend and argue.... The long lines of princely mansions stretch\nthrough Belgravia and Kensington; lines of carriages crowd the park;\nthere are clubs and literary cliques and entertainments, but of the\nvoice of human joy there is scarcely a note.... And I saw the many\nmenacing, evil faces, creeping, insincere worm-faces, faces with noses\never on the trail, hunting blankly and always for gain; faces of stolid\nconceit, of puckered propriety, of slobbering vanity, of damned\nassurance.\n\n\u201cO faces, whither, whither are you going?\n\n\u201cNo God, no truth, no justice, and under it all no love.\n\n\u201cO the deep, deep hunger!\n\n\u201cThe mean life all around, the wolfish eyes, the mere struggle for\nexistence, as of man starving on a raft at sea\u2014no room for anything\nmore.\n\n\u201cO the deep, deep hunger of love.\u201d\n\nThis picture of the degradation and misery of rich and poor alike is\nessentially true to fact. Our collective life does not supply the\nnecessary conditions for real happiness in any section of the community;\nand nothing less than a reconstruction of society and regeneration of\nits life will suffice to meet the wants of humanity. Immense efforts are\nput forth in philanthropy and benevolence. Enormous energy is expended\nin partial or sectional reforms; for quite correctly has it been said\nthat \u201cReform tends to run on a single rail, the majority of people\nrefusing to study society as an organism of organisms resting on\nbiological law.\u201d (John M. Robertson.) We make no attempt as yet, to\nprevent waste of energy, to focus the factors of meliorism, to mass\nthem, to direct them straight to the causes of evil and apply them\neffectively there\u2014and that, because we have no carefully constructed\nscheme of thought and life whereby the whole effort of individual men\nand societies of men is concentrated in common and reciprocal activity\nto the end of creating happiness for all.\n\nSocial regeneration is necessarily of a two-fold character, embracing\naction without and action within. The first\u2014which I call objective,\nsignifies collective action on the physical plane adapted to promote and\nsustain the healthful, happy vitality of a race expected to grow\nsteadily and uniformly in physical, mental, moral and spiritual\nelevation. The second, which I call subjective, signifies collective\naction directed to the repression of all the unsocial desires of\nman\u2014those selfish emotions and narrow affections that alloy the mental\nand moral structure of human beings and render it impossible to develop\nthe spiritual side of Humanity. The Darwinian laws\u2014supposed by many to\nbe still applicable to man\u2014had relation, not to happiness, but to the\npreservation of life and the continuance of the race in the genetic,\nunconscious period of evolution. It is in the conscious period or stage\nof evolution that happiness evolves. Our present system of social life,\nif system it can be called, is a chaos of conflicting interests, duties,\nthoughts, feelings, actions\u2014a prison-house in which the finer qualities\nand attributes of man can scarcely exist.\n\nLet us put forth all our strength to create out of this chaos \u201cthe\ngarden in which we may walk.\u201d Let us break down the walls of our\nprison-house till it \u201copens at length on the sunlit world and the winds\nof heaven.\u201d (Edward Carpenter.)\n\n\n\n\n _PART I_\n ECONOMICS IN MODERN LIFE\n\n\nThe only safety of nations lies in removing the unearned increments of\nincome from the possessing classes and adding them to the wage-income of\nthe working classes or to the public income in order that they may be\nspent in raising the standard of consumption.\u2014J. A. HOBSON,\n_Contemporary Review_, _August, 1902_.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I\n THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION\n\n It is a leading thought in modern philosophy that in its process of\n development, each institution tends to cancel itself. The special\n function is born out of social necessities; its progress is determined\n by attractions or repulsions which arise in society, producing a\n certain effect which tends to negate the original function.\u2014WILLIAM\n CLARKE.\n\n\nIf we view the physical aspects of existence in relation to happiness,\nit is obvious that the satisfaction of desires for food, clothing and\nshelter stands first in order of urgency in the life of nations.\n\nThat modern nationalities are very far from the attainment of this\nsatisfaction of primary wants is lamentably evident to the eye of\nobservers who examine the conditions in which the great majority of\ntheir members live. Food to the mass of the people is excessively dear.\nIn order to buy it for his family, a workman has often to spend\ntwo-thirds of his weekly wage, leaving one-third only to meet the cost\nof shelter and clothing, and nothing at all for recreation and\ninstruction.\n\nIf we add to this difficulty of satisfying the primary needs of a family\non average wages, the frequent lack of employment with the consequent\nlack of any weekly income at all, and the prevalence of low wages,\nrightly termed starvation-wages, we have before us a picture of the\nutter inadequacy of our present industrial system to subserve general\nwell-being.\n\nIt is necessary to understand something of our present industrial\nsystem, its foundations and evolution in the past, if we are to forecast\nthe changes that will occur in the immediate future, when the\nfast-growing recognition of its manifold failings must inevitably bring\nabout a different order of industry. Private property in land and in\nother essentials for the production of food, shelter, clothing, etc.,\nlies at the basis of the present system; and since the direct object of\nprivate proprietors is not to satisfy the primary needs of the people,\nbut to create individual profits, we cannot wonder that a system thus\nmotived by selfishness works out in a miserable and wholly imperfect\nmanner.\n\nThe industrial class may be broadly divided into two sections, employers\nand employed, while a few highly skilled workers, members of the\nprofessions of law, medicine, arts, letters, and science stand in a\nmeasure outside this category. Landlords and shareholders as such are an\nidle section of the community. They absorb the labour of a multitude of\nworkers, while giving no personal service in return. Quite truly has it\nbeen said: \u201cThe modern form of private property is simply a legal claim\nto take year by year a share of the produce of the national industry\nwithout working for it.\u201d (_Fabian Essays_, page 26).\n\nIn comparing past forms with the present forms of industry, a\ndistinguishing feature of the latter is the number of great factories\nwhere workers toil long hours, usually in the tending of machines, to\nturn out for the private profit of their employers, vast quantities of\ngoods destined for retail distribution all over the world. The large\norganizations of industry, so familiar to us, are of quite recent\ngrowth, and already show signs of a coming change as sweeping in its\nscope as any changes that have occurred in the past. Yet to listen to\nthe expression of opinions that prevail in literary and upper class\ncircles, one would suppose we had reached finality in our social system,\nand that the conventional tributes paid to proprietors of land and\ncapital in the shape of rent and interest would, as a matter of course,\nremain legal to the end of time.\n\nNow let us glance at the history of the past. For two centuries after\nthe Norman conquest, intestine war and feudal oppressions embittered the\nlife of the British labourer. He might be called from the plough at any\nmoment to take up arms in his master\u2019s quarrel, and if he sowed seed and\nsaw his fields ripen, the harvest of his hopes might still be cut down\nby the sword of the forager, or trodden by the hoof of the war-horse. He\nwas bondsman and slave, defenceless in the hands of the lords of the\nsoil, who at best, protected him only in the barest necessities of a\nscanty livelihood\u2014a hut without a chimney, its furniture a great brass\npot and a bed valued at a few shillings. (Wade\u2019s _History of the Working\nClasses_.) A change for the better came after the plague of 1348, and,\nwhen by perpetual warfare with France, men had become more valuable\nthrough diminution of their number.\n\nKing Edward the Third freed the bondsmen to recruit his armies, and\nenforced villeinry service was exchanged for service paid by\nwages\u2014these, however, were ordinarily fixed by statute. In the middle of\nthe eighteenth century wages stood at the ratio of about a bushel and a\nhalf of wheat for one week\u2019s labour; by the middle of the nineteenth\ncentury they had fallen to what could only purchase one bushel of wheat.\n(_Threading my Way_, R. D. Owen, p. 220.) The cause of this change was\nthat meanwhile, two clever men\u2014Arkwright and Watt\u2014had made discoveries\nwhich gave an impetus to industry beyond all previous experience.\nMechanical aids to production were invented, and the consequent\ncheapening of products created more and more demand. Machinery and human\nlabour side by side were under stress and strain to meet the call of new\ndesires. Cotton and wool and flax were woven into fabrics and poured out\nof Great Britain to every quarter of the globe; capital was amassed, and\nwealthy capitalists bid against each other for more labour still.\nAgriculturists flocked into towns, factories sprang up in all\ndirections, population rapidly increased, and children were sucked into\nthe industrial maelstrom, for health and happiness were in no way\nconsidered when remunerative work was offered.\n\nOutwardly the British world had altered. Internal warfare had passed\naway, and the war-horse was no longer visible in harvest-fields. The\nscene now presents a resemblance to a huge hive of bees industriously\nsecreting and amassing honey for future use. Great Britain has assumed\nbeyond her own shores a foremost place among civilized nations. The\nresources of her newly-created wealth seem boundless, and everywhere her\npower is felt. She can thin the ranks of her population, and swell her\narmy to conquer and suppress the tyrant Napoleon, while keeping at work\nthe enormous leviathan of her own trade and commerce by the deft fingers\nof her little children. Summer and winter find her tiny bees\u2014infants of\nseven or eight\u2014at labour in the factories from six a.m. to noon. One\nhour for dinner is allowed, and they toil on once more till eight\no\u2019clock at night.\n\nWere these, then, the \u201cgood old times\u201d of which we are proud? At all\nevents they _were_ the times in which England\u2019s greatness was\nestablished and vast fortunes were built up, founded upon the industry\nof young children sweating in factories for thirteen hours a day.\n\n\u201cIt was not in exceptional cases,\u201d wrote Robert Dale Owen, when on a\ntour of inspection of factories with his father in 1815, \u201cbut as a rule,\nthat we found children of ten years old worked regularly fourteen hours\na day, with but half an hour\u2019s interval for the midday meal, eaten in\nthe factory.\u201d In the fine yarn cotton mills, the \u201ctemperature usually\nexceeded 75 degrees,\u201d and in all factories the atmosphere was more or\nless injurious to the lungs. In some cases \u201cgreed of gain had impelled\nmill-owners to still greater extremes of inhumanity, utterly disgraceful\nto a civilized nation.\u201d Their mills were run fifteen, sometimes sixteen,\nhours a day, and children were employed even under the age of eight. \u201cIn\nsome large factories, from one-fourth to one-fifth of the children were\ncripples or otherwise deformed. Most of the overseers openly carried\nstout leather thongs, and frequently we saw even the youngest children\nseverely beaten.\u201d (_Threading my Way_, p. 102.) At that period Robert\nOwen the elder expressed himself thus to the Earl of Liverpool: \u201cIt\nwould be clearly unjust to blame manufacturers for practices with which\nthey have been familiar from childhood, or to suppose that they have\nless humanity than any other class of men.\u201d The system was what Robert\nOwen condemned, and he strained every nerve to bring about some\nalterations in the system. He wrote and spoke and agitated for the\nprotection of children by law, and for their compulsory education, and\nhe publicly exposed the ghastly evils that spring from competition\nunchecked by law, while left free to regulate itself at any amount of\ncost to life, health, and happiness.\n\nAfter the lapse of about four years, the first point aimed at by Robert\nOwen was gained, and infants became protected by statute from gross\noppression. His second point was gained in 1870, when the Government\nBill for National Education was passed. And ever since the period of\nthat noble, unselfish life, minds have everywhere been awakening to the\ntruth of his third point, viz., that frightful evils inalienably belong\nto free industrial competition.\n\nOwen proved that in the year 1816, the machine-saved labour in producing\nEnglish fabrics\u2014cotton, woollen, flax, and silk\u2014exceeded the work which\ntwo hundred million of operatives could have turned out previous to the\nyear 1760. (_Threading my Way_, p. 218.) The world was richer then to\nthe extent of all this enormous producing power\u2014a power, he thought,\nsurely sent down from Heaven to set man free from the ancient curse that\nin the sweat of his brow should he eat bread. But what were the actual\nfacts? There was no respite from toil for the workers, no freedom from\nthe curse! Throughout the old and new world, senseless machinery\ncompeted with the living sons of toil, or, as Robert Owen expressed it,\n\u201ca contest goes on between wood and iron on the one hand, human thews\nand sinews on the other\u2014a dreadful contest, at which humanity shudders,\nand reason turns astonished away.\u201d (_Threading my Way_, p. 218.) The\nproblem presented was this: A recent rapid growth of wealth had enriched\nthe few and left many in misery; nay more, it had lowered and pressed\ndown the many to depths of degradation previously unknown. Were there no\nmeans by which mankind could _unitedly_ work for the benefit of all, and\nall be made happy as the world grew richer? Political Economy suggested\nnone, and Robert Owen turned from its futile study to that of the facts\nthemselves. He was a manufacturer, in sympathy with employers as well as\nwith employed. He had every opportunity for a practical understanding of\nthe interests involved, and he gave years to the study of this question\nin a spirit of keen inquiry and ardent devotion to the cause. His\nultimate conclusion was that in _some form of socialism alone_ could a\nremedy for the existent evils of industrial life be found.\n\nHenceforth he laboured to give to the world an object lesson in\nsocialism. He embarked his fortune in bold experiments, which proved\u2014as\nin the case of New Harmony\u2014financial failures. Into the details of these\nfailures I cannot now enter, nor have we to deal just yet with socialism\nas a remedy. My present purpose is to show the origin and reality of the\nevils inherent in the individualistic system of industry\u2014evils on which\nthe argument for socialism is based. And I must reiterate the statement\nmade by John Stuart Mill in 1869, that the fundamental questions\nrelating to property, and to the best methods of production and\ndistribution\u2014questions involved in socialism\u2014require to be thoroughly\ninvestigated. Mr. Mill\u2019s opinion regarding socialism was that in some\nfuture time communistic production might prove well-adapted to the wants\nand the nature of man, but a high standard of moral and intellectual\neducation would first be necessary, and the passage to that state could\nonly be slow.\n\nMeanwhile the sufferings of the proletariat are as intense as in the\ndays of Robert Owen. The problem which absorbed his energies and wrecked\nhis fortunes remains as yet unsolved, and we, who live when a twentieth\ncentury has been entered upon, are daily surrounded by a mass of workers\ntied hand and foot by poverty and often weighed down by despair. And\nthis is the case, notwithstanding the lapse of a long intermediate\nperiod of national prosperity; in spite, also, of the powers of science\nto enlighten manual labour, the intellectual efforts to advance\neducation, and a boundless benevolence and sympathy ready to embrace all\nmankind, and give happiness to all, were only the right means devised\nwherewith to accomplish that end.[1]\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n In the _Scotsman_ of March 16, 1897, this paragraph occurs: \u201cAt the\n meeting of Edinburgh Parish Council yesterday, it was stated that\n pauperism is increasing, and pointed out that for the month ending\n 15th ult. there was an increase of 114 applications for individuals\n for relief, compared with the corresponding period last year!\u201d\n\n It was stated by Mr. Rowntree (whose investigations of this subject\n are widely known and respected) that one-fourth of the population of\n Great Britain lives in poverty, either primary or secondary; while 52\n per cent. of the cases of primary poverty are due to the principal\n wage-earner receiving too low a wage to maintain his family in\n physical efficiency. (_Evening News_ Report, March 22, 1903.)\n\nIndividual benevolence has failed, and that as completely as Robert\nOwen\u2019s socialism, to cope with general poverty, and the method of Poor\nLaws has accomplished almost nothing.\n\nIn Robert Owen\u2019s day the evils described in factory life belonged\nspecially to Great Britain. That is not the limit, however, now. I need\nonly refer my reader to Henry George\u2019s picture of poverty dogging the\nfootsteps of progress in America and to Professor Goldwin Smith\u2019s\ncorroborative words: \u201cIt is a melancholy fact, that everywhere in\nAmerica we are looking forward to the necessity of a public provision\nfor the poor.\u201d And again: \u201cThere will in time be an educated proletariat\nof a very miserable and perhaps dangerous kind, for nothing can be more\nwretched and explosive than destitution with the social humiliation\nwhich attends it, in men whose sensibilities have been quickened and\nwhose ambition has been aroused.\u201d\n\nThe problem respecting appalling poverty in the midst of wealth (it is a\npoverty marring the happiness of the rich as well as the poor) cries out\nfor solution. It forces itself upon public attention in the old world as\nin the new. There is no escape from it. The problem must be grappled\nwith by educated reason, and solved by means of the patient exercise of\na cold calculation of natural forces. Happily it is recognized in its\nevolutional aspects by many thinkers all over the world. Twenty years\nago Charles Letourneau in his _Sociology_ wrote: \u201cIn every country which\nenjoys the European system of civilization, the right of property has\never been in a state of evolution, always tending to give a greater\ndegree of independence to the individual owner; in other words, the\nevolution is always worked in favour of individual egotism. Who can say\nthat the evolution is now complete, or that we have yet realized the\nhighest ideal system in the disposition of our property? A progressive\nevolution is, for every society, one of the conditions of existence. The\nright of proprietorship cannot, therefore, remain stationary.\u201d The\nperiod that has elapsed since that passage was written has witnessed a\nwidespread and strong growth of opinion upon these lines.\n\nIn the _Contemporary Review_ of February, 1902, Mr. J. A. Hobson thus\nwrites: \u201c... The idea of natural individual rights as the basis of\ndemocracy disappears. A clear grasp of society as an economic organism\ncompletely explodes the notion of property as an inherent individual\nright, for it shows that no individual can make or appropriate anything\nof value without the direct continuous assistance of society.\u201d\n\nThe right of proprietorship in land is the first principle to examine.\nThe relation between land and life in its simpler aspects is clear and\ndefinite. All classes of land animals\u2014man included\u2014are immediately\ndependent for subsistence upon the produce of land, and when man emerges\nfrom slavery, another element, namely, labour, enters into the\nconditions of his life and becomes, with land, essential to his\nexistence. Of food, fitted for the nourishment of man, uncultivated land\nproduces little save some wild fruits and edible roots, and many wild\nanimals, which he may eat if in hunting them down they do not eat him.\nBut land placed under the additional forces of man\u2019s physical and\nintellectual energies produces an immense variety of objects\u2014a perfect\nwealth of raw material, vegetable, animal, mineral\u2014which, yielding to\nfurther elaboration through his efforts and genius, all help to create\nfor him a civilized life. This raw material, in short, supplied man with\nfood, shelter, clothing, with the comforts and luxuries his developing\nnature demands, and with all necessaries to the existence of literature,\nscience, and art.\n\nPassing over the primitive forms of associated life\u2014the nomad and\npastoral\u2014we come to the agricultural stage, when labourers on the land\nare manifestly the all-important social units. They sow, till, and reap\nthe fields. They tend domestic animals, whose skins and wool are made\ninto garments by other members of the group. But the latter depend for\nfood and the raw materials of their industry on the cultivators, who\nare, if I may so express it, the foundation stones of the simple social\nstructure. To whom does the land belong? To the whole group, and an\nannual division amongst the families for purposes of cultivation takes\nplace, whilst weapons, fishing-boats, tools and other movables are the\nproperty of individuals.\n\nNow observe, a change gradually occurs, a change from the communal\npossession of land to a system of the individual possession of land, and\nforce is the sole cause of this change. External aggression has\ninitiated militant activity, while, in the process of frequent\nresistance to invasion, and frequent aggression upon others, there is\nproduced the class inequalities which distinguish a militant type of\nsociety and a system allowing of individual land-ownership. Land becomes\nprivate property in the hands of the bold and crafty, who compel the\ncultivation of the soil by the landless men of the group, and by\nprisoners of war spared on condition that they perform hard labour. The\ninstitution of slavery thus becomes established, and it is a leading\nfactor in the promotion of civilization. Lords of the soil spend their\nenergies in warlike activities, whilst protecting their slaves and serfs\nat labour. The produce of that labour is appropriated by the dominant\nclass, and used for its own particular benefit. Its requirements extend\nmuch beyond the mere necessaries of existence that it yields to the\nworkers, and slowly there uprises a new form of labour and a large class\nof labourers, producing a variety of commodities to gratify the desires\nof pomp-loving, barbaric chiefs.\n\nNow this class, the labour of which is wholly absorbed by the chiefs,\nmust be fed from the produce of the land. How is this accomplished? The\nchiefs, while exacting hard labour from the slaves and serfs, yield them\nonly a bare living. But the proceeds of their labour, over and above the\nbare living of the producers, is very considerable. There is therefore a\nlarge surplus, which, appropriated by the chiefs as rent, is the source\nof their power. With it they support a large class of landless men\nengaged in ministering to their own specific wants. Moreover, this class\ngroups itself around the castle of the chiefs, which are filled with\nmilitary retainers, and here we have the beginnings of towns.\n\nThe town population increases steadily with the increase of the surplus\nproduce from land under better conditions of cultivation. Markets and\nstores are instituted, and a commercial system is introduced. Barter\ngives way to the use of money, and the entire social organism expands\nand becomes more complex.\n\nAnon, slavery disappears. But workers on the land\u2014always the most\nnecessary social units\u2014remain poor as before. Competitors for work, in\ndanger of starving, drive no hard bargain with masters who are in full\npossession of the soil, and able to forbid their growing even the simple\nfruits and grain required for a meagre living. For food enough to live,\nthey readily pledge the labour of their whole lives, and since nature\u2019s\nrecompense for labour is liberal, there is an abundant surplus produce\nfor landowners to grasp and employ as they choose. Into the towns it is\nsent, and there it stimulates progress\u2014mental and material\u2014and creates\nnew departures in social life.\n\nClass inequalities among town workers increase, and labour becomes\norganized. The mentally stronger dominate the weaker in the new fields\nof industry. They direct and control the production of commodities for\nthe use of the dominant class, and succeed in acquiring a greater reward\nfor their work than a meagre living. Out of the surplus produce of the\nland they become able to secure from their lords a portion which forms\nthe foundation of wealth in a new social class\u2014a class of landless\ncapitalists who, possessing brain power and later money-power, become\nthe supreme factors in altering social conditions. These men promote\nmanufacture and commerce by action similar to the landholders\u2019 methods\nof promoting agriculture. They press down their workers to a bare\nliving, and take as profits all that competition permits of the results\nof the joint labour. These profits they apply to the satisfaction of\ntheir personal desires and the carrying out of their schemes of\nmanufacturing and commercial enterprise. Finally, they indulge in\nluxurious living and emulate landholders in the purchase of valuable\ncommodities, thus stimulating certain trades.\n\nMeanwhile, through the intercourse of urban life, mental activity\nrapidly augments. Education is initiated, aptitude and skill are more\nand more prized and rewarded. Invention profoundly modifies the\nprimitive modes of production, and genius aspires to understand and\ngovern the forces of nature. One direction taken by mental activity\neventuates in an important social force, viz., the Church, or religious\norganization. Many of the best minds in early ages were allied with the\npriesthood, and the Church\u2019s desire for stately temples, gorgeous\nshrines, and decorative worship have enormously aided the outward\ndevelopment of architecture, sculpture, painting, and music, and the\ninward growth of aesthetic capacity. But priests and all whose labour is\nabsorbed by the requirements of religious worship and the constructing\nof temples, must be fed on the produce of the land. The priesthood is\nmaintained in leisure by rents, tithes, or the voluntary offerings of\nthe people. It is freed from the necessity of industrial labour and\nmilitary activity, and members within this large class have devoted\ntheir leisure to literature, history, philosophy, and art, thereby\ngreatly advancing civilization.\n\nUnder increased stability of governments the organization becomes of a\nmainly industrial type. Nations now possess enormous wealth in the form\nof material commodities, wealth in the form of intellectual literature\nand the educational institutions that promote knowledge; wealth in the\nform of ornament\u2014all that embellishes and makes beautiful the\nsurroundings of human life; and all this wealth has come into existence\nthrough the natural action of evolutionary forces\u2014an action creative,\nstep by step, of a system of social interdependence and regulation. The\nprominent features of the system are: First, private property in land;\nsecond, great social inequality; third, poverty of manual labourers;\nfourth, a large town population, and a small or minimum peasant\npopulation. Its less prominent but no less decisive feature is the\ncomplete social subjugation of the poor by the rich.\n\nThe supports of the system through the whole process of its growth have\nbeen labourers on the land, and these labourers have scarcely at all\npartaken of the national wealth. The food they reaped formed the motor\nforce vitalizing and energizing the evolving social organism. Food was\nthe ruling power deciding the growth and extent of economic life, as\nwell as the form of its development. But food-producers have never\ndetermined the destination of the surplus food, and in this fact lies\nthe key to a great social problem which students of social science are\nbound to comprehend. The landholders\u2014and these as a rule have not been\nworkers on the land\u2014have decided the destination of the surplus produce.\nUp to the present-day landlords\u2014including the proprietors of coal, iron\nand other mines, capitalist employers of labour, the churches of the\nnation, and hereditary rulers\u2014are at the fountainhead of modern\ncivilization. It is through their action\u2014caused mainly by selfishness,\ntyranny, pride, greed\u2014that cultivators and operatives have been kept at\nmaximum toil and been limited in number, while at the same time the\nland\u2019s resources have developed and improved until land and labour\nunited serve to support an enormous mass of population\u2014individuals of\nentirely distinctive character, activities, social position and social\nworth, all alike in this one particular\u2014they are daily and hourly\nconsumers of the produce of the land.\n\nA good harvest that is general over the world sends activity like an\nelectric current through the economic system. A bad harvest, if\nuniversal, would cause universal depression; not agriculture alone must\nsuffer, but manufacture, commerce, science, art, literature, education,\nrecreation\u2014for on the production of food depends the buying power of the\nwhole trading world. It is true that modern countries are not maintained\nfrom their own food resources alone. Also, it is true that the machinery\nof exchange\u2014money and our vast credit system\u2014enter into the phenomena\nand confuse the student\u2019s mind. Nevertheless, an all-important fact\ndiscloses itself on close investigation, viz., this\u2014the relation of\nlandlordism to modern civilization is not accidental, it is essential\nand causal.\n\nAs already shown, the general drift of the produce of the land has been\ninto the towns; and thither also have migrated the labourers. Machinery\nand science applied to land cultivation lowered the amount of peasant\nlabour required, but it did not lower the birth-rate. Surplus peasants\nhave been driven by necessity from their homes to the centres of\nmanufacturing industry, and, competing for work there with the operative\nclass, have kept wages low and facilitated the enriching of capitalist\nemployers. These men, actuated by personal desires, selfish ambition,\nand a tendency to mercantile speculation, use their wealth in extending\nthe production of objects that minister to a life of luxury and\nrefinement.\n\nThe older political economists mistakenly taught that \u201call capital, with\na trifling exception, was originally the result of saving.\u201d (J. S.\nMill\u2019s _Political Economy_, book 1, chap. 5.) Attention to the history\nof social evolution, however, proves the fact to be otherwise. Not\nindividual saving, but social seizure, created capital. Its origin, as\nwe have shown, was the surplus produce taken from producers and disposed\nof by a dominant class. It originated through the selfish quality of\nrapacity and not through the respectable virtue of prudence, as some\ncapitalists would have us believe. The growth of capital has been\nenormous since the beginning of the industrial revolution; and at the\npresent moment the riches of a comparatively small number of the owners\nof our land and capital are colossal and increasing. At the same time,\nthere is no diminution of poverty among workers. Thirty per cent. of the\nfive million inhabitants of London are inadequately supplied with the\nbare necessaries of life, and about a fourth of the entire community\nbecome paupers at sixty-five. I refer my reader to Sidney Webb\u2019s\npamphlet, _The Difficulties of Individualism_.\n\nThe supersession of the small by the great industry has given the main\nfruits of invention and the new power over nature to a small proprietary\nclass, upon whom the mass of the people are dependent for leave to earn\ntheir living. The rent and interest claimed by that class absorbs, on an\naverage, one-third of the product of labour. The remaining 8_d._ of the\n1_s._ is then shared between the various classes co-operating in the\nproduction, but in such a way that at least 4_d._ goes to a set of\neducated workers numbering less than one-fifth of the whole, leaving\nfour-fifths to divide less than 4_d._ out of the 1_s._ between them.\n\u201cThe consequence is the social condition we see around us.\u201d (Ibid.)\n\nThus four out of five of the whole population\u2014the weekly\nwage-earners\u2014toil perpetually for less than a third of the aggregate\nproduct of labour, at an annual wage averaging at most \u00a340 per adult,\nand are hurried into early graves by the severity of their lives, dying,\nas regards at least one-third of them, destitute, or actually in receipt\nof poor law relief.\n\nIn town and country, the operatives and peasants, who, united, form one\nlarge class engaged in manual labour, resemble Sinbad the Sailor, on\nwhose shoulders rides the Old Man of the Sea. It is they who maintain\nour leisured classes. The proletariat carries on its back all the rich\nand their innumerable dependents, more than 300,000 soldiers, an immense\nnavy, a million of paupers, a number of State pensioners, a multitude of\ncriminals, His Majesty and the Royal Family, all Government officials\nand ecclesiastics\u2014a vast host of unproductive consumers throughout\nsociety.\n\nSlavery of the many for the comfort and enjoyment of the few! That is\nall man has attained to, so far, in the evolution of society. And no one\nwho studies the facts of life can deny this impeachment of civilization:\n\u201cAll over the world the beauty, glory, and grace of civilization rests\non human lives crushed into misery and distortion.\u201d (Henry George.)\n\nThe extremity of contrast between rich and poor has no ethical\njustification. Under purely ethical conditions, every child born into a\nnation should have equal chances of life, comforts, and luxuries, with\nevery other child. But, as we know, one British babe may be born to an\nincome of \u00a3100,000 a year, and another to no income, but to a constant\nstruggle for bare subsistence and a pauper\u2019s grave at last. The system\npermitting this is _ethically odious_. Nevertheless, we have to\nrecognize that, under non-ethical conditions, development has taken\nplace, and we must accept the process as the natural, inevitable result\nof all prior conditions.\n\nMan\u2019s ethical nature itself is the product of a slow evolution, not yet\nso advanced as to require and create purely ethical social conditions.\nChanges in the future will proceed on lines of natural growth, as in the\npast, but with this supreme difference\u2014the issues will be favourable to\ngeneral happiness, the advance infinitely more rapid, because aided by\nconscious human effort.\n\nAll schemes of social reform that are revolutionary are widely\nchimerical to the thoughtful evolutionist, for were we suddenly to\ndeprive our richer classes of property, privilege, and power, we should\nsimply create a general abasement of our national civilization. Our\nupper classes, rendered effeminate by ill-spent leisure and all the\nartificial pleasures of a voluptuous and inane life, are incapable of\ndirecting civilization to the highest and noblest ends. Yet it is out of\ntheir midst that springs the demand for commodities ministering to all\nthe amenities and refinements of a civilized life. It is refinement\nalone that demands refinement, culture that demands culture; and were\nthe control of human labour to pass _suddenly_ from the hands of the\nupper into those of the lower classes, which are still, in the mass,\ndegraded and unenlightened, there would be no effective demand for these\ncommodities, and the science and art implicated in their production\nwould inevitably, though gradually, disappear.\n\nProgressive evolution culminates in social justice, and the principle of\nprivate property in land, which implies an injurious monopoly in what is\nessential to human life (and is therefore socially unjust), is certain\nto be consciously relinquished at a given stage of the nation\u2019s\nintellectual and moral advance.\n\nHaving traced the evolution of the individualistic system of industry,\nand seen that the inherent evils of the system have their source in the\nprivate ownership of land and capital, which \u201cnecessarily involves the\ncomplete exclusion of the mere worker, as such, from most of the\neconomic advantages of the soil on which he is born, and the buildings,\nmachinery, and railways he finds around him\u201d (Sidney Webb), let me now\nsum up and state the paramount evils that have to be overcome. For the\nworkers these are\u2014low wages, long hours of toil, difficulty of obtaining\nwork, and, when it is obtained, uncertainty of being permitted to retain\nit. For the community generally there are further evils, viz., first,\nthe mal-production of commodities made manifest in food adulteration and\nin a perpetual output of objects that, instead of promoting and\nconserving civilization, debase and corrupt public taste and morals;\nand, second, the mal-production of human life, for poverty is a social\nforce that directly tends to racial degeneration. A population born and\nbred in our city slums becomes physically, mentally, and morally unfit.\n\nThe facts of poverty and the unemployed are impossible to deny.\nFrederick Harrison\u2019s picture is accurate; ninety per cent. of the actual\nproducers of wealth have no home they can call their own beyond the end\nof the week, have no bit of soil or so much as a room that belongs to\nthem, have nothing of any kind except so much of old furniture as will\ngo in a cart; have the precarious chance of weekly wages, which barely\nsuffice to keep them in health; are separated by so narrow a margin from\ndestitution that a month of bad trade, sickness or unexpected loss\nbrings them face to face with hunger and pauperism. This is the normal\nstate of the average workman in town or country. (_Report of Ind. Ref.\nCongress_, 1886.)\n\nAs regards the children of these workmen, fifty per cent. die before\nthey reach five years of age, while eighteen per cent. only of upper\nclass children die at the same age. The industrial evolution of the last\n150 years, with its labour-saving machinery and highly organized masses\nof wage-workers, has done nothing at all to lessen poverty. Poverty has\nsteadily kept pace with the increase of population.\n\nBut observe in the present day there is one significant feature that\nforces itself upon public attention\u2014a feature revealing to the social\nstudent our approach to that stage of evolution spoken of by William\nClarke in the passage I quote as motto to this chapter: \u201cEach\ninstitution tends to cancel itself.... Its special function and progress\nproduce effects tending to negate the original function.\u201d\n\nIf we look minutely into the latest developments of large businesses, we\nfind that the diminution in the number of competitors does not as a rule\nlead to an easing of the competitive struggle. As Mr. J. A. Hobson\nobserves and demonstrates: \u201cIt is precisely in those trades which are\nmost highly organized, provided with the most advanced machinery, and\ncomposed of the largest units of capital, that the fiercest and most\nunscrupulous competition has shown itself.\u201d (_Evolution of Capital_, p.\n120.) There is an increase, in short, of the elements destined to\ndestroy competition. The anxiety, arduousness, and wastefulness of\nstrife among the rival competitors, becomes so intolerable that a mutual\ntruce and amalgamation is sought after as a release. When fully\nrealized, the amalgamation becomes a monopoly, and competition, that\nmuch vaunted check to counteract the natural rapacity of private\ncapitalists, ceases altogether. Let industrial monopoly be fairly\nestablished, and behold! competition, with all its merits, real or\nassumed, is abrogated.\n\nBut industrial monopoly _in private hands_ becomes intolerable to the\npublic, so that invariably, in the long run, the community either puts a\nforcible stop to the monopoly, or assumes it, and administers it as a\nState function.\n\nWe may confidently assert that as large industries approach to the stage\nof absorption into monopolies of federated groups of wealthy\ncapitalists, the more general and widespread grows dissatisfaction and\nresentment on the part of the dispossessed smaller capitalists who have\nbeen beaten out of the field.\n\nNow, the trend of movement to-day, through the whole fields of\nproduction and distribution, is from business on a small scale to\nbusiness on a large scale, and the formation of limited companies,\nrings, trusts, etc. By purchasing raw material in greater quantities an\nimmense saving is effected, and the same occurs in the advertising of\ngoods and in organizing numerous workers instead of a few. These savings\nmake it possible to lower the price of the finished commodity to the\npublic. Hence the change from smaller to larger commercial enterprises\nis favourable to public interests up to a certain point. But the moment\nmonopoly point is reached, the position straightway becomes reversed.\nHenceforward the public have no protection from a sudden raising of\nprices, for, the competitive check having been withdrawn, monopolists\ndominate their respective fields of production and distribution, and the\nindividually selfish forces alone hold sway.\n\nThis tendency, then, to larger and larger industrial organization, with\nits wasteful warfare and other attendant evils, implies a certain\nadvance. It indicates competition working out to its last expression and\nfinal breakdown. It points to the supersession of the individualistic\nindustrial system by a collectivist industrial system requiring\ndemocratic state-ownership of land and the means of production and\ndistribution of all commodities.\n\nIn process of civilizing man has made himself acquainted with many laws\nof nature, and has learnt so to handle matter as to direct its forces\ninto channels carrying benefit to himself. He has thus become the\ncontroller of natural forces in as far as they lie within reach of his\nmental comprehension and physical activities. It is by this method, and\nno other, that our advance along the line of material civilization has\nbeen accomplished, and all further extension of the comforts and\namenities of economic and social life is certain to be obtained through\npersistence in this available and satisfactory course.\n\nNow, throughout the domain of non-material civilization, man has never\nconstituted himself controller of natural forces, although, in orders of\nlife inferior to his own, he has guided many vital forces. For instance,\nthere are vegetable and animal forces\u2014all subject to natural law\u2014that he\nhas enlisted in his service and made submissive to his dominion. The\nforms of vegetable life around us to-day\u2014cereals, fruit-trees, plants,\nand flowers of infinitely varied tint\u2014bear witness to the art and skill\nof man; and the animal kingdom, ruled by mysterious biological laws, has\nprovided him with faithful servants obedient to his will, in a life\nwhich to dogs and horses is largely artificial.\n\nIn the order of his own social life man\u2019s position is wholly different.\nWhat we behold, if we take an objective view of a so-called civilized\nsociety, is a marvellous variety of complicated movements. These are the\noutcome of forces pursuing an unbridled course; and that course is\nalways the path of least resistance. As yet there is no intervening\nforce of a collective, mental nature to adapt that course to an ultimate\ndefinite aim and purpose, or to harmonize broadly those lines of least\nresistance with the line of permanent and universal advantage to\nmankind. As Professor Lester F. Ward expresses it, \u201cMan has made the\nwinds, the waters, fire, steam and electricity do his bidding. All\nnature, both animate and inanimate, has been reduced to his service....\nOne class of natural forces still remains the play of chance, and from\nit, instead of aid, he is constantly receiving the most serious checks.\nThis field is that of society itself, these unreclaimed forces are the\nsocial forces of whose nature man seems to possess no knowledge, whose\nvery existence he persistently ignores, and which he consequently is\npowerless to control.\u201d (_Dynamic Sociology_, vol. I. p. 35.) These\nunreclaimed social forces\u2014selfishness, rapacity, pride\u2014give activity to\nthe competitive system, and run riot on the basis of private property in\nland and the means of production. But the present condition of things\ncannot much longer persist, and a new industrial system, the outcome of\nfar more elevated social forces, is shaping itself rapidly in many minds\nthroughout Europe, America, and the whole civilized world; that system\nof co-operative industry we have now to consider.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II\n ORGANIZED INDUSTRY\n\n\nThe true organic formula of political as of economic justice is\u2014\n\n \u201cFrom each according to his powers,\n To each according to his needs.\u201d\n J. A. HOBSON.\n\n\nWhilst bearing in mind that the present economic system\u2014a system\nunconsciously produced through the play of selfish forces\u2014was a\nnecessary stage of evolution, and tended to progress so long as savage\nproclivities in the mass of the people made a closer social union\nimpossible, we have also to recognize the changes, outward and inward,\noccurring under that system. First, a rise of co-operation, both\nvoluntary and involuntary\u2014in factories and throughout business\ngenerally\u2014has taken place, causing evolution to proceed on wider lines.\nSecond, a slow, silent, unstudied, half-unconscious movement has\nadvanced, and in these days eventuated in the conception of a new system\nwhich purports to be the form that industrial evolution must assume in\nthe near future. And inasmuch as this new system is less egoistic and\nmore social than any system of competition, it will move on ethical\nlines of progress.\n\nThe present system, as we have seen, is based on private property in\nland and the instruments of production and distribution. In opposition\nto this, socialism implies that the State or people collectively should\nown the land and instruments of production and distribution. Further,\nthat the State should organize routine labour and direct the\ndistribution of produce upon this basis, and that throughout society\nsocial equality should be established and maintained.\n\nThe sentiment of justice and the feelings of sympathy and solidarity,\nwithout which no socialized society could exist, are prominent\neverywhere to-day. They manifest in philanthropic action all over the\ncountry, in constant efforts to adjust political and economic forces to\nlines of social equality and in the revolt of wage-workers, throughout\nthe civilized world, from conditions they are finding intolerable and\nwill not much longer endure.\n\nA wholly unselfish order of life is impossible still, but under any\nintelligent collectivist system, individual selfishness becomes modified\nand controlled. Hence we may confidently expect that the strong\nanti-social feelings fostered by the private property and competitive\nsystem of industry will largely subside in the greater fraternity of an\norganized socialism.\n\nIt is significant that ignorant opponents, in their wildly erroneous\ninterpretation of the theory of socialism as an equal division of money\nto all, recognize the gross injustice of the present distribution of\nwealth. The wrong and misery accruing from the individualistic system of\nindustry are widely felt and freely admitted, while the underlying\ncauses of the evil and the true remedies are not yet understood.\n\nAs regards the connexion of socialism with the theories of political\neconomy, I must shortly explain: Political economy is the science of\nwealth\u2014its production and distribution. But as the science relates\nexclusively to the present competitive system, the socialist finds in it\na full exposure of the evils involved in that system, and ample grounds\nfor striving to bring about its supersession by a system of co-operation\non a socialized property basis. There is not and there cannot be any\nconflict between a true political economy and a scientific socialism.\nThe one describes what is, the other what may be and ought to be. Both\nrecognize that wealth is produced (and it is the only possible way) by\nthe application of labour to land, and its products. In the present\nsystem, the individual possession of land and the instruments of\nproduction forms the ruling factor, producing inequality in the\ndistribution of wealth and gives the basis on which commercial\ncompetition rests. In referring to laws of political economy, it is not\nunusual to speak as if they were laws of nature, no more to be banished\nthan the law of gravitation. On this assumption there is raised the\nargument that society is forever bound to the present system, with its\npayments of rent, interest and profits out of the surplus proceeds of\nlabour. Nevertheless, it is easy to see that the so-called laws of\neconomics are only rules of social living springing from motives of\nhuman self-seeking exercised within the generally accepted conditions of\nprivate property in the essentials of life. It is not necessary for the\nsocialist to contend against any single generalization of political\neconomy; each may be true on its own basis, but, _with that basis_\nsocialism is at war. Let society relinquish the property basis, and\npolitical economy remains applicable only to the past, while in the\nfuture the motives of human self-seeking enter upon a fresh career in a\nmore altruistic system.\n\nWe must grasp the true nature of the various tributes imposed upon\nlabour\u2014rent, interest, profits and rent of ability\u2014to comprehend their\neconomic bearing. A farm is the private property of a landlord, while it\nis cultivated by a farmer and his labourers. The proceeds of the\nindustry of the two latter is divided into three portions\u2014the labourers\u2019\nwages, the landlord\u2019s rent and the farmer\u2019s profits. The first,\ndependent on demand and supply in the labour market, is kept down to\nwhat will cover the expense of a bare subsistence; and the second is\nalways the highest amount the landlord can extract above the portion the\nfarmer consents to live upon after paying the subsistence wage to his\nlabourers. A landlord\u2019s rapacity, however, is no longer the only factor\nin determining rent, since State interference has been found necessary\nfor protection of farmers in the public interests. The economic bearing\nof rent is this: it gives effect to the demands of the landlord class\nfor the results of an immense amount of labour applied to the production\nof varied commodities. As already explained, the produce sold in towns\nby farmers to pay rent goes, in large measure, to the support of workers\nwho are manufacturing luxuries, _objets de luxe_, and many meretricious\nwares that minister to the depraved taste of men and women whose\nhappiness is destroyed by a life of idleness and ennui.\n\nIt is not land only, but capital in the shape of railways, factories,\nworkshops, machinery, etc., that are held as private property. For the\nuse of these, therefore, workers pay a tribute called interest on\ncapital. This interest gives effective demand to the wants of a large\nclass of comparatively idle shareholders, who further absorb the\nservices and produce of another great army of workers. The next tribute,\nnamely profits, is a claim connected with the organizing of labour. It\nrepresents a prodigious tax levied upon workers, a tax that enables\nemployers and managers\u2014more or less wealthy\u2014to enjoy comforts and\nluxuries their employ\u00e9s can never command. The fourth tribute has been\ncalled the rent of ability. It rests on the non-ethical principle that\nsome people deserve from society a great reward for work they have\npleasure in doing, while the toilers engaged in irksome, dangerous,\ndirty, distasteful work\u2014however necessary to the whole community\u2014are\nonly entitled to a pittance wage.\n\nLet us look at the proportional value of rent, interest, profits and\nrent of ability in their relation to the reward of manual labour. Out of\nthe yearly income of the nation, recently computed at \u00a31,450,000,000,\n\u00a3510,000,000 goes in rent and interest and \u00a3410,000,000 in profits and\nsalaries to the ruling classes, while \u00a3530,000,000 only is available for\npayment of wages to manual workers. But when we consider that the latter\ncompose the great mass of the population, and the former a small section\nor fraction of it only, the enormities involved in the working of our\nproperty institutions exhibit their true colours, and the growing sense\nof justice within civilized humanity revolts wholly from the system. The\nfacts, roughly speaking, are that one-third of the total income of the\nnation goes to four-fifths of the population, while the remaining\none-fifth pockets two-thirds of the income. (See Sidney Webb in _Fabian\nTract No. 69_.)\n\nIn the Census of 1891 there were 543,038 adult men who entered\nthemselves as not working for a living. We may assume these belonged\nchiefly to the wealthy classes, and if we reckon their average incomes\nat \u00a3500 per annum, there emerges a sum of \u00a3271,519,000 as approximately\nthe value of the labour they exact each year from workers to whom they\nrender no services in return. Again, if we add to the number of these\nidle men the women and children now living on rent and interest, the\nabove computation falls far short of the reality. And, need it be said,\nthe more there is taken from workers by non-workers, the less must\nremain for the workers themselves.\n\nTo people ignorant of economic principles, the man who spends a good\nincome on personal gratifications appears\u2014in his relations to\nsociety\u2014either passive, or active beneficially, inasmuch as he \u201cgives\nemployment,\u201d and his \u201cgiving\u201d on these lines is lavish. Moreover, it is\nconsidered that the difference between rich and poor is one of _natural_\ninequality, of which, if workers complain, they are considered as\nunreasonable as the invalid who complains that other people are healthy.\nBut the facts admit of no such analogy. The rich owe everything to the\npoor. They are simply a parasitic class, and the money they spend\nrepresents a power (socially permitted) to command and absorb the labour\nof their fellows. They exact life-long services, for which they bestow\nno personal service in return. Were we to place a rich man with all his\nmoney on an uninhabited island, however fertile, he would at once be\nreduced to his natural stature. No money would cause his daily comforts\nto spring up around him, and still less the many luxuries without which\nhe feels his existence has no charm. In order to live he himself must\nwork, for he is the sole representative of the scores of fellow-men on\nwhose labour he has hitherto wholly depended for necessaries and all the\namenities of a civilized life. The absorption by one of the labour of\nmany is a social arrangement of genetic origin, and is immoral or\nnon-ethical in character.\n\nSocialism is the philosophy of a pure, wholesome, progressive industrial\nlife, to be initiated and maintained by human effort\u2014nay more, it is a\nveritable Gospel of Peace. And I use the word Gospel advisedly, for the\nfinest religious quality of human nature is not in those beings who\ncalmly pursue a course of spiritual development for themselves,\nunmindful that the physical part of their fellows craves the food and\nrest without which the latent soul within cannot manifest itself.\n\nWe have seen that in the domain of feeling the stirrings of socialism\nhave for years been agitating the bosom of society, and although the\noutcome in philanthropic action issues usually in failure, none the less\ndoes it spring from the highest and holiest motives of man. But while\nphilanthropy chiefly represents love\u2019s labour lost, there are other and\nmore virile forces in action that are indicative of a coming organic\ndemocracy. Observe, for instance, the constant efforts of the people to\nalter the political and economic strain by State interference. This\nagitation is a very significant fact. It betrays a hunger for social\njustice which will certainly increase with the growth of knowledge,\npublic spirit and sensitiveness to personal rights. This hunger can\nnever be fully appeased under any system that permits wealth to flow to\nthe lucky, the clever, the cunning, the greedy, and be handed down by\ninheritance and bequest from generation to generation. No modification\nof individualism and not even socialism will banish all popular\nagitation. Communism is the far-distant goal to which it points, for\ncommunism alone sets forth as attainable a satisfying equality in all\nthe comforts of life, and since evolution must eventuate in social\njustice, whatever falls short of this will inevitably contain some\nconditions of discontent.\n\nBut whilst a craving for justice among the masses cries out for State\ninterference, from whence comes the modern view of what justice means?\nAmong the classes it has been considered that the man who is clever,\ni.e. mentally strong, has a right to a greater reward for labour than\nthe man who is stupid. The origin of this notion is simply the fact that\nin a competitive system he is able to obtain that superior reward.\nPower, and not any ethical idea, is the foundation of the notion. The\nnotions of justice prevailing throughout society have all arisen\nnaturally in the past amid the strong and privileged few, and readily\nhave they been accepted by the docile and oppressed many. The clever,\nnot the stupid, have formed public opinion, and that under a purely\negoistic impulse. Nevertheless, as evolution passes from the unconscious\nto the self-conscious stage, reason unites with altruistic feeling to\ngive birth to new conceptions that are moulding public opinion to a\nhigher and truer form, and working out on the plane of practical action.\nThe conception of justice involved in socialism is naturally unpalatable\nto the privileged few, but it goes far to prove the truth of socialism,\nthat the conception is the fruit of the most advanced study of our\nsocial organism _as a whole_, while it coincides precisely with the\nblindly instinctive pulsations of the central mass of the people.\n\nTurning now from the moral and emotional to the economic and practical\nside of the question, we are bound to inquire by what methods transition\nfrom the present competitive commercial system of industry to the\nsocialism of the future will take effect. For, be it observed,\nsupporters of the latter system not only assert its ethical superiority,\nbut further assert that it is both practicable and economically\ninevitable.\n\nThere are two, and only two, general directions of popular reform:\nfirst, the revolutionary\u2014the driving straight at established\ninstitutions with the intention of overthrowing them; second, the\nlegislative\u2014the aiming to improve the existing system by co-operative\nmethods and the modification and gradual destruction of its worst\nfeatures, i.e. its extremes of injustice and inequality. I have to point\nout how retrograde and futile for the promotion of happiness is sudden\nrevolution. It is the spontaneous method of human passion where\nintellect is unenlightened on natural evolution and causation. It seeks\nto overturn what, for the time being, is the highest product of\nevolution, and it would blindly substitute that, which although\nethically superior, the society of the time is unable to support. The\nmethod of legislative reform, national and municipal, is the rational\none; and no other, we may confidently hope, will be tried in the\ncivilized countries of Europe so long as socialists are not harassed and\npersecuted for their opinion beyond the point of endurance.\n\nAlready, as regards legislation in this country, the power of the\nDemos\u2014the mass of the people\u2014is acutely felt. Step by step our rulers\nhave been compelled to lower the political franchise in order to quell\nrevolutionary tendency and maintain their position. Fear-forces within\nthe social organism have changed direction unnoted at the surface. The\nclasses are secretly more afraid of the people than the people are of\nthe classes; yet the actual burdens borne by the people are in no way\nlightened. And why is this so? Because the people generally are ignorant\nof their political power, and still more ignorant of how to wield it\nfavourably to their own interests. As has truly been said: \u201cThe\ndifficulty in England is not to secure more political power for the\npeople, but to persuade them to make any sensible use of the power they\nalready have.\u201d\n\nBut social forces of persuasion and enlightenment are ready prepared for\ntheir guidance. In the upper and lower sections of the middle class, men\nand women whose culture is scientific and whose moral sentiment is\nadvanced, are ranging themselves in the van of the world\u2019s progress, and\nchiefly through their efforts there is pouring into and penetrating the\ndarkness of the masses a flood of intellectual enlightenment. This\nprocess begun has its definite bearings. A growing intelligence in the\npeople will cause the displacement of all authority that is\nirresponsible. A better selection of legislators will be made, and\nthese, constrained by judicious criticism, will study the principles of\nsocial science and learn how best to attain the clear ends of\ngovernment.\n\nAs our masses rise to the full exercise of their political power and the\ndemocratic trend of the nation goes forward, no higher motive force than\nthat of self-seeking is required to secure better social conditions. Not\nonly does the ignorant self-seeking of the masses carry weight\ncommanding attention, but the intelligent self-seeking of rulers is a\nforce set in similar direction. To please the majority of constituents\nis their highest policy; and since food and leisure and education are\nthe essential needs of that majority, such available intellect as the\nlegislative body possesses will be honestly applied to promoting the\nincrease and better distribution of these various necessaries of a\ncivilized life; in short, to promoting the general well-being in so far\nas the exigencies of the times permit.\n\nI do not deny that self-seeking in rulers has hitherto mainly led to the\nclever hoodwinking of ignorant constituents. I merely assert that we\nhave rounded the point of Cape Danger in that regard. Every step we take\non democratic lines, every advance we make in educating the people,\nremoves us further from that danger point. Moreover, I assert that\nextending the Parliamentary franchise to women of every social class\nwill equally work for good. The new altruistic or philanthropic spirit\nof the age has laid firm hold of the so-called educated women of to-day.\nWhen public responsibility presses these women to self-education in\npolitics, the myriad injustices revealed will cause them to turn from\nfutile individualist charities and concentrate their energies on works\nof real and lasting social reform. We may confidently anticipate that\nthe British Parliament will become an excellent instrument of Democratic\nGovernment when certain reforms\u2014that are already widely agitated\u2014have\nbeen carried out. These reforms are that: \u201cThe House of Commons should\nbe freed from the veto of the House of Lords, and should be thrown open\nto candidates from all classes by a system of payment of representatives\nand a more rational method of election.\u201d (See _Fabian Tract No. 70_.)\n\nThere are two lines of action certain to be pursued by a Parliament\ngrowing yearly more democratic. One is the line of protection of labour,\nthe other is that of an active service of the people. Now State\ninterference with trade\u2014in the interests of workers\u2014is condemned by the\n_laissez-faire_ school of economists. Such action is scoffingly termed\n\u201cgrandmotherly legislation.\u201d It is deprecated as injurious to society as\na whole, as an outrage on the liberty of the British subject, and an\nimpious desecration of the capitalistic fetish, \u201cFreedom of Contract.\u201d\nBut when the knowledge of facts proves that on one side this so-called\nfreedom signifies freedom of choice between dire starvation and the\ndistasteful terms of an absolute master, surprise is not felt that\nintelligent men prefer what the ignorant may regard as a species of\nState bondage. This preference is a feature of the times clearly\nvisible. No doubt, where social equality reigns, individual liberty is a\nnoble attainment; but with inequality in the means of life and the\nfundamental conditions of social happiness, a State that is honestly\nstriving to restore the balance is a very _fount of justice_. The quest\nof the workers is not that of individual liberty, but of a collective\nliberty, embracing every man, woman and child within the ranks of their\nown order.\n\nThere is no moral principle that condemns State interference, although\nwe may admit that occasionally it has wrought evil instead of good.\nFailures have been caused by ignorance alike in the rulers and the\nruled. But as knowledge of the real problem advances, errors in\ngoverning will become less frequent, and the action of the State be\nmarked by a wise adaptation to human needs in view of the greatest\nhappiness possible.\n\nState regulation is simply a matter of power and expediency. At the\npresent low stage of civilization, for just so long as the ruling power\nis exercised by a propertied minority, it will prove injurious to the\nmajority; but when the power passes over to the people the evils from\nwhich the majority suffer\u2014in so far as they are remediable by\nsociety\u2014will be slowly and surely redressed. Our County, District and\nParish Councils are important instalments of democracy. These elected\nbodies, with their increasing powers, are potent to make of the\ncommunity an ever larger and larger employer of labour, until, at the\nwill of the people, all industries become absorbed, and the collectivist\nsystem of labour organization is gradually established. It is evident\nthat the instruments of a thoroughly democratic administration are\nrapidly perfecting in Great Britain; and when the ideal of socialism\ndominates the national mind, these will present a ready means of\nrealizing the ideal in practice. Ignorance of the ideal leads many minds\ninto the false assumption that the raising of wages, and to do this the\nimpoverishing of capitalists, is the socialistic _sine qu\u00e2 non_ in State\naction. But as Mrs. Bosanquet explains: \u201cIn our nineteenth century cry\nfor higher wages we are apt to lose sight of the fact that many things\nare more important to the working-man than a few shillings added to his\nweekly income. A good supply of water, well-paved and lighted streets, a\nmarket in which he can always obtain wholesome food, and properly\nguarded sanitary conditions, will do more to raise his standard of\nliving above that of his ancestors than any increase of mere money\nincome. With those he can lead a healthy, orderly life on comparatively\nsmall wages; without them no rise in wages, however desirable in itself,\nwill enable him to escape danger and disease.\u201d (_Rich and Poor_, by Mrs.\nBernard Bosanquet.)\n\nThis puts the case for municipal socialism in a nutshell. No amount of\nphilanthropy, no amount of individual action is likely to provide a\nparish with a good water supply, properly paved and lighted streets,\nsanitary dwellings and a well-managed market. (_Fabian News._) Yet these\nare fundamental requisites of general well-being, and another requisite\nfor well-being and progress, dependent upon State action, is education\nof the people. If the power of the masses and their independence of\narbitrary authority grow out of accord with their real knowledge of\nthings, disastrous and bloody revolutions become possible. That in some\nsort the State must educate the masses is a principle already\nacknowledged and acted upon. We know, too, with how little success! But\nas Government loses its evil characteristics and grows enlightened, our\nState education will be directed to new ends. Its aim will be to impress\nsuch knowledge on the rising generations as will prepare them for social\nlife, and instruct them in the means of averting misery and increasing\nhappiness. It will educate them in the science of society and true\nmeliorism, in the best methods for repressing anti-social feelings, in\nthe formation of noble ideals of conduct, and in that religion which\nunites mankind in the region of the heart and makes of their union a\nliving and growing social organism.\n\nBut while this is the aim of State education, the exact means adopted\nmay vary. Where parents are superior much may be left in their hands,\nbut inferior parents can never be permitted to train up children in\ninferior ways at the risk of lowering social purity and health.\n\nI believe the time will arrive when Government, acting on its right of\nforce and expediency, will take up and sequestrate the small class of\nsocial units who, defective by nature and evil conditions, are unable to\ncontrol the injurious tendency to propagate their kind. This degraded\nminority will be kindly dealt with and allowed all liberty not\ninconsistent with the careful guarding of public safety. The object to\nattain would be simply the putting an end to their evil stock.\n\nIn the matter of State education, as well as in that of State\ninterference with trade, objections are made on the ground of injustice.\n\u201cWhy,\u201d it is asked, \u201cshould a man without children be taxed to educate\nthe children of others? Is it not unjust that the earnings of the\nprudent should be taken to save the imprudent from the consequences of\ntheir own folly?\u201d My answer is that besides being expedient, it is not\nsocially unjust and the argument rests on the fact that the rewards of\nlife depend upon the economic conditions of society much more than upon\nindividual effort or merit. The amount of a man\u2019s income is determined\nby forces not created by justice, and over which he has no personal\ncontrol. A clever physician may command the fee of a guinea a visit. Let\nanother competent man appear in the neighbourhood and charge half a\nguinea, the first has to lower his fee or lose his patients, and if he\nlowers his fee, the sum of the incomes of the two physicians sharing the\npatients between them will be less than the amount of the single income\noriginally derived from that source. A man\u2019s gains are what the\ncompetitive system ordained by society permits him to seize, whether he\nbe working hard or not at all. Within these non-moral conditions an\nappeal to justice is irrelevant. Outside the non-moral conditions, what\njustice requires is that all men should be socially equal in respect of\ntwo things, viz. liberty and the ordinary comforts of life.\n\nIf employers do not deem it unjust to lower wages, neither should they\ndeem it unjust were the State to lower their incomes to the precise\namount their employ\u00e9s receive. Society has in the past arbitrarily\narranged conditions that favour the few; why should it not now\narbitrarily rearrange these conditions favourably to the many? If we\ntake the average amount of all incomes to represent the sum each worker\nmight justly receive, we find that a number of people have far more than\nthis sum. The surplus represents then an \u201cunearned increment\u201d obtained\nby force of circumstance. A still larger number of people, on the other\nhand, are wholly unable to win, by any effort they may make, the above\naverage amount, even if they work hard and well all their lives. Is it\nnot just and reasonable that the more fortunate are required to give up\na portion of their \u201cunearned increment\u201d in order that in the interests\nof society the children of the less fortunate should be educated? And,\nagain, the improvident and immoral are nature\u2019s defective children. Does\nnot the highest religion demand that they should be tenderly dealt with\nand spared\u2014if that be possible\u2014all the tortures that nature unaided\nwould bring upon them.\n\nI believe that, under conscious evolution, the State will become in its\naction more and more philanthropic, simply for this reason\u2014its members\nwill become more and more humane and public-spirited.\n\nVoluntary and State agency, however, will continue to co-exist. Each has\nits peculiar merits and demerits, and each individual case to be dealt\nwith has its peculiar conditions. Science and experience must in each\ncase therefore decide which agency applies best. There is no foregone\nconclusion that under State Socialism all private industries will\ncollapse. The principle of the system is that no method of industry,\nhurtful to society as a whole, may exist, and the power of the State\nshall be rigorously used to protect the interests of the whole, as\nagainst conflicting individual interests. Even now it is felt, through\nthe growing democratic spirit, that for our public bodies to take\nadvantage of the struggle for employment of starving, hard-pressed men\nand women, is a national disgrace. It will soon be a point of honour\nwith the nation to fix a minimum wage for public employ\u00e9s much above the\ncompetitive rate. Some County Councils have already been moved to direct\nthat workers employed by them, or under their contracts, should be paid\ntrade-union wages. Parliament has in some cases acted similarly, and\nwhen we remember that Government at this moment is the largest employer\nof labour in the kingdom, we realize that its example in giving wages\ndetermined more by equity than by competition will have a raising effect\nupon wages in private employment.\n\nThere is not any danger, however, that the movement of taking over the\nindustries of the country by the State will stop short of the most\nfavourable point. As I write this chapter, the following paragraph has\nappeared in a socialist journal of to-day: \u201cIt is proposed to establish\na gigantic trust to control the entire iron-producing interests of the\nUnited States. This, of course, is eminently proper from an economic\nview, as it is a clearly demonstrated fact that production on a large\nscale is cheaper than production on a small scale. Carnegie, Rockefeller\nand Morgan, proposers of the iron trust, are, from a certain standpoint,\nbenefactors of the race, inasmuch as they will demonstrate the\npracticability of the co-operative idea on a national scale in\nproduction. In due time the people will recognize the folly of allowing\nthese men to reap the whole profits, and the system will be readjusted.\u201d\n\nAnother important public event was the introduction into the British\nParliament of an Employer\u2019s Liability Bill. \u201cThis Bill proceeds,\u201d said\nits introducer, \u201con the principle that when a person for his own profit\nsets in motion agencies which create risks for others, he ought to be\ncivilly responsible.\u201d (_The Scotsman_ Report, May 4, 1897.) Now it goes\nwithout saying that the iron trust, and all trusts and commercial rings\nand monopolies, create the risk of a disastrous rise of prices to the\ngeneral public, and a consequent greater inequality of wealth possession\nthan even that from which we are suffering acutely to-day. A logical\nexecutive, holding the above principle, will inevitably annex to the\nState these huge outgrowths of the competitive system, will keep down\nprices to the level required by the general interests, and apply profits\nto the good of all.\n\nThat the time is not far distant when nationalization of the land will\ntake place, appears from the fact that many others besides socialists\nadvocate the measure. But we must not suppose that rent will be\nabrogated. The State will impose a charge on the fertile and well\nsituated lands to create conditions that are fair not only to consumers\nbut to cultivators, whose labour in view of a given result must vary\naccording to the superiority or inferiority of soils and situations.\nDistrict Councils will in all probability organize agricultural labour,\nthe State only drawing a rent; while to present owners of the land\ncompensation will be made, and, if accustomed to work on the land,\nsalaried positions in the new order offered.\n\nThe rent exacted by the State may become the single form of taxation\nnecessary for purposes of administration and for organized labour\nengaged on such service of the people as does not bring in any profit.\nBut when routine industries bearing on universal needs belong to the\nState, profits will flow into the national exchequer. It will be\npossible to gradually increase the State\u2019s payment for labour as the\nworkers become more capable of elevating their standard of life and\nconsuming wisely; while the surplus profits will be available for the\norganizing of new services to be rendered free.\n\nThe carriage and distribution of letters is a comparatively long\nestablished State industry. The carriage of human beings should equally\nbecome so. The State\u2019s taking over of railways and the municipalities\u2019\ntaking over of tramways cannot be much longer delayed.\n\nBread baking and distributing by Government employ\u00e9s is pre-eminently\ndesirable, to put an end to adulteration in a primary necessary of life\nand to prevent the waste of energy which takes place in the present\ndisorganized system. Already there is such a general complaint of the\nquality of bakers\u2019 bread, that an approved method of baking from pure\nflour under State control would be welcomed by all who perceive how the\nracial blood is more or less poisoned and its vitality lowered by what\nis called \u201cthe staff of life.\u201d (A prolonged process of baking breaks up\nthe starch granules, and renders bread more digestible. The extra\nexpense and trouble precludes the adoption of this method by private\nbakers.)\n\nAgain, the health of the nation suffers cruelly from poison germs\ncarried in the medium of milk. But when district councils have organized\nagricultural labour, dairy produce will be distributed under strict\nGovernment control. Emulation will spring up among local authorities all\nover the country to excel one another in the arts of rapidly acquiring\nand skilfully managing all industries that affect general health, and\nthus raising the tide of life within the bounds of their jurisdiction.\nWith this aim broadly accomplished, the minor industries might safely be\nleft for some time in private hands and under a competition modified in\na greater degree than now by State inspection for the benefit of workers\nand consumers.\n\nAmong services to be made free to the public, those of transit bulk\nlargely and should probably come first\u2014free railway and steamship\nservice, free tramway and cable-car service, to be followed in time by a\nmore or less complete service of free entertainments calculated to\ndevelop art and promote a happy, joyous life.\n\nIf we cast our thoughts forward and try to realize the action and\ninteraction of these altered social conditions upon society, we can\nhardly mistake the nature of the changes humanity itself will undergo.\nWith the destruction of the frightful incubus of poverty, human hearts\nwill no longer be wrung by anguish, bitterness, despair. With\nopportunity freely afforded for regular employment and its ample reward,\nfor decent and wholesome living, and a civic life brightened by many\npure pleasures, the degrading and false excitements will cease to\nallure. Drunkenness, vice, crime will greatly diminish. Instead of the\ndesperate struggle for bread and all that appertains to an animal life\npure and simple, a new struggle will arise\u2014a benign, inspiring emulation\nto attain to and acquire the noble qualities of humanity, the\ndistinctive characteristics of, not the lower animal, but the higher\nspiritual man.\n\nRespecting the form of government in a Socialistic State, I cannot do\nbetter than quote Mr. J. A. Hobson: \u201cA developed organic democracy will\nhave evolved a specialized \u2018head,\u2019 an expert official class, which shall\ndraft laws upon information that comes to them from innumerable sources\nthrough class and local representation, and shall administer the\ngovernment, subject to protests similarly conveyed.\u201d \u201cThe conditions of\na really effective expert officialism are two: such real equality of\neducational opportunities as shall draw competent officials from the\nwhole people; and such a growth of public intelligence and conscience as\nshall establish the real final control of government for society in its\nfull organic structure.\u201d (_Contemporary Review_, February, 1902.)\n\n\n\n\n _PART II_\n THE PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE SUBJECT\n\n\nThe laws of heredity constitute the most important agency whereby the\nvital forces, the vigour and soundness of the physical system, are\nchanged for better or worse.\u2014NATHAN ALLEN, M.D., LL.D.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I\n THE LAW OF POPULATION\n\n The population question is the real riddle of the Sphinx, to which no\n political Oedipus has as yet found the answer. In view of the ravages\n of the terrible monster over-multiplication all other riddles sink\n into insignificance.\u2014HUXLEY.\n\n\nNo human life can be maintained without food, and no healthy individual\nlife can be maintained without good food in sufficient quantity;\ntherefore, the relation of numbers to the actual food supply\u2014in other\nwords, the Population Question\u2014stands at the threshold of our social\ninquiries and at the base of all social reform.\n\nAt the beginning of last century, Malthus, who knew nothing of\nevolution, expounded the doctrine that man tends to increase more\nrapidly than the means of subsistence; that population and food, like\ntwo runners of unequal swiftness chained together, advance side by side,\nbut the pace or natural rate of increase of the former is so immensely\nsuperior to that of the latter that it is necessarily greatly checked.\nAnd the checks are of two kinds. They are either positive\u2014that is,\ndeaths occur from famine, accident, war or disease, and keep down the\npopulation so that the means of subsistence are just sufficient to\nenable the poorer classes barely to exist; or they are preventive\u2014that\nis, fewer births take place than man is capable of causing.\n\nThis doctrine was a fertile germ of thought in the mind of Charles\nDarwin. He, while conscious to some extent of the process of evolution,\nwas grappling with the great problems of differentiation and genesis of\nspecies. How came it that the life which is assumed to develop from low\nand simple to the highest and most complex forms everywhere exhibited\nbreaks, or sudden changes, in the apparently natural order? Darwin\nperceived that a key to the enigma lay in the marvellous fecundity of\norganisms. Each group reproduced its kind in overflowing numbers, and\naccidental conditions destroyed individuals and groups that failed to\nsecure sufficient food or to protect themselves from enemies. Here were\nfactors of progress, but factors by no means admirable\u2014a murderous\nslaughter of the weak, a frantic struggle for existence, culminating in\nviolent death or slow starvation, ultimately in extinction.\nNevertheless, the medal had two sides, for the race is to the swift, the\nbattle to the strong; bread is the portion of the wise, favour the\nreward of skill. Should we feel surprise that in a semi-theological and\nmetaphysical era, rather than a scientific one, Darwin formulated his\ngreat discovery in terms suggesting not a cruel, but a beneficent\nNature? His law of natural selection, or survival of the fittest,\nestablished itself in many minds as a sacred principle that man could\nneither deny nor seek to counteract.\n\nNow this conception, carried into the field of economics, confused the\nminds of men engaged in the study of facts and problems of human life\nand progress. Political economists had to contemplate a social strife\nand struggle for existence among men as fierce and relentless as that\nholding sway in the brute kingdom. And in this struggle society as a\nwhole stood on the side of external nature as opposed to the mass of\nstriving individuals. A genetic, spontaneously developed system of\nindustry favoured a high birth-rate that kept wages low, an unscrupulous\nexploitation of labour in the interests of capital, a wholesale\nslaughter of infants, a crushing out or trampling down of the weak, and\na perpetual grinding of the face of the poor, while, simultaneously,\nwealth was multiplying and capital becoming concentrated and easy of\ncontrol by the so-called princes of industry. Conditions of life to the\ngreat mass of the people were fraught with constant misery; yet, since\nDarwin had demonstrated\u2014in his _Origin of Species_, published in\n1858\u2014that a struggle for existence eventuates in the survival of the\nfittest, enlightened thinkers, with a few rare exceptions, accepted the\ncruel facts of industrial life without any conscious moral revolt from\nthe system.\n\n\u201c_Laissez-faire_\u201d was the logical outcome of Darwinian law applied to\nhuman affairs, and Darwin\u2019s authority dominated the public mind of the\nperiod. Christianity was teaching the principle that the poor would be\nwith us always; a poet cheerfully sang \u201cGod\u2019s in His Heaven; All\u2019s right\nwith the world; All\u2019s love and all\u2019s law,\u201d and political economists\nexpounded the laws of demand and supply, of rent, of wages, of profits,\nof interest, etc., without one hint or surmise that man himself was\nbound to interfere with the action of derivative laws, to modify or even\nannul them.\n\nMeanwhile an instinct of sympathy, rudimentary in primitive man, was\nsteadily growing and strengthening during all the transitions of tribal,\nvillage-communal, feudal and national life, in the stormy militant\nepoch, till the moment arrived when it compelled man\u2019s interference.\nSpontaneously, impulsively, individual philanthropy interposed between a\nsuffering humanity on the one hand, and on the other external nature and\na social system that were alike relentless. It supported the weak and\nhelped the unfit to survive. It deliberately selected the half-starved,\nthe diseased, the criminals, and enabled them to exist and propagate.\nFinally it forced society to make laws subversive of the policy of\n\u201c_laissez-faire_,\u201d thereby introducing a new order of things,\nirrespective of all doctrinaire principles or authoritative teaching.\nThat new order of things is socialism, and the genesis of socialism is\ndistinctly to be traced to the vital element in human nature\u2014unselfish\nsympathy.\n\nThe rise and progress of philanthropic action carries momentous issues\nin various directions, both unfavourable and favourable to human\nwelfare. It has made the law of natural selection and survival of the\nfittest obsolete for us as applied to man. It tends to a lowering of the\nlevel of average health and a gradual _degenerating of the race_ through\nselection of the unfit, and through the power of hereditary\ntransmission. It counteracts the positive or destructive checks to the\nincrease of population, and thereby extends the area of general misery.\nNevertheless, at the same time, it increases the strength and the\nsolidarity of human society, and becomes a new law of life. That law may\nbe called \u201cSympathetic Selection\u201d and \u201cSurvival of the Gentle.\u201d Darwin\nin 1878 acknowledged its existence. He recognized it as a law in human\nsociety superseding that of Natural Selection and Survival of the\nFittest.\n\nIn 1801 the population of England and Wales was 8,892,536, or let us say\nabout nine millions. Eighty years later it had risen to about twenty-six\nmillions! The increase showed an accelerated rate according to the\ncensus returns. Whereas in the ten years between 1841 and 1851 the\npercentage of increase was 12\u00b765, in those from 1861 to 1871 it was\n13\u00b719, and between 1871 and 1881 it was 14\u00b734. In the United Kingdom in\n1900 there has been an increase of 18 per cent. since 1880.\n\nNow Malthus had pointed out that with conditions of life comparatively\nfavourable, and an increase of food supply comparatively easy,\npopulation was found to double itself in twenty-five years or less. Our\nnumbers during these eighty years had been, roughly speaking, trebled!\nand the increase took place under conditions not favourable but\nunfavourable to the bulk of the nation. Manufacturing industries had\nenabled us to purchase food from abroad, and consequently a larger\nnumber of children survived. Food, however, cannot always be forthcoming\nin greater and greater abundance from countries that need more and more\nof their own food supply, and which, by manufacturing for themselves,\nare gradually reducing their demand for our manufactured commodities.\n\nNotwithstanding this patent fact, there are social reformers to-day who\npersist in ignoring the population difficulty, and there are thinkers\nwho, basing their views on Herbert Spencer\u2019s dictum that \u201cman\u2019s\nfertility will be checked by his individuation,\u201d pass it over lightly.\nGenerally speaking, however, the public conscience is now aroused, and\nenlightened men and women are tolerably well alive to the fundamental\nnature and the grave importance of the population question.\n\n\u201cIn some parts of the United States of America,\u201d says an able writer,\n\u201cpopulation has actually doubled itself, apart from immigration, in\ntwenty-five years; and this in the face of the ordinary retarding\ninfluences. If such a rate of increase upon the present population of\nthe whole globe were to prevail for only 250 years, there would be left\nbut one square yard of standing room for each individual.\u201d\n\nAgain: \u201cIf we grant that a scientific treatment of crops would enable\nfood supplies to keep pace with population, and for this purpose\nsupposing that all the land in the planet Jupiter were available for a\nmarket garden, it would not ultimately be want of food but want of room\nthat would put a stop to the increase of the multitude.\u201d But further,\nthe above author\u2014a mathematician\u2014examines what the potentiality of\nincrease represents on the supposition that each individual merely died\nthe natural death of old age. \u201cUnder such favourable conditions as the\nabsence of war, famine and disease, the race might treble its numbers in\nthirty years. To show the significance of the numerical law, let us\nimagine it to operate undisturbed 3,000 years upon the progeny of a\nsingle pair. The number of human beings finally existing would be\nexpressed by twice the 100th power of 3. An easy computation will show\nthat if these people were packed together, allowing six cubic feet of\nspace for each person, they would fill up the whole solar system in\nevery direction, and extend beyond it to a distance 430 times that of\nthe planet Neptune. In fact, a solid sphere of human beings would be\nformed having a diameter of 2,400,000,000,000 miles. Such considerations\nlead us to realize the absolute inevitableness of Nature\u2019s checks upon\nreproduction.\u201d (_Social Evolution and the Evolution of Socialism_, by\nGeorge Shoobridge Carr, M.A., Cantab.)\n\nTurning now from scientific speculation to recognized authority in\npractical politics, let me quote from a paper read at the\nRegistrar-General\u2019s office on March 18, 1890, by Dr. William Ogle,\nSuperintendent of Statistics: \u201cThe population of England and Wales is,\nas we all know, growing in a most formidable manner, and though persons\nmay differ in their estimates of the time when that growth will have\nreached its permissible limits, no one can doubt that, if the present\nrate of increase be maintained, the date of that event cannot possibly\nbe very remote.\u201d\n\nPremising that the rate of increase is not due to the birth-rate only,\nbut also to a fall in the death-rate, and that voluntary philanthropy\nand State interference influence the latter, we pass to the\nconsideration of conditions that affect the marriage-rate\u2014consequently\nthe birth-rate\u2014in the artisan and labouring classes, composing the bulk\nof the nation. The Registrar-General, in his report for the year 1876,\nwrote as follows: \u201cThe state of trade and national industry is\nstrikingly exhibited in the fluctuations of the marriage-rate of the\nlast nine years.... The period of commercial distress, which began about\nthe middle of 1866 and continued during five years ... influenced the\nmarriage-rates of these years, which were 17\u00b75, 16\u00b75, 16\u00b71, 15\u00b79, 16\u00b71\nand 16\u00b77 (in the 1,000) respectively. In 1872 and 1873 the working\nclasses became excited under the rapid advance of wages and the\ndiminution of the hours of labour, and the marriage-rates rose to 17\u00b75\nand 17\u00b76 respectively.\u201d In his report for 1881 the Registrar-General\nagain accentuated this important point: \u201cThe marriage-rate reflects with\nmuch accuracy the condition of public welfare.\u201d And further on: \u201cThe\nbirth-rate was at its maximum in 1876, and fell uninterruptedly from\nthat date year by year in natural accordance with the corresponding\ndecline in the marriage-rate.\u201d These years represented another period of\ncommercial depression. We have here then incontrovertible proof of the\nnational tendency. The mass of our people increase their numbers so soon\nas they are more comfortable, and the marriage-rate for each year may be\ncalled the pulse or indicator of the nation\u2019s economic well-being. Its\nfluctuations coincide with the upward and downward movements of\ncommercial activity.\n\nIn this connexion we have also to note that the most rapid growth of our\npopulation is taking place in the great industrial centres, the mining,\nmanufacturing and trading districts; and the type that there prevails is\nnecessarily affecting the British race.\n\nBy the Parliamentary return of marriages, births and deaths registered\nin England and Wales in the year 1881, it appeared that in different\ndistricts the percentages of marriages varied considerably. It was\ngreater in the mining, manufacturing and trading districts than in the\nfarming districts, and much higher in London than in the provinces. In\nthe district comprising Hertford, Buckingham, Oxford, Bedford,\nCambridge, the rate equalled twelve persons per annum for each thousand\nof the population. In London it was eighteen persons for each thousand,\nand in the divisions which comprise Yorkshire and Lancashire the rate\nwas sixteen and seventeen persons to each thousand. As regards births,\nthe proportions stated were somewhat similar. In London there were\nthirty-five births to one thousand of the population, whilst in the\nsoutheastern division there were only thirty-one; but the rate rose\nagain to thirty-five and thirty-six in the great manufacturing districts\nof the Midlands and the North.\n\nDr. Ogle\u2019s examination of statistics on the subject shows that this\nstate of things has continued, in its main features, up to the present\nday. \u201cMen marry,\u201d he says, \u201cin greater numbers when trade is brisk. The\nfluctuations in the marriage-rate follow the fluctuations in the amount\nof industrial employment.\u201d \u201cThe rates vary very greatly in the different\nregistration counties.\u201d \u201cIn London the rate is invariably high. Almost\nall the counties in which the marriage-rate is high are counties in\nwhich the population is also high of women engaged in industrial\noccupations, and therefore presumably in receipt of independent wages,\nwhile all the counties in which the marriage-rate is very low are also\ncounties in which but a very small population of the women are\nindustrially occupied.\u201d The general drift of the figures leads to the\nconclusion that early marriage is most common where there is the largest\namount of employment for women.\n\nThe age at which marriage takes place is examined by Dr. Ogle as \u201ca\nsubject of scarcely less importance than the rate in its bearing upon\nthe growth of the population.\u201d And the point is of special interest in\nview of the fact that delayed marriage was valued by Malthus as a\ndesirable preventive check. Dr. Ogle finds that the lowest average age\nat marriage for both bachelors and spinsters, viz., 25\u00b76 and 24\u00b72\nrespectively, was in 1873, the year in which the marriage-rate was\nhighest; and from that date to the present time the ages have gone up\ngradually but progressively in harmony with the general decline in the\nmarriage-rate. In 1888 the average age of bachelors at marriage was 26\u00b73\nyears, and of spinsters was 24\u00b77.\n\nObserve of late years there has been a slight decline of the\nmarriage-rate and a certain retardation of marriage, consequently the\nbirth-rate has fallen, but says Dr. Ogle, \u201cso also has the death-rate,\nand almost in equal amount; so that the balance between the two, or\nnatural increment of the population, has practically scarcely changed.\nWe may,\u201d he observes, \u201cdismiss altogether the notion that any adequate\ncheck to the increase of population is hereafter to be found in\nretardation of marriage. Such retardation may defer the day when a\nstationary population will be necessary, but, when that day has come,\nwill be insufficient to prevent further growth. If a stationary\npopulation is to be obtained by simple diminution of the marriage-rate,\nthat rate would have to be reduced 45 per cent. below the lowest point\nit has ever yet reached. In short, almost one-half of those who marry\nwould have to remain permanently celibate. This seems as hopeless a\nremedy as the retardation.\u201d He makes clearer still this important\nmatter: \u201cIf one-quarter of the women who now marry were to remain\npermanently celibate, and the remaining three-quarters were to retard\ntheir marriages for five years, the birth-rate would be reduced to the\nlevel of the present death-rate. It is manifest that if the growth of\npopulation is hereafter to be arrested ... by increase of permanent\ncelibacy, or by retardation of marriage, these remedies will have to be\napplied on a scale so enormously in excess of any experience as to\namount to a social revolution.\u201d\n\nWhat, then, is the present position?\n\nPopulation tends to increase faster than actual subsistence. Obviously\nit cannot outrun the supply of food because people cannot live upon\nnothing. There ensues therefore a state of chronic starvation among the\nmost helpless, and premature deaths keep population reduced to the means\nof subsistence.\n\nLet us glance at facts concerning London alone. London now contains over\n4,300,000 persons. Three hundred thousand of these earn less than 18s.\nper week per family, and live in a chronic state of want. One person in\nevery five will die in the workhouse, hospital, or lunatic asylum.\nMoreover, the percentage is increasing. Considering that comparatively\nfew of the deaths are those of children, it is probable that one of\nevery four London adults will be driven into these refuges to die.\n\nOne in every eleven of the whole population is a pauper. One in every\nfive of persons over 65 is a pauper. The appalling statistics of the\npauperism of the aged are carefully concealed in all official returns.\nIn 1885 Canon Blackley found that 42\u00b77 per cent. of deaths of persons\nover 60 in twenty-five rural parishes were those of paupers. Very many\nchildren in the Board Schools go to school without sufficient food\nunless supplied gratuitously. Over 30,000 persons in London have no home\nbut the fourpenny \u201cdoss-house\u201d or the causal ward. (_Fabian Tracts_,\nNos. 10 and 17.)\n\nThe death-rate of children in the poorest districts of the East End of\nLondon is three times as great as among the rich at the West End. In\nbarbarous ages the death-rate was, as far as we can learn, far higher\nthan now, and even now the death-rate of children in Russia is extremely\nhigh.\n\nWe have little cause to rejoice in the absence of famine, pestilence and\nwar so long as the lowering of the death-rate\u2014by sanitation, the\nhospital system and the outcome generally of sympathetic\nfeeling\u2014increases the proportion of human beings in a state of chronic\nwant, and produces a gradual enfeeblement and deterioration of the human\nrace. Yet it is inconceivable that rationalized man could withhold his\nefforts to reduce the death-rate in the future because of the fatal\neffects of his philanthropic action in the past.\n\nDarwin acknowledged this dilemma. In the year 1878 he somewhat sadly\nwrote: \u201cThe evils that would follow by checking benevolence and sympathy\nin not fostering the weak and diseased would be greater than by allowing\nthem to survive and procreate.\u201d Ten years later Professor Huxley wrote:\n\u201cSo long as unlimited multiplication goes on, no social organization\nwhich has ever been devised, no fiddle-faddling with the distribution of\nwealth, will deliver society from the tendency to be destroyed by the\nreproduction within itself in its intensest form of that struggle for\nexistence, the limitation of which is the object of society.\u201d\n(_Nineteenth Century_, February, 1888.)\n\nFurther than this he did not go; Huxley, like Darwin, brings us up to\nthe dilemma and leaves us there. Not such, however, is the position of\nall scientific men in the present day. \u201cWe stand on the threshold of a\nnew departure in social evolution,\u201d says the author already quoted, \u201ca\nnew and potent factor in the process is about to make itself felt. This\nfactor is man\u2019s intellect.... The intelligence of man will act\nintelligently; population will not be subjected to mere haphazard\nrestriction; it will be regulated with a wise adaptation of means to an\nend.\u201d (_Social Evolution and the Evolution of Socialism_, G. S. Carr,\npp. 65, 66.) Man\u2019s intelligence already perceives the right policy to\npursue. It is to lower the birth-rate, to limit births to a proportion\nconformable with the food supply; in other words, to create a painless,\ninstead of a painful, equalization of births and deaths.\n\nIs there any other means of escape from the existent dilemma? I answer,\nthere is none. Emigration has sometimes been regarded as an efficient\ncheck to over-population, and Dr. Ogle allows that \u201chitherto some of the\nexcess of births over deaths has been met by emigration, or rather by\nexcess of emigration over immigration; but never on such a scale as to\nfree the country from more than one-twentieth part of its redundant\ngrowth.\u201d Moreover, this minimum of good is counterbalanced by evil, for\nemigration \u201ccarries off the more vigorous and enterprising of our\nworking men to the necessary deterioration of the residue left at home.\u201d\nAnd further: \u201cThe facilities for successful emigration are yearly\ndiminishing; the time must inevitably come\u2014sooner or later\u2014when this\nmeans of reducing our population will altogether fail us.\u201d\n\nIn view of the obvious tendency of better conditions\u2014when brought\nabout\u2014to create a reduction of the death-rate and an acceleration of the\nbirth-rate, eventuating in an increase of general misery, neither\nMalthus, Darwin, Huxley, nor any other great teacher of the past, has\ngiven us applicable and available counsel. There only remains for us now\nto consider Herbert Spencer\u2019s opinion regarding this all-important\nmatter. He is credited with the demonstration of a law of population\nwider than the laws discerned by Malthus and Darwin. The law is this:\n\u201cOther things equal, multiplication and individuation vary inversely,\ni.e. the rate of reproduction of all living things becomes lowered as\nthe development is raised, and conversely.\u201d (Lecture on \u201cClaims of\nLabour,\u201d Edin., 1886, Patrick Geddes.)\n\nWe have to do with this so-called law in respect only of its bearing on\npractical action. The corollary deduced from it is: Individuate, educate\nand refine your masses, for the rate of increase will fall as organisms\nrise in the scale of culture.\n\nNow what are our prospects of any rapid advance in individuation\n(development and culture) among the seething masses of a people who are\nhelpless and frightfully overcrowded by the action of the very law which\nindividuation is to counteract? In how long a period will the process be\nlikely to take effect? It is on the answer to these questions that the\nworth of the principle as a law of practical guidance for humanity must\ndepend.\n\nAccepting it as a fact that in the families of our higher classes the\naverage number is distinctly smaller than in the families of our lower\nclasses, let us look for a moment at some of the causes creating this\ndifference. First, in the higher classes men may have mistresses whose\nchildren are unacknowledged; and frequently they form the marriage tie\nwith heiresses whose hereditary tendency is necessarily\u2014as expounded by\nFrancis Galton\u2014towards sterility. Second, women of the higher classes\nare often delicate. They cannot support the strain of frequent\nmaternity. Is this a condition that, in an advancing civilization, will\npersist? By no means. The ideal of womanhood, as of manhood, points to\nstrength, not weakness\u2014\u201ca combination of brain power and skill with\nbodily health and vigour. Many intellectual men are physically robust\nand capable in a polygamous state of patriarchal propagation.\u201d\n(_Over-population_, John M. Robertson.) And it is impossible to doubt\nthat a rational education, embracing free play to activities hitherto\ndenied to the sex, and promoting physical development, will lift women\nto a superior level of health and of physiological capacity. Third, the\nhigher classes avail themselves to some extent of neo-Malthusian\npreventive checks, whereas the mass of the people are either ignorant of\nthem or opposed to their use. Fourth, enforced celibacy in the case of a\nlarge proportion of women of the cultured classes is a cause of\nrelatively fewer numbers. Obviously it is from the \u201cwarrens of the poor\u201d\nthat prolific life persistently springs. There we have the highest rate\nof genesis; and as the refined restrain propagation and limit their\nnumbers, the poor enter the breach and fill up the ranks from their own\ninferior stock. Now, mark the result. The individuating process is\nchecked, and ultimately fails, through the crowding out of the\nindividuated. What occurs, naturally, inevitably, by the action of the\nprocess is a gradual subsidence, finally a limiting of the individuating\nfactor, the very social force to which Herbert Spencer directs\nattention! Surely it suffices to point out \u201cthat no theory of the\nultimate effects of mere refinement on rate of increase can give us help\nwhile nine-tenths of the human race are not refined, and not visibly in\nthe way of becoming so.\u201d (_Over-population_, John M. Robertson.)\n\nWe are compelled to dismiss Herbert Spencer\u2019s \u201claw of population\u201d as\nirrelevant to the situation, and to declare that he has no more solved\nthe riddle of the Sphinx than have Malthus, Darwin and Huxley.\n\nThe population problem, as it faces us to-day, is serious beyond all\ncomparison. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of finding\nits true solution. But while thousands of men and women are ready now to\nadmit the seriousness, nowhere as yet has a movement appeared of united\naction applicable and adequate to the exigency.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II\n THE PROBLEM OF SEX\n\n How glorious will be the awakening when man\u2019s desires will be\n honoured, his passions utilized, his labour exalted, whilst life is\n loved, and ever and ever creates love afresh.\u2014ZOLA.\n\n\nThe Law of Population derives its force from an innate, powerful\ninstinct or passion in man, the unguarded exercise of which brings about\nreproduction of the species. The thing therefore of greatest importance\nto general well-being is the discovery of means whereby to prevent this\nimperious instinct dominating and controlling the reproductive\nconditions\u2014which imperatively need to be governed by reason and moral\nsense.\n\nThe sexual instinct, irresponsibly exercised, keeps population up to the\nmargin of the means of subsistence\u2014whatever that may be at the\ntime\u2014perpetuates disease, constitutional weakness and inherited taint,\nand frustrates the community\u2019s best efforts to make life easier and\nhappier to all.\n\nMy immediate purpose is to show that the prevention of all this evil is\npossible, for rational man may slowly and surely guide the above vital\ninstinct into a new course\u2014a course that will lead to the redemption of\nhis physical nature, the purifying and elevating of his intellectual and\nemotional nature, and the direct creation of social virtue and\nhappiness.\n\nI must first point out the obstacles standing in the way of this\nfundamental far-reaching readjustment. There is a fatal ignorance of the\ntrue nature of the instinct in question, there is an obstinate prejudice\nthat prevents frank discussion of the subject, there is Puritan or\nascetic feeling that shuns pleasure as evil, and there is an optimistic\nfatalism which, basing itself on Darwinian law\u2014already superseded by\nman\u2019s interference\u2014persists in the _laissez-faire_ policy, however\nsuicidal.\n\nSexual relations form the background of human life and are the primary\nsources of our finest emotions. Therefore the instinct that prompts to\nsex-union ought to hold a supremely honourable place in public\nestimation, and be carefully guarded from reproach and every hurtful or\ndegrading condition. This great factor in physical and emotional life\nstands, at present, in disgrace. It is ignominiously repressed, it\nproduces heart-rending misery and unmitigated evil. Publicly and in\ncurrent literature, either it is ignored (hypocritically) or misjudged\nand condemned; and all the time privately it is intensely felt; and in\nevery direction throughout society its licentious, furtive indulgence\nswirls into the vicious circles of destruction, the broken hearts and\nlives of women, the fallen dignity and besmirched consciences of men.\n\nIf we look at the matter of sexual intercourse calmly and in the light\nof pure reason alone, we must perceive that its intrinsic qualities are\ngood, not evil. It creates happiness in the giving and receiving of\npleasure, and the physiological exaltation connected with pleasure\npromotes individual health and buoyancy. To quote Herbert Spencer:\n\u201cPleasure increases vitality and raises the tide of life.\u201d If man \u201ceats\nand drinks immoderately,\u201d said W. R. Greg, \u201cnature punishes him with\ndyspepsia and disease; but nature never forbids him to eat when he is\nhungry and to drink when he is thirsty, provided he does so with\ndiscretion. Indeed, she punishes him equally if he abstains, as if he\nexceeds.\u201d Mr. Greg further showed that the action of nature is precisely\nsimilar in respect of the sexual function. If man indulges to excess, he\nis punished by premature exhaustion, with appropriate maladies, not\notherwise however. On the contrary, enforced and total abstinence is\npunished often, if not habitually, by \u201cnervous disturbance and suffering\nand by functional disorder.\u201d (_Enigmas of Life_, Chapter II.) Observe\nalso the sexual desire \u201cis the especial one of all our animal wants\nwhich is redeemed from animalism by being blended with our strongest and\nleast selfish affections; which is ennobled by its associations in a way\nin which the appetites of eating and drinking and sleeping can never be\nennobled in a degree to which the pleasures of the eye and ear can be\nennobled only by assiduous and lofty culture.\u201d (_Enigmas of Life._ W. R.\nGreg, p. 71.) We have no fastidious recoil from eating and drinking\nbecause these are merely animal functions. We take pains to improve our\nmethods of preparing food, and we embellish our repasts with\nsuper-sensual surroundings in order to elevate the nutritive functions\nand free them from grossness or brutality. The fundamentally animal\nnature of sexual passion does not imply brutality, it is sociable to a\nfar greater degree than eating or drinking, and this element of\nsociality purifies and ennobles, causing the function to become the\nbasis of tender unselfish love. In its physiological aspect we may rest\nassured that the average normal human being has as little inherent\ntendency to sexual excess as to gluttony or drunkenness.\n\nBut apart from the question of excess, an attitude of mind towards the\nwhole subject is common which must be condemned. This attitude consists\nof an element of shame, misnamed delicacy, and a sense of moral\nsuperiority. Women chiefly cherish the feeling, but men pay homage to\nit, with the result that in no friendly communion of men and women does\nit seem compatible with good taste to discuss questions of sex.\n\nAll vulgar allusions to love, all flippant talk on the subject of sex\nare distinctly contrary to good taste, they dishonour human nature, but\nI submit that it is an outrage on common sense, and an immoral action,\nwhen students of the Population\u2014or any other grave social question\u2014allow\nthis spurious delicacy to interfere with their facing the whole facts of\nlife, or to bias judgment in reasoning from the facts.\n\nOn the publication of my previous volume, _Scientific Meliorism and the\nEvolution of Happiness_, in 1885, a woman of superior intellect and\nattainments reviewed the book. One passage in her criticism stands thus:\n\u201cA certain instinct that in such matters the instinct of reprobation is\nas healthy as it is superficially unreasonable, may make one sicken at\nthe suggestions of neo-Malthusianism.\u201d (_The Academy_ of May 15th,\n1886.) Such squeamishness is no indication of health or good taste. Its\nunreasonableness condemns it, and the source from which it springs is\nprejudice induced through specific conditions. The reviewer appears to\nsuspect as much, for, later she remarks: \u201cOne cannot put down the book\nwithout a greatly increased sense of the supreme necessity of\ncriticizing all established theories and institutions and of the supreme\nduty of refraining from precipitate action.\u201d This is a sentiment one can\nendorse, and I appeal to all my readers, especially to women, to refrain\nfrom forming any judgment on any part of this difficult, all-important\nproblem, until they have mastered the subject in all its aspects. To\npursue the opposite course is to act irrationally and immorally. It\ncauses to spring up in other minds the prejudice which distorts and\ndisguises truth.\n\nIn nutritive functions, all repulsive animalism becomes overborne, as\nhuman nature refines and civilizes, and in a profounder sense the\nbrutality of sex-passion vanishes through the growth of a higher love,\nwhich has for its dominant quality\u2014not eagerness for possession\u2014but\nunselfish tenderness. This tenderness, permeating the individual and\nextending its benign influence into society, issues in the gentle\nmanners and virtuous actions that seem to spring directly from a\nuniversal principle of sympathy and love.\n\nThe scientific exposition of the phenomena has long been before the\npublic. G. H. Lewes, in his _Problems of Life and Mind_, demonstrated\nthat whilst the individual functions of man (alimentation being one of\nthese) arise in relation to the cosmos, his general functions, including\nsex-appetite, arise in relation to the social medium, and \u201canimal\nimpulses become blended with human emotions,\u201d until \u201cin process of\nevolution, starting from the merely animal appetite of sexuality, we\narrive at the purest and most far-reaching tenderness.\u201d The social\ninstincts, which he calls analogues of the individual instincts, tend\nmore and more to make \u201csociality dominate animality and thus subordinate\npersonality to humanity.\u201d (_Problems of Life and Mind_, vol. 1, p. 159.)\n\nIt is only recently that the full significance of these facts has begun\nto influence general thought and to create a revolt against the\nunscientific attitude of mind that covers the sexual instinct with\ncontumely and hypocritical disdain. There dawns in consequence a new\nlight upon the afflicting problem of our social impurity. It is seen\nthat the horrible struggle for existence which makes grief and pain,\nexhausting mental effort and physical restraint, enter so largely into\nthe lot of unhappy man, is the paramount evil to cast out. \u201cThe\nwonderful cycles of normal life are for ever clean and pure.\u201d (_The New\nSpirit_, Havelock Ellis.) And with far more of sex-union\u2014especially for\nthe young\u2014and all the tender social joys that emanate from that union,\nand far more of ease and happiness in life, there becomes possible a\ngreat increase of goodness.[2]\n\nFootnote 2:\n\n It is well to know moments of material happiness, since they teach us\n where to look for loftier joys.\u2014_Wisdom and Destiny_, by Maurice\n Maeterlinck.\n\nThe late James Hinton spoke truly of the matter when he said: \u201cSensuous\npleasure will be to the moral life of the future as sense-impressions\nare to the knowledge of the present, and with the same history. It will\nnot be a thing put aside as evil or degrading or misleading, but\nrecognized as the very basis and means of the life, and used with\nenhancements and multiplied powers undreamt of by us.\u201d And again, \u201cThis\nis what sets the soul on fire\u2014the union of goodness and pleasure. It is\na new possibility, a hope we never saw before, a means whereby all may\nbe brought into goodness.\u201d (_The Law Breaker_, pp. 275, 236.) The key to\nthe position, he points out, is the taking of pleasure unselfishly and\nwith complete regard to the happiness of others.\n\nThe region of sex is indeed to this day unreclaimed, but, as Mr. Ellis\nasks: \u201cWhy should the sweetening breath of science be guarded from this\nspot? Our attitude towards this part of life affects profoundly our\nattitude towards life altogether.\u201d (_The New Spirit_, pp. 127, 125).\nWhich of us has not felt the truth of that deep saying of Thoreau\u2019s that\n\u201cfor him to whom sex is impure there are no flowers in nature.\u201d\n\nIt is precisely here that development in the sense of purity gives a\nsure hope of moral regeneration. And very remarkable is it that as in\nthe old days when prophetic poetry took the lead in all religious\nreforms so now we have art in the van of social reform boldly\nconfronting the great enemies of progress\u2014ignorance, pride, prejudice\nand malicious insinuation. When Ibsen\u2019s \u201cGhosts\u201d was first put upon the\nstage of a London theatre, a dramatic critic delivered himself thus: \u201cIt\nis a dream of revolt\u2014the revolt of the \u2018joy of life\u2019 against the gloom\nof hidebound, conventional morality, the revolt of the natural man and\nwoman, the revolt of the individual against the oppression of social\nprejudice. The joy of life, the joy of life\u2014it rings like a clarion\nthrough the play.\u201d (_Star_ of March 14th, 1891.) The fine women of\nIbsen\u2019s creation speak out upon questions of sex with a pure, earnest\ncandour that breathes a new morality, and this moral element is one of\nthe central features in Whitman\u2019s attitude towards sex. For the lover,\nthere is nothing in the loved one impure or unclean; a breath of passion\nhas passed over, and all things are sweet. For most of us this influence\nspreads no farther, for the man of strong moral instinct it covers all\nhuman things in infinitely widening circles; his heart goes out to every\ncreature that shares the loved one\u2019s delicious humanity, henceforth\nthere is nothing human that he cannot touch with reverence and love.\n_Leaves of Grass_ is penetrated by this moral element. (_The New\nSpirit_, Havelock Ellis, p. 123.)\n\nWalt Whitman himself says: \u201cDifficult as it will be, it has become, in\nmy opinion, imperative to achieve a shifted attitude from superior men\nand women towards the thought and fact of sexuality as an element in\ncharacter, personality, the emotions, and a theme in literature.\u201d (_How\nI made a Book._ An Essay by Walt Whitman.)\n\nThe principles underlying the new morality may be thus stated: Goodness\ndoes not consist in starving or denying any normal animal appetite,\ntherefore chastity in the sense of total abstinence is essentially\nimmoral. Life is not so prodigal of joys that man can wisely forego any\nsource of innocent happiness, hence asceticism has no place in a\nrational theory and code of morals. The course for rational man to adopt\nin reference to sexual appetite is duly to satisfy and regulate it; and\nby removing every loathsome condition that superinduces degradation, to\ncompel it to raise the tide of life in promoting individual comfort and\ngeneral virtue.\n\nTo the reader who grasps the population problem it may seem that this\nmoral code would place society on the horns of a painful dilemma, for\nwhile morality is said to require a closer union between the sexes than\nhas hitherto prevailed, propagation\u2014which is the actual result of that\nunion\u2014must be limited to an extent hitherto unknown, and by many people\ndeemed impossible of attainment. By its patient investigations of\nnature, however, science here comes to the rescue of those whose\nstandpoint in viewing the sexual problem is one of ardent sympathy with\nthe essential needs and the moral aspirations of man in a social\nposition truly pathetic.\n\nPhysiology has revealed that sexual organs are naturally divided into\namative and reproductive organs, each class functionally distinct from\nthe other. Amative organs relate primarily to sexual union, while\nreproductive organs relate primarily to impregnation and gestation. The\nprocess of reproduction may take place without use of the amative organs\nby simply bringing spermatozoa to ova (this has been done), and on the\nother hand the amative organs can be exercised without effecting\nreproduction. Sexual intercourse and procreation are not vitally\nrelated, as they are ordinarily assumed to be.\n\nMoreover, the instincts connected with sexual union and with offspring\nare separate and distinct. In popular, confused thought, a reproductive\ninstinct is attributed to animals and man. In reality, no direct\ninstinct to reproduce the species exists. Animals unite sexually from an\ninstinct directed to a pleasurable exercise of function; and although,\nin man, the relation has been made complex by his knowledge of the facts\nof reproduction and of social life, the sexual instinct is connected\nsolely with pleasure and social feeling\u2014not with reproduction. On the\nother hand, instincts associated with the presence and nurture of the\nyoung are not sexual or related to sexual passion. Therefore any\ndoctrine requiring man\u2019s exercise of the sexual function to be\nrestricted to the end of reproduction is without justification in nature\nand directly conflicts with the facts of life.\n\nThe sexual act, in the natural order of things, is only occasionally in\naccidental relation to the reproductive process, for with married people\nin a thousand acts only a dozen may be reproductive. If social morality\nthen requires the satisfaction of normal sexual feeling\u2014and I think I\nhave shown this to be the case\u2014the desideratum is to prevent at will\ninstead of leaving to accident the above occasional relation, and make\nthe separation between amative and reproductive conditions as complete\nas their functional separation.\n\nAn American writer has well said: \u201cIf there is one social phenomenon\nwhich human ingenuity ought to bring completely under the control of the\nwill, it is the phenomenon of procreation.\u201d \u201cJust as everyone is his own\njudge of how much he shall eat and drink, of what commodities he wants\nto render life enjoyable, so everyone should be his own judge of how\nlarge a family he desires, and should have power in the same degree to\nleave off when the requisite number is reached.\u201d (Lester F. Ward.\n_Dynamic Sociology_, vol. 2, p. 465.) The Bible Communists of Oneida\nCreek practised voluntary control over the propagative function during\nthirty years with marked success. The number of births was regulated in\naccordance with the wishes of the community, and such careful attention\nwas paid to the laws of heredity that no children of defective organisms\nor unsound constitutions were born. Were man universally intelligent and\nmorally self-controlled, the knowledge of physiological facts and of\ninvention applied to those facts would suffice to create general\nspontaneous limitation of the birth-rate and hygienic propagation of\nspecies. But one has only to think of the battered humanity in the back\nslums of every great city\u2014the physical, mental and moral weaklings of\nour degraded populace\u2014to realize that it is fantastic folly to expect\nindividual intelligence under vicious and utterly depressing conditions,\nto counteract habit and save society from a rising tide of overwhelming\nnumbers, the product of random pregnancy and sportive chance.\n\nIt cannot be a solution nor even a relief to the population difficulty\nthat the intelligent\u2014comparatively few\u2014should limit their families so\nlong as the masses refuse or fail to limit theirs. When society,\nbecoming fully alive to the imminent danger of a too rapid birth-rate\nsolves the population and social problems combined\u2014in the only way\npossible\u2014it will facilitate and promote the use of scientific checks to\nconception, and, if necessary, exact their adoption by some legislative\ndevice. (See _Social Control of the Birth-rate_, by G. A. Gaskell.)\n\nBy the aid of these personal means of avoiding or preventing conception\nthe desired complete separation of amative and reproductive conditions\nis effected. Love is set free to rule in its own domain, and reason\ncontrols procreation to the infinite benefit of all future generations.\nIn an article by Mr. J. Holt Schooling in the _Contemporary Review_ for\nFebruary, 1902, entitled \u201cThe Natural Increase of Three Populations,\u201d it\nis shown how widely in the United Kingdom the use of preventive checks\nhas spread within the last twenty years. The writer says in comparing\nthe birth-rates of Germany, England and France since 1880: \u201cThere has\nbeen a fall in the birth-rate during each period in each country. But\nEngland\u2019s fall has been larger than all; larger than the fall in the\nFrench birth-rate. During 1880\u20131884 there were 323 births per year per\n10,000 of our population; during 1895\u20131899 there were only 291 births\nper year per 10,000 of population\u2014a yearly fall of 32 births per 10,000\nof population. France\u2019s fall was 28 births and Germany\u2019s fall was only\n10 births, although Germany\u2019s birth-rate was higher throughout than that\nof England or of France.\u201d This is very satisfactory, and in regard to\nthe strength of a nation that depends upon the adults, and there are\nmore adults in a population where the children are fewer. The death-rate\nin England during the last twenty years has been always the lowest of\nthe three countries.\n\nAt the present moment, society has no scientific sex-philosophy\nwhatever. It affects to be governed by Puritanism\u2014a vague doctrine\nbelonging to the past history of the race and not in connexion with any\nethical code directed to the development of goodness through a careful\nregard to the happiness of man and the satisfaction of his normal human\nnature. Puritanism, whether affected or real, spreads abroad hypocrisy,\ndeceit, lying; it tends to licentiousness in men and the utter\ndefilement of women, to social disorder and decay. Above all, it\nfrustrates the development of that higher love, which, having animalism\nallied, but subordinate, fills the mind with exquisite emotion and\ncreates unselfish delights.\n\nMany years ago Miss Martineau wrote: \u201cA thing to be carefully remembered\nis that asceticism and licentiousness universally co-exist. All\nexperience proves this, and every principle of human nature might\nprophesy the proof. Passions and emotions cannot be extinguished by\ngeneral rules.\u201d (_How to observe Morals and Manners_, p. 169.)\nPuritanism ignores the sexual needs of the young. In a scientific age\nman is bound to recognize physiological reasons for early satisfaction\nof the sexual appetite and physiological reasons for delayed parentage.\n\nOf the former, I have here to say that an early moderate stimulation of\nthe female sexual organs (after puberty is reached) tends, by the law of\nexercise promoting development of structure, to make parturition in\nmature life easy and safe; and that the healthy functional and emotional\nlife of love and gratified passion is the best preventive of hysteria,\nchlorosis, love melancholy, and other unhappy ailments to which our\nyoung women are cruelly and barbarously exposed, and which, I do not\nhesitate to say, make them in many cases feel their youth to be an\nalmost insufferable martyrdom.\n\nThere are no less serious sexual evils which overtake masculine youth,\nif continent, namely, persistent and miserable cravings, abnormally\ndirected instinct, spermatorrhoea, self-abuse; and these are usually\nhidden from sight and knowledge in consequence of a feeling that, in\nsexual matters, adults have no sympathy with the young.\n\nIn _Lecky\u2019s History of European Morals_, vol. 2, p. 301, prostitution is\nthus referred to:\u2014\u201cHowever persistently society may ignore this form of\nvice, it exists, nevertheless, and on the most gigantic scale, and an\nevil rarely assumes such inveterate and perverting forms as when it is\nshrouded in obscurity and veiled by a hypocritical appearance of\nunconsciousness. The existence in England of unhappy women, sunk in the\nvery lowest depths of vice and misery ... shows what an appalling amount\nof moral evil is festering uncontrolled, undiscussed and unalleviated\nunder the fair surface of decorous society.\u201d The number of London\nprostitutes was estimated at 80,000 in the year 1870. Since then, it has\nprobably increased. In Paris, according to Von Dettingen, the actual\nnumber at that period was upwards of 60,000; in Berlin, 25,000 to\n30,000. In Hamburg, in 1860, every ninth woman above the age of 15 was a\nprostitute, and in Leipzig the women depending principally or\nexclusively on prostitution was estimated at 2,000. This field of\nprostitution encloses whole armies of women finding there their only\nmeans of earning a miserable livelihood and a corresponding number of\nvictims claimed by death and disease. (_Woman in the Past, Present and\nFuture._ August Bebel, pp. 100\u2013101.)\n\nThe prostitute, in her thousands; the married drudge, weary of\nchild-bearing; the desolate old maid; these are all alike victims to\nsocial oppression. They are compelled to abstain from, or compelled to\nengage in, a specific function which is only natural, pleasurable,\nhealthful and virtuous in the absence of all tyranny. Love to be real\nmust be prompted by personal desire, and free to express itself in\nunhurtful conditions: I mean conditions that involve individual liberty,\nsocial respect and human dignity. The facts of prostitution alone would\namply suffice to put Puritanism out of court in social reform. As a\nresult of conduct, it has no control over vicious propensities, whilst\nit restrains tormentingly impulses that are normal and virtuous, that\nneed only fitting conditions of healthful freedom.\n\nDiscarding asceticism and conventional purism as alike immoral, the\nsocial reforms that are based on a knowledge of human nature and a\nknowledge of the possibilities allied with conscious evolution, will\nbring all the institutions of our social life into accordance with the\nneeds of the individual; and one essential condition of happy life is\nsexual love, with such union of the sexes as conforms to the general or\ncollective interests.\n\nIn view of the law of population, and the fact that science has made\nplain how practically to separate the amative from the reproductive\nconditions of physical union, the love of the sexes can harmonize with\nthe highest interests of our collective social life, and eugenics, _not\nsexual love_, may become paramount in generation.\n\nWhat social morality requires is that the forces of philoprogenitiveness\nand a public conscience combined should dominate the function of\nreproduction, while love is left free from coercive control in the\nsphere of individual life.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER III\n EUGENICS OR STIRPICULTURE\n\n The first step towards the reduction of disease is beginning at the\n beginning to provide for the health of the unborn.\u2014Dr. RICHARDSON.\n\n\nThe whole theory concerning heredity and its marvellous influence for\ngood or evil is a nauseous draught for mankind to swallow. No wonder we\nrevolt instinctively from a doctrine that charges tender parents with\ntransmitting an evil heritage to the offspring they passionately love.\n\u201cAlthough many important books draw attention to the facts, as far as\nthey are ascertained, these momentous facts have as yet made no\nimpression on the general mind.\u201d (_Scientific Meliorism and the\nEvolution of Happiness_, p. 329.) This statement is no longer true. It\nwas written in 1884, and since then immense strides have been made in\nthe realization of the action of heredity. The subject is frequently and\npersistently brought forward now, and urged upon the attention of the\npublic. Zola\u2019s _m\u00e8re id\u00e9e_ is not found only in French fiction, the new\nRussian school of fiction is permeated by it; and even in England some\nnovelists, following in the footsteps of George Eliot, are assuming a\nscientific attitude towards life, and the facts of heredity are not\nignored.\n\nMoreover, in science and in all high-class criticism of life the\ndoctrine of heredity is directly taught.\n\nApart from purely literary work, the examination of criminal statistics\nas a whole, and the practical observations of physicians, doctors,\ndentists, schoolmasters, poor-guardians, systematized and made public at\ncongresses and stored in scientific handbooks so inexpensive as to be\nwell within reach of all students\u2014these, I say, combine to impress upon\nthe general mind the conviction that racial degeneracy is a palpable\nfact; and that inheritance is prime factor in the degenerating process.\nAnd recently indeed a suspicion of danger in over-estimating this factor\nhas been publicly expressed. Whereas formerly, it is said, a child was\nsupposed to be born with a mind like a clean sheet of paper, on whose\nfair surface we might write what we chose, opinion points in the present\nday to an opposite extreme, viz., this, that the hereditary tendencies\nborn with the child determine its future career, and that education\ncannot modify this destiny in any essential respect. Now, to disallow\nthe importance of education as also a prime factor in progress is an\nerror of judgment; but so long as the human race continues scourged by\nsickness, martyred by pain, demoralized by disease and innate debility,\nand decimated by premature death, it is not possible for thinkers to\nover-estimate the profound significance for weal or woe of this question\nof heredity.\n\nWhere individual life is not menaced by poverty or destitution, disease\nis the bane of existence, the barrier to physical comfort and to both\nmental and moral advance. Alas! how few of us have any permanent\npossession of sound health. In spite of medical science, sanitary\nprotection, progress made during the last hundred years in knowledge of\npathological conditions, and vast resources now at our command for\nsubduing and mitigating every form of physical evil, disease dogs our\nfootsteps from infancy to maturity and onwards to the grave. We have the\nyoung attacked by consumption, the middle-aged suffering from failing\nhealth, the aged struck by paralysis or bowed down by rheumatism; and\neverywhere we meet husbands and wives permanently saddened by the loss\nof the chosen companion of their life, and mothers whose light-hearted\nbuoyancy died out for ever when the babe, prized beyond all treasure,\nwas snatched from their arms to be laid in our appallingly numerous\nchildren\u2019s graves.\n\nIn order to form an approximately correct conception of disease, we must\nglance for a moment at the conditions of health. Life in all its forms,\nphysical or mental, morbid or healthy, is in close relation to the\nindividual organism and external forces. Health, as the consequence and\nevidence of a successful adaptation to the conditions of existence,\nimplies the preservation, well-being and development of the organism;\nwhile disease marks a failure in organic adaptation to external\nconditions, and leads to disorder, decay and death.\n\nIf we could perceive all the conditions, outward and inward, and take\nthem into account, a distinct line of causation would become apparent.\nWe should find disease no more an accident than the storm that breaks\nupon the seaboard or the volcanic flames that burst from the mountain\ntop. The extreme complexity and delicacy of biological phenomena\nprecludes a wide grasp of conditions in individual cases, but scientific\ninvestigation has established the point that of the antecedents to\ndisease the largest proportion is some heritage of weakness transmitted\nfrom parents\u2014some disabilities for healthy life resulting from a bad\ndescent.\n\nWhen, for instance, mental anxiety produced by adverse circumstances is\nsaid to have made a man mad, there is implied some inherent infirmity of\nnervous element which has co-operated. \u201cWere the nervous system in a\nstate of perfect soundness and in possession of that reserve power which\nit then has of adapting itself, within certain limits, to the varying\nexternal conditions, it is probable,\u201d says Maudsley, \u201cthat the most\nunfavourable circumstances would not disturb permanently the relation\nand initiate mental disease. But when unfavourable action from without\nconspires with an infirmity of nature within, then the conditions of\ndisorder are established and a discord or madness is produced.\u201d (_The\nPhysiology and Pathology of the Mind_, p. 199.)\n\nThus although outward circumstances often decide the character of a\ndisease, inherited infirmity is its primary cause. A being liable to\nmadness, if subjected to anxiety, may, under different conditions,\nacquire not madness but consumption. A child may fall a victim to the\nspecial ailment from which one or both parents suffered; but equally it\nis possible that disease in him may assume a totally different form. All\nthat can be affirmed with certainty is this: of diseased parents the\noffspring invariably inherit a constitution liable to \u201csome kind of\nmorbid degeneration, or a constitution destitute of that reserve power\nnecessary to meet the trying occasions of life!\u201d\n\nThe trying occasions of life have multiplied with every new complexity\nin social structure; and there has been no corresponding increase of\nconstitutional strength; but, on the contrary, a growing feebleness of\nphysique and instability of nerve-function. \u201cOur children in these\ntimes,\u201d remarks Dr. Richardson, \u201care our reproach. Where is there a\nhealthy child? You may put before me a child showing to the unskilled\nmind no trace of disease.... It is sure to have some inherited failure.\nWe are as yet unacquainted with all the phenomena of disease that pass\nin the hereditary line.... We admit, as proved, scrofula or struma,\ncancer, consumption, epilepsy, rheumatism, gout. It would be wrong to\nlimit the hereditary proclivities of disease to this list. The further\nmy own observations extend, the stronger is the impression made on my\nmind that the majority of the phenomena of disease have hereditariness\nof character.\u201d (_Diseases of Modern Life_, p. 38.) Sir James Paget and\nSir William Jenner gave evidence of a similar kind before a Committee of\nthe House of Lords in 1882. From the former eminent physician\u2019s speech I\nmay quote one passage: \u201cWe now know that certain diseases of the lungs,\nliver and spleen are all of syphilitic origin, and the mortality from\nsyphilis in its later forms is every year found to be larger and larger,\nby its being found to be the source of a number of diseases which\npreviously were referred to other origins.\u201d (_The Times_ Report, August\n11th, 1882.)\n\nIn August Bebel\u2019s work on _Woman, her Position in the Past, Present and\nFuture_, this passage occurs: \u201cWith regard to the decimating effects of\nvenereal disease, we will only mention that in England between 1857 and\n1865 the authenticated cases which ended fatally amounted to over\n12,000, among which no fewer than 69 per cent. were children under\ntwelve months, the victims of parental infection.\u201d (p. 101.)\n\nOf the original source from which syphilis sprang, of its implication in\nthe sex problem, and of the ultimate eradication of its virus\u2014to be\nattained only by the true solution of the sex problem\u2014we cannot here\nspeak; the point under immediate consideration is the fact that the\ncivilized races of mankind persist in propagating and perpetuating\ndisease. They unscrupulously bring into the world individual organisms\nthat are pre-destined to failure because not endowed with the potential\nqualities indispensable to complete and successful life.\n\nIn America the same conditions are noted and publicly referred to. Mr.\nNathan Allen, M.D., before a medical society at Massachusetts, reported:\n\u201cA gradual change is taking place in the organization of our New England\npeople\u2014a change which has occurred principally within the last two or\nthree generations. The nervous temperament with all its advantages and\ndisadvantages is becoming too predominant for other parts of the body.\nThe frame-work of the body generally is not so large ... the countenance\nis paler, the features are more pointed and not so expressive of health.\nWe have a larger class of diseases arising from general debility ... we\nhave more disease of the brain and nervous system, more sudden deaths\nfrom apoplexy, paralysis, and also diseases of the heart. In sound\nhealthy stock we have in a far higher degree the recuperative powers of\nnature; while the original constitution is feeble, diseases of almost\nevery kind become complicated, and their treatment more difficult as\nwell as doubtful in result.\u201d\n\nLaws of inheritance affect the moral as well as the physical and mental\nhealth of the nation. Their action is fatally legible in the public\nrecords of crime. Not that many criminals inherit the actual attributes\nof crime\u2014brutality, cruelty, malignity, propensity to abnormal sexual\npractices\u2014these develop through the interaction of external with\ninternal forces\u2014but the ordinary criminal is born deficient in the\nelemental qualities necessary to the establishment of the average moral\nnature.\n\nFrom observations carried on in English prisons, it appears that in\nthese days of careful school-board education 25 per cent. of prisoners\ncan neither read nor write, and a certain number are quite incapable of\nreceiving and benefiting by school instruction. \u201cThe memory and\nreasoning powers are so utterly feeble that attempts to school them is a\nwaste of time.\u201d (_Crime and its Causes_, William Douglas Morrison, of\nH.M. Prison, Wandsworth, p. 195.) Intellectually, criminals are\n\u201cunquestionably less gifted than the rest of the community\u201d; emotionally\nthey \u201chave the family sentiment only feebly developed,\u201d and morally the\nwill is \u201cmorbidly variable.\u201d A prisoner may be animated by good\nresolutions, anxious to do what is right, often possessing a sense of\nmoral responsibility, yet may plunge again and again into crime from the\nabsence of a sustained power of volition. \u201cPersons afflicted in this way\nare generally convicted for crimes of violence, such as assault,\nmanslaughter, murder. They experience real sentiments of remorse, but\nneither remorse nor penitence enables them to grapple with their evil\nstar. The will is stricken with disease, and the man is dashed hither\nand thither a helpless wreck on the sea of life.\u201d\n\nThe harmony of the social organism depends upon congruity of thought and\nfeeling in its members and upon action made promptly conformable through\nexercise of the power of control centred in the inner part or spiritual\nnature of man.\n\nA criminal is an unsocial man, an undeveloped being, one, generally\nspeaking, whose pregenital stock was below par, and failed in the\nconservation, development and transmission of a physical, mental and\nmoral capacity equalling that of the average of his race. The physical\ndebility or inherited tendency to nerve weakness\u2014so universal in the\npresent day\u2014has clearly a causal relation with the increase of crime\ndeplored by the principal authorities on the subject in Europe and\nAmerica.\n\nIn the United States we are told by Mr. D. A. Wells and by Mr. Howard\nWines, an eminent specialist in criminal matters, that crime is steadily\nincreasing at a faster rate than in due proportion to the increase of\npopulation. Nearly all the chief statisticians abroad tell the same\ntale. Dr. Mischler, of Vienna, and Professor Von Liszt, of Marburg, draw\na deplorable picture of the increase of crime in Germany. In France, the\ncriminal problem is as formidable and perplexing as in Germany. M. Henri\nJoli estimates that crime has increased 133 per cent. within the last\nhalf century, and is steadily rising. Taking Victoria as a typical\nAustralasian colony, we find that even in the antipodes, which are not\nvexed to the same extent as Europe with social and economic\ndifficulties, crime is persistently raising its head ... it is a more\nmenacing danger among the Victorian Colonists than it is at home.\n(_Crime and its Causes_, W. D. Morrison. Published in 1891, pp. 12 and\n13.)\n\nWhile physical degeneracy creates crime, a non-moral life on the other\nhand causes further physical deterioration. The pursuit of wealth for\npurely personal ends is pre-eminently anti-social. Breadth of thought\nand social feeling grow impossible to the man whose life is devoted to\nthe business of amassing riches; and Dr. Henry Maudsley gives it as his\nconviction, based upon wide observation of family life, that such men\nare extremely unlikely to beget healthy children. In cases where the\nfather has toiled upwards from poverty to vast wealth, \u201cI have witnessed\nthe results,\u201d he says, \u201cin a degeneracy mental and physical of his\noffspring which has sometimes gone as far as extinction of the family in\nthe third or fourth generation. I cannot but think after what I have\nseen that the extreme passion for getting rich does predispose to mental\ndegeneration in the offspring, either to moral defect or to moral and\nintellectual deficiency, or to outbreaks of positive insanity under the\nconditions of life.\u201d (_The Physiology and Pathology of the Mind_, p.\n206.)\n\nThis fact alone is amply sufficient to condemn an industrial system that\ncreates monopolies, concentrates wealth, stimulates greed, degrades the\nupper classes by superfluous luxury, the lower by envy, poverty,\ndespair, and tends generally to physical, mental and moral decay. But\nwere the entire economic system judiciously reconstructed, fatal\nelements would remain so long as man fails to grapple with the\nbiological problem and fails to bring the great life forces of\nreproduction under conscientious direction and control.\n\nGravitation and all well studied mechanical and chemical forces have\nbeen adapted by man to special purposes in relation with his civilized\nlife; even so must the sexual forces that belong to his basic existence\nbe in their turn dominated and made conformable with his higher moral\nand spiritual needs. In this regard his primary need is that there shall\nbe no transmission of disease or constitutional debility from one\ngeneration to another; but that the entire strength of the laws of\nheredity shall create an improvement of stock and thereby lift humanity\nto a higher level of physical health and efficiency.\n\nIn seeking the true method of attaining this end, it is our duty to look\nfirst to the teaching of the great founders of social philosophy.\nWithout their invaluable services in discovering and setting forth the\none unbroken process of law which \u201cconnects all phenomena from the\nmotion of molecules and the courses of the suns to the phenomena of\nhuman thought and the destinies of nations\u201d (J. M. Robertson), no\nintellects could to-day grasp the causes of misery and, conceiving the\npossibility of circumventing these causes, devise a scheme of scientific\naction to reverse the trend of general movement and evolve conditions of\ngenuine and universal happiness.\n\nIn _this_ sphere, however\u2014the sphere of _eugenics_, or improvement of\nthe human stock, as also in regard to the population and sex\nproblems\u2014Darwin and Herbert Spencer have failed us. The mind of the\nformer, habituated to dwell on the favourable aspects of the struggle\nfor existence during the early epochs of man\u2019s history, was blind to the\nconsequences of the genesis and growth of the broadly social element in\nman. Barbarous man could let cosmic forces prevail to exterminate the\nweak. Sympathetic man is compelled by virtue of his enlarged subjective\nnature to institute a new struggle, viz., a struggle against the\nstruggle for existence (a phrase used by Lange), and already his triumph\nis everywhere visible in the survival of the unfit to struggle.\n\nDarwin opposed the proposal to restrain population on the score that\nthis would minimize the struggle which had created civilization in the\npast and which must needs, he thought, carry it on in the future, and\nboth Darwin and Herbert Spencer \u201cassumed that a generalization which\nsums up the progressive forces of a collectively unconscious society,\ni.e. a society without the conception of evolution and of a universal\nsociology, must equally sum up the progressive principles of a\ncollectively _conscious_ society, a society which has realized evolution\nand is constructing a universal sociology. Though they themselves are\nour greatest helpers towards such consciousness, they failed to realize\nthat our attainment of it must revolutionize human history.\u201d (_Modern\nHumanists_, J. M. Robertson, p. 234).\n\nTurning then to less illustrious men, Mr. Francis Galton is our most\nadvanced teacher in the field of eugenics. He faces the problem of race\nregeneration and has put forth a scheme or policy of action, resting on\nDr. Matthews Duncan\u2019s alleged facts regarding the relative fertility in\nearly and late marriages. He shows that a group of a hundred mothers\nwhose marriages and those of their daughters should take place at the\nage of twenty, would, in the course of a few generations, breed down a\ngroup of a hundred mothers whose marriages and those of their daughters\nwere delayed until the age of twenty-nine. Let us then, he reasons,\npromote by every means in our power the early marriage of human beings\nof superior quality, whilst we discountenance early marriage in those\nsocial members who are less favourably endowed. And \u201cfew,\u201d he says,\n\u201cwould deserve better of their country than those who determine to live\ncelibate lives through a reasonable conviction that their issue would\nprobably be less fitted than the generality to play their part as\ncitizens.\u201d (_Inquiries into Human Faculty_, p. 336.)\n\nIn examination for official appointments he would have attention paid to\na candidate\u2019s ancestral qualifications as well as his personal ability.\nThe man of inherited sound constitution and average ability should be\npreferred to the man of superior ability who belongs to a delicate and\nshort-lived family. The former will in all probability become the more\nvaluable servant of the two. Some scheme should be devised by which to\nbestow marks for family merit, to put, as it were, a guinea stamp to the\nsterling guinea\u2019s worth of natural nobility; and this, he conceives,\nmight set a great social avalanche in motion. It would open the eyes of\nevery family, and of society at large, to the importance of marriage\nalliance with a good stock; it would introduce the subject of race as a\npermanent topic of consideration, and lead to a careful collecting of\nfamily histories and noting of those facts which are absolutely\nnecessary for guidance in right conduct. Late marriage, as advised by\nMalthus, Mr. Galton utterly condemns. The prudent alone are influenced\nby that doctrine, and it is, he says, a most pernicious rule of conduct\nin its bearing upon race. His policy, then, is early and fruitful\nmarriage for the best specimens of our race, and widespread celibacy in\nthe case of those less highly favoured, whilst everywhere the sentiment\nshould prevail that _eugenics_, or the improvement of the human stock,\nis the primary consideration in marriage and the guiding principle in\nsex relations.\n\nThis theory I hold to be one-sided, and the policy misleading and to\nsome extent false. Mr. Galton ignores the fundamental principle of\nsocial life, viz., that the happiness of all, at all times, should be\nthe aim and object of rational man, and he mistakes the quality of human\nnature in highly civilized man. To demand celibacy of men and women\nwhose defective organisms it is not desirable to perpetuate, would be in\nhundreds and thousands of instances to sacrifice unnecessarily present\nhappiness to future gain\u2014to build up the comfort and enjoyment of coming\ngenerations at the expense of the comfort and enjoyment of our own\ngeneration. The sentiment of justice repudiates this action as well as\ncondemns the reverse position of a reckless self-indulgent procreating\nto the deterioration of the human stock, whilst reason distinctly shows\nthat individual liberty, in respect of marriage, is a social necessity\nperfectly compatible with the well-being of all. Physical regeneration\nof race will not be achieved by an overstrained morality that does\nviolence to the emotional human nature of the normal and average man.\n\nMr. Galton\u2019s system of social reform accords in some respects with that\nwhich it is the purpose of this work to set forth. Both systems premise\nteaching that it is man\u2019s duty and within his power to improve the\nphysical, intellectual and moral structure of his race. He may, in part,\nachieve this by intelligent forethought and careful action in exercising\nthe function of propagating his kind. Population must not be kept up by\nconsumptives or persons whose pedigree is tainted by any disease known\nto be hereditary, and public opinion must enforce the necessary\nrestraints. (Temporary illness ought also to be considered. It is when\nparents are in their best state of health only that they are morally\njustified in bringing children into the world.)\n\nOf these, celibacy is a restraint commended and advised by Mr. Galton,\nwhilst scientific meliorism deliberately rejects it, for celibacy is a\nvital evil, destroying individual happiness and tending obviously to\nsocial disorder. Wherever love in its highest form exists between two\nindividuals, union is eminently desirable; but if either or both be\nafflicted by disease or hereditary taint, the sacrifice demanded of them\nis to carefully abstain from giving birth to children. Whether the means\nadopted be those of natural self-control or of artificial aids to\nself-control will depend on the views of the individuals immediately\nconcerned, and in this matter society has no right of interference.\n\nIt is the business, however, of society to sweep away ignorance and make\nit possible for the poor as well as the rich to enter on the right path\nvoluntarily, and where, from physical or moral degeneracy,\nself-regulation is impossible, society must exercise authority and\ncoercively restrain the vital social force of propagation. It will not\nbe by means of the lonely lives celibacy entails that civilized men and\nwomen will refrain from having children disqualified for useful\ncitizenship. We shall, to quote the late poet laureate\u2019s words, \u201cmove\nupward, working out the beast, and let the ape and tiger die,\u201d by other\nmeans more worthy of humanity, i.e. by socialized freedom and sex\nequality; by intelligent self-control voluntarily practised (with or\nwithout artificial appliance), and by control, enforced wherever\nnecessary by the State in fulfilment of its responsible duty\u2014the careful\nguardianship of the congenital blood of future generations.\n\nIn the savage epoch of our history, the force of natural selection\nproduced survival of the fittest. From that epoch we have long since\npassed into a semi-civilized epoch in which the force of sympathetic\nselection produces a miserable state of indiscriminate survival; we have\nnow to pass forward to the epoch in which the rational force of a wise,\nintelligent selection will systematically secure the birth of the\nphysically fit.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IV\n MARRIAGE\n\n Marriage is that union of the sexes which is most in accordance with\n the moral and physical necessities of human beings and which\n harmonizes best with their other relations of life.\u2014RICHARD HARTE.\n\n\nIt is of vast importance to bear clearly in mind that all the great\nsocial institutions that confront us to-day are of genetic origin and\nevolution. They have not been devised by man to bring about the true end\nof all intelligent effort\u2014namely, happiness. They are simply the\nundesigned, unforeseen results of various natural and social forces of\nthe past. They survive through their tendency to maintain the existence\nof the race. They subserve life, not happiness. It is not my intention\nto treat marriage historically and trace back the various forms of it to\ntheir social origins. It is sufficient to bear in mind the fact of the\nnatural, undevised origin of every form, including that form of monogamy\nwhich prevails in the most civilized countries of to-day. _A priori_, we\nshould have expected that monogamy, being the ideal sex-union of the\ncivilized races of Western Europe, would have been everywhere the last\nform to appear; that, in short, its fitness to survive all other forms\nwould be shown by lateness of development as well as by superior\nqualifications for satisfying the needs of a highly developed humanity.\nThis is not so, however. Mr. Herbert Spencer gives reasons for believing\nthat monogamy dates as far back as any other marital relation. \u201cIndeed,\ncertain modes of life necessitating wide dispersion such as are pursued\nby the lowest forest tribes in Brazil and the interior of Borneo\u2014modes\nof life which in earlier stages of human evolution must have been\ncommoner than now\u2014hinder other relations of the sexes.\u201d (_Sociology_,\nvol. i. p. 698.) Two of the lowest tribes of savages existing, the\nWood-Veddahs of Ceylon and the Bushmen of South Africa, are customarily\nmonogamous. It is plain, therefore, that if monogamy is to be reckoned\nthe final form of sexual relations, no argument can be based on any\ntheory of its recent date in evolution. The opinion must seek to rest\nupon different ground\u2014upon the quality of the institution, its fitness\nand adequateness, not only to human needs in the present system of\nsociety, but in the reformed system of the future.\n\nWhile a number of primitive tribes are monogamous, as also are certain\nmonkeys and birds, many civilized peoples have adopted polygamy,\nsometimes openly, at other times in a masked form. Polyandry is also a\nform of marriage not uncommon among semi-civilized peoples, as the Nairs\nof Malabar, the Kandyans of Ceylon and the Tibetans.\n\nThe Nairs are especially interesting because there is among them a\nregulated system of complex marriage which will compare in its results\nvery favourably with the monogamous marriage of Western nations. The\nrule of the Matriarchate prevails, \u201cinheritance is from mother to\ndaughter and from the uncle to the children of the eldest sister; the\nhousehold is directed by the mother or the eldest girl; polyandry and\npolygamy exist side by side or are inextricably mixed. Thus each woman\nis the wife of several men, each of whom has in turn several wives.\u201d\n(Elisee Reclus, _Primitive Folk_, p. 162.) The men are under\nwell-understood obligations to assist in the support of the domestic\nestablishments, while the children look up to their mothers and uncles\nas their special protectors. The result of these customs on the status\nof women is most remarkable. It is said that \u201cin no country are women\nmore influential and respected than in Malabar.\u201d (Ibid. p. 156.) The\nNair lady may possess property, choose her own husbands and rule her own\nchildren. Marriage is not, as elsewhere, the taking possession of a\nwoman by the man, but is really her emancipation from male thraldom. It\nputs her as nearly on a footing of social equality with the man as is\npossible in a semi-militant community. What is it that has decided the\nselection or unconscious choice\u2014if we may call it so\u2014of matrimonial\nusage among the various races of mankind, since no special form is\nnecessarily connected with the degree of general civilization? The\nconditions and exigencies of social life; and as those conditions and\nexigencies change in the future, matrimonial usages will also change. As\na matter of fact, every possible method, speaking generally, has been\nadopted. Sometimes a regulated promiscuity\u2014for each man claimed his\nrights\u2014sometimes the mixed polyandric and polygamic household;\noccasionally simple polyandry or polygamy; at other times monogamy;\nmarriage experimental also, as with the Redskins of Canada, who pair and\nunite for a few days, then quit each other if the trial has not proved\nsatisfactory to both parties; or temporary marriage as in the case of\nthe Jews in Morocco, who unite for three or six months according to\nagreement; or free marriages as those of the Hottentots and Abyssinians,\nwho marry, part, and remarry at will; or partial, as the marriages of\nthe Assanyeh Arabs, which only bind the parties for certain days of the\nweek. Every possible general method, I repeat, has been tried, and when\nthe practice hit upon has served human needs and also promoted the\nsolidarity and increase of the group, it has tended to persist.\n\nIn tracing the evolution of the modern European form of monogamous\nmarriage, we become aware that at a very early period, and for a long\ntime subsequently, the wife was regarded as the absolute property of the\nhusband. The wife was a bought or a captured article, and like other\narticles of property was at the entire disposal of the owner to use,\nsell, lend or abuse as he thought fit. The Roman law makes no essential\ndifference between the marital law and the law of property, and modern\nmarriage laws in the different States of Europe and America treat the\nwife as if she were in a very large degree a personal possession of her\nhusband.\n\nThe history of modern marriage, in short, is the history of man\u2019s\ndomination of woman and the measures he has taken to assume, assert and\nestablish his rights of possession. Amid changing outward conditions of\nlife, he has made good his claim to control her destiny in accordance\nwith his own varying desires.\n\nIn appraising the value of our much-vaunted monogamy, we must clearly\nunderstand that its legal basis is not, and never was, a strong personal\nadhesion of sympathy and affection, but a compact respecting personal\nproperty, involving in the cases where the \u201ccontracting parties are\npossessed of wealth, both property in person and in things.\u201d It is quite\nlegal, and indeed quite respectable, for marriages to be formed on a\npecuniary and social foundation, into which love does not enter. The\nwoman who sells herself in marriage to a man for the sake of money and\nposition is not regarded as a prostitute, but as a respectable, \u201chonest\u201d\nwoman who has made a \u201cfortunate\u201d marriage.\n\nTo understand how thoroughly marriage is based upon property and not\nupon love, it should suffice to contemplate the grounds on which legal\ndivorce is granted. Divorce is not granted, in this country at least, on\nproofs of incompatibility of nature and absence of affection, but on\nproof of adultery, in which co-respondents may be compelled to\npecuniarily compensate the husband on account of having made use of his\nwife without his permission as her owner. Connivance by the husband\nprecludes the granting of a divorce. Man\u2019s supremacy and woman\u2019s\nsubjection become evident in the fact that no amount of simple adultery\nin a husband can be made the ground of a divorce, nor is a wife able to\nclaim any pecuniary compensation from the paramours of a husband.\nMatrimony, at this epoch, is for the most part a \u201ccommercial\ntransaction,\u201d but in the words of Herbert Spencer, \u201calready increased\nfacilities for obtaining divorce point to the probability that whereas\nin those early stages during which permanent monogamy was being evolved,\nthe union by law (originally the act of purchase) was regarded as the\nessential part of marriage and the union by affection non-essential; and\nwhereas at present the union by law is thought the more important and\nthe union by affection the less important, there will come a time when\nthe union by affection will be held of primary moment, and the union by\nlaw as of secondary moment; and hence reprobation of marital relations\nin which the union by affection has dissolved. That this conclusion will\nseem unacceptable to most is probable, I may say certain.\u201d (_Principles\nof Sociology_, vol. i. p. 788.)\n\nHerbert Spencer strikes here at the very foundation of modern marriage.\nMoreover, in making affection rule sexual relations, he opens up all the\npossibilities of other forms of marriage than the monogamous, for\naffection may not only be transitory, but unrestricted to one. In face\nof the barbarous origin of marriage, there exists no reason why people\nof liberal thought should make a dogged, pious stand at monogamy while\nlightly dismissing promiscuity, polygamy, polyandry as disreputable\nforms of sex-union. Mr. Spencer holds that \u201cthe monogamic form of the\nsexual relation is manifestly the ultimate form,\u201d but he gives no\nreasons to prove his case that are not sufficiently disproved by the\nform of marriage existing among the Nairs. Again, the fact of the\nnumerical equality of the sexes does not make monogamy the only suitable\nform, although it supplies a reasonable objection to pure polygamy and\npure polyandry. Mr. Spencer says that \u201cmonogamy is a pre-requisite to a\nhigh position of women.\u201d Here he plainly overlooks the facts of the\nrespected and comparatively independent position of women among peoples\npractising mixed polygamy and polyandry under fixed rules and\nregulations.\n\nWith the actual facts of life before us, we are forced to admit that\nunder the r\u00e9gime of man\u2019s dominancy and woman\u2019s subjection, monogamy has\nbeen gross throughout all history, while with polyandry it has not been\nso. Note, in this regard, one fact alone\u2014jealousy, that mean, selfish\nemotion which destroys the happiness of so many lives, is not in\nevidence among the simple polyandric Nairs. The associated husbands live\non a good understanding with one another, there is a complete absence of\njealousy. Which of us can say, in view of the monogamy that surrounds\nus: Tolstoi\u2019s graphic picture, \u201cthe wild beast of jealousy began to roar\nin its den,\u201d applies only to a marriage in fiction? It is to monogamy\nthat we owe the typical domestic tyrant and many tyrannous attributes\nthat survive in modern masculine human nature. Monogamy, too, has always\nbeen accompanied by other sexual relations in which both sexes are\ndegraded and one sex is socially and physically ruined. As Mr. W. E. H.\nLecky has pointed out, monogamy on one side of the shield implies\nprostitution on the other.\n\nIn its normal form, monogamy signifies the attachment of one man to one\nwoman, involving\u2014first, permanent and exclusive sexual union; second,\nconjoint domestic life; third, the generating and rearing of a family;\nfourth, social intercourse in the class of society to which the parties\nbelong. Beyond these features of marriage, the economic and social\nforces of the age bring about in the vast majority of marriages a\nconstant subjection of the wife to the husband, by reason of her being\ndependent on him for her living, and a general freedom to the husband\nbut not to the wife to commit adultery. There is usually compelled also\nlateness of marriage, which implies unhealthful, painful conditions of\nlife in the celibate youth of both sexes. I will ask here: Ought we to\nlook upon permanency and exclusiveness as essential elements in the form\nof sex-union best suited to humanity at the present stage of its\nevolving civilization? Permanency is necessarily essential to our ideal\nof the final form of marriage, for the strongest, most valuable bond of\naffection implies it, and loss of love from whatever cause is a real\ncalamity. But where that calamity has already befallen, for society to\nenforce a mere outward permanency of the matrimonial bond is\nirrational\u2014the counterfeit union is productive only of private misery\nand public disorder. And further, under our present wretched economic\nconditions, the struggle for bread and absence of leisure and freedom in\nthe case of the workers, and, amid the upper classes, frequent financial\ndifficulties, false notions and customs of propriety and etiquette\u2014all\nthese combine to make it rare indeed that a man or woman chances to meet\nand unite with his or her counterpart or true life companion.\n\nCommercialism is no safe guide in the quest for a vital, permanent\nsex-union, and until commercialism wholly disappears, the exigencies of\nlife demand freedom of divorce to rectify unavoidable errors of judgment\nin matrimony, and make more possible the forming of ties that are truly\nand naturally permanent.\n\nAs human beings become more moral inwardly and create the outward\nconditions in which they can live a truly moral existence, Mr. Emerson\u2019s\nprinciple that the great essentials in human conduct are to escape from\nall false ties and to reveal ourselves as we are, will be more and more\nacknowledged and acted upon. Great thinkers like Milton in the past and\nHerbert Spencer in the present, condemn as contrary to religion and\nreason a permanency that involves falsity or absence of love. \u201cIt is a\nless breach of wedlock,\u201d says Milton, \u201cto part with wise and quiet\nconsent betimes, than still to foil and profane that mystery of joy and\nunion with a polluting sadness and perpetual distemper; for it is not\nthe outward continuing of marriage that keeps whole that covenant, but\nwhatsoever does most according to peace and love, whether in marriage or\nin divorce, he it is that breaks marriage least, it being so often\nwritten that \u2018Love only is the fulfilment of every commandment.\u2019\u201d (John\nMilton, _The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_, chap. v.) Divorce made\nattainable to all men and women, rich and poor, without any disgraceful\naccompaniment, is a necessary condition of progress. And in effect, each\nnation of Western Europe accepts and facilitates divorce concurrently\nwith its advance in civilization.\n\nNot long ago, in my hearing, a Roman Catholic barrister, whose practice\nmakes him familiar with all that occurs in the Divorce Court, delivered\nhimself to this effect: \u201cMy church anathematises divorce, and to my mind\nshe is right. But I am not the fool to think that the divorce law passed\nin our Statute Books in the year 1858 will ever be annulled or departed\nfrom. In the interests of morality, the pressing desideratum is that the\nbasis of divorce be made the same for man and woman. It is a crying\niniquity that whereas a husband by avoiding physical force, may legally\nbe as unfaithful to his marriage vows as he chooses, and may tyrannize\nover and trample under his feet the feelings of his wife, one single\nslip in an unguarded moment on her part, one act of adultery committed,\nit may be in a fit of despair, entitles him by law to repudiate her\nsummarily as barbarian husbands dismissed their wives.\u201d\n\nWhile permanency is eminently valuable in sexual relations, can we\nventure to say the same as regards exclusiveness? This distinctive\nquality of exclusiveness is not an extension of love, but a narrowing of\nit down\u2014a restraint upon personal feeling. When woman wins her freedom\nand is no longer under any circumstances man\u2019s dependent and slave, but\nhis friend and comrade in the battle of life, will she restrain the\nphysical expression of sex-love, yet fearlessly respond to all the\ntender ties certain to unite her with the opposite sex? To give at\npresent a dogmatic reply is impossible. Personally, my instincts\u2014so far\nas I know them\u2014accord with Herbert Spencer\u2019s dictum: the ultimate form\nof sexual relation will be monogamic; but I recognize my own\nlimitations. Since the women of my generation are children of\nbond-slaves, hampered within and without by survivals from an epoch of\nsex subjection wherein man\u2019s dominancy superimposed upon woman a\nchastity he repudiated for himself, the standpoint from which the freed\nbeing of the future will decide her sex-morality is not in the grasp of\nmy apprehension.\n\nNevertheless, the immediate path of progress is distinctly marked out. I\nagree with the author who holds the opinion that: \u201cBetter indeed were a\nSaturnalia of _free_ men and women than the spectacle which, as it is,\nour great cities present at night.\u201d (Edward Carpenter.) But set women\nfree \u201cfrom the mere cash-nexus to a husband, from the money slavery of\nthe streets, from the nameless terrors of social opinion, and from the\nthreats of the choice of perpetual virginity or perpetual bondage,\u201d and\nwe need not fear for sex-morality. \u201cSex in man is an organized passion,\nan individual need or impetus; but in woman it may more properly be\ntermed a constructive instinct, with the larger signification that that\ninvolves.... Nor does she often experience that divorce between the\nsentiment of love and the physical passion which is so common with men.\nSex with her is a deep and sacred instinct, carrying with it a sense of\nnatural purity.\u201d (_Woman_, Edward Carpenter, p. 9.) And from woman\nherself let me quote a passage occurring in a women\u2019s journal: \u201cLove is\nan emotion separate from sex-impulse, it may or may not exist in\nco-relation to it. The testimony easily taken from the lives of many\nwomen is to the effect that love enters not into the impulse which,\nactive and unrestrained on the part of those to whom they are yoked for\nlife, has created for them a life which can be called by no name save\nslavery.\u201d (_Shafts_, October, 1895.) Again, turning to the opposite sex,\nHavelock Ellis states (in his study of _Man and Woman_, Contemporary\nScience Series) that: \u201cIn women men find beings who have not wandered so\nfar as men from the typical life of earth\u2019s creatures; women are for men\nthe human embodiments of the restful responsiveness of Nature.\u201d\n\nI am convinced that however polygamous the male-sex\u2014under a system of\nindustrial commercialism may appear\u2014the great mass of our women are not\nlicentious and not polyandrous in tendency. While a Saturnalia of free\nmen and women would, as compared with present sexual conditions, be a\npreferable evil, we need not in our forecast of the future dread such a\nSaturnalia, or face its possibility. It is a libel on humanity to assume\nthat no self-restraints are inherent to withhold mankind from sexual\nexcesses when freed from control by Church and State. And although it\nmight be said that \u201cthe growing complexity of man\u2019s nature would be\nlikely to lead him into more rather than fewer sex relations, on the\nother hand it is obvious that as the depth and subtlety of any\nattachment that really holds him increases, so does such attachment\nbecome more permanent and durable and less likely to be realized in a\nnumber of persons.... In man and woman we find a distinct tendency\ntowards the formation of this double unit of wedded life ... and while\nwe do not want to stamp such natural unions with any false\nirrevocability or dogmatic exclusiveness, what we do want is a\nrecognition to-day of the tendency to their formation as a natural fact\nindependent of any artificial laws.\u201d (_Marriage_, Edward Carpenter, p.\n31.)\n\nThe natural restraints or checks upon undue indulgence in\nsex-intercourse extend from the physical or material plane to the\nspiritual plane. These are\u2014considerations of health; feelings of\nunselfishness and social duty; and a spiritual, i.e. an ideal,\nconception of humanity and of all the manifold relations of life.\n\nUnselfishness is pre-eminently the natural check and regulator of sex\nrelations, and not until love is emancipated from selfishness will it\nreach an ideal form. If we love unselfishly we desire the happiness and\nfreedom of the being loved even to the extent of self-abnegation;\ntyranny and jealousy become impossible. All natural checks will\nnecessarily strengthen and grow as humanity rises higher in the scale of\nbeing; moreover, education is bound\u2014under racial progress\u2014to become to\neach succeeding generation a much more adequate guide than hitherto.\nEven in the present day, it would not be difficult to get youths and\ngirls at the age of romance to understand that \u201cthough they may have to\ncontend with some superfluity of passion in early years, the most\npermanent and deeply-rooted desire within them will, in all probability,\nlead them at last to find their complete happiness and self-fulfilment\nonly in a close union with a life-mate\u201d; to understand also that\n\u201ctowards this end they must be prepared to use self-control, to prevent\nthe aimless straying of their passions, and patience and tenderness\ntowards the realization of the union when its time comes.\u201d (Edward\nCarpenter.) This teaching would bring to the young a far truer\nconception of the sacredness of marriage than our marriage laws and\ncustoms give.\n\nIt must never be forgotten, however, that this question of marriage and\nevery other social question must be viewed in relation to kindred\ntopics. A sectional treatment of society will surely mislead if we fail\nto recall the changes going forward in every department of life, and the\nclose connexion that exists between the forces of social and individual\nevolution. Scientific meliorism implies a reconstruction of domestic\nlife; and, within the new environment, the instructing of youth and its\nguidance in sex-conduct will become comparatively easy. Nor is it only\nby the training and guidance of youth that marriage will be favourably\naffected in a new domestic system. The tendency to tyranny within the\nhome\u2014an abhorrent feature of past monogamy\u2014will have no opportunity to\nappear; and two undesirable female types\u2014the idle fine lady and the\nhousehold drudge\u2014will become as extinct as the dodo.\n\nOutside the precincts of home, large social and industrial changes will\npromote the disappearance of the prostitute, and finally there will\nemerge the truly emancipated woman, fearless and enlightened\u2014a capable\nguide to man in the task of consciously subordinating passions that are\nselfish and transitory to those deeper attachments and higher emotions\nthat give birth to spiritual love. \u201cIs marriage a failure?\u201d has been\nboldly asked and widely discussed in comparatively recent years; and\nthat the audible answer\u2014sadly re-echoed in thousands of hearts\u2014was in\nthe affirmative, shows a wholesome awakening to facts\u2014an awakening that\ninevitably precedes all real reforms in an epoch of conscious evolution.\n\nSo permeated with selfishness is the mental atmosphere surrounding all\nquestions of sex that the rule of life I here indicate will be utterly\ndistasteful to those who accept the r\u00e9gime of custom. Yet as regards\nmorality or an ethical code, there are two, and two only, logical\nattitudes of mind. Either we must think of the stamping out of all\nsexual feeling on the ground of its purely animal nature, and limiting\nphysical union to the utmost that is compatible with perpetuation of\nspecies; or we must think of a gradual elevating of sexual instinct and\naction to a dignified position in human life with due consideration for\nthe desires and needs of every one after puberty is reached. The first\nis practically impossible to the vast majority of the race at its\npresent stage of development. They would simply refuse submission to the\nintolerable restraints necessitated. In effect, the ascetic answer to\nproblems of sex is no actual solution, but a shelving of the fundamental\nquestion, with a tacit acceptance of the prodigious evils around us in\nrespect both of sex-union and the advent of children. The only rational\ncourse is that of elevating and regulating these relations in view of\nhuman happiness. This implies a steady repression of anti-social\nemotions and persistent cultivation of unselfishness. Our marital habits\nof selfish appropriation and jealous control are in direct opposition to\nthe moral elevation of sexual instinct. Selfishness degrades where it\npenetrates, and the problem is to rescue our sexual forces from\nselfishness, and utilize these forces, i.e. make them subserve the\ninterests of social virtue. Hitherto, they have been ignored and\nneglected\u2014a result of false thinking and ascetic teaching, while in\nactual life they have run riot, creating incalculable evils.\n\nThe British race publicly professes monogamy and preaches to the young a\nPuritan doctrine. Privately the drama enacted would disgrace a\ncivilization of the Middle Ages. In the lower classes wife-beating and\nmurder, in the upper classes the hideous revelations of the Divorce\nCourt, witness to the impurity and the misery of our boasted monogamy.\nWe tolerate licence, we condemn and conceal vicious propensities; we\nharbour a social evil of gigantic magnitude, we permit hypocrisy to\nprevail, we instigate the young to form self-interested mercantile\nmarriages. We are corrupt in our social life and mentally debased, for\nwe refuse to think out a rational code of sex morals, and without that\nwe shall never attain to a lofty conception, a true ideal of what life\nought to be. Our modern monogamy in its inwardness is not falsely\npictured in this indictment: \u201cThe commercialism which buys and sells all\nhuman things; the narrow physical passion of jealousy; the petty sense\nof private property in another person; social opinions and legal\nenactments, have all converged to choke and suffocate wedded love in\negoism, lust and meanness.\u201d (Edward Carpenter\u2019s _Marriage_, p. 38.)\n\nIn view of general happiness and virtue, we must seek the abrogation of\nall laws based on or involving sex-inequality. And, further, that\nmarriage may become transformed into a sacred, sympathetic and permanent\nbond\u2014a deeper and truer relation of life\u2014we must seek facilities for\ndivorce or the abrogation of the specific law that binds beings together\nfor life in ill-assorted or artificial unions.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER V\n PARENTAGE\n\n The simple fact that the birth of a human being, the image of God, as\n religious people say, is in so many cases regarded as of very much\n less importance than that of a domestic animal, proves the degraded\n condition in which we live.\u2014AUGUST BEBEL.\n\n\nThe reproduction of species yields to no other special function of life\nin respect of importance and the wide scope of its vital issues.\nNotwithstanding that vast numbers of illegitimate children are born in\nevery civilized country where monogamy reigns, this function of\nreproduction is popularly regarded as allied with marriage in the order\nof a natural and necessary consequence\u2014a result irrespective of human\nwill. Now scientific meliorism makes a clear distinction between\nmarriage and parentage on the ground that, while the former\ncomparatively is of insignificant importance to the interests of\nhumanity in general, parentage is of vital moment to these interests;\nmoreover, between the two there exists no integral or essential\nrelation. On the one hand, progeny spring from unions not legalized by\nmarriage; on the other, many married people, swayed by motives chiefly\negoistic, but sometimes altruistic, are consciously exercising a\nvoluntary restraint over propagation.\n\nThe late Matthew Arnold tells us that when gazing on one occasion in\ncompany with a benevolent man upon a multitude of slum children eaten up\nwith disease, half-sized, half-fed, half-clothed, neglected by their\nparents, without health, without home, without hope, the good man said:\n\u201cThe one thing really needful is to teach these little ones to succour\none another, if only with a cup of cold water.\u201d Mr. Arnold promptly\nrejected that theory. \u201cSo long as the multitude of these poor children\nis perpetually swelling,\u201d said he, \u201cthey must be charged with misery to\nthemselves and us, whether they help one another with a cup of cold\nwater or no, and the knowledge how to prevent them accumulating is what\nwe want.\u201d That knowledge is no longer inaccessible to man. There are\nknown rational methods by which to keep the populating tendency within\ndue limits, and at the same time to promote individual prudence,\nforesight and self-dependence.\n\nNeo-Malthusianism, with its power of subjugating the law of population\nand deferring parentage, is a new key to the social position, and\nneo-Malthusian practice has already taken root in British society. The\ndiscovery is of vast significance, so great are its latent possibilities\nof promoting universal happiness. But as long as reproduction of human\nphysical life is left to haphazard, and the rule of private, personal\ninterests alone, without any honourable recognition, intelligent\nguidance, or moral and economic support, the immediate effect on\nnational life is, and will continue to be, the very reverse of\nbeneficial.\n\nMatthew Arnold\u2019s exhortation in respect of the slum children was: \u201cWe\nmust let conscience play freely and simply upon the facts of the case;\nwe must listen to what it tells us of the intelligible law of things as\nconcerns these children, and what it tells us is that a man\u2019s children\nare not really sent any more than the pictures upon his walls or the\nhorses in his stable are sent, and that to bring people into the world\nwhen one cannot afford to keep them and oneself decently, or to bring\nmore of them into the world than one can afford to keep thus, is by no\nmeans an accomplishment of the Divine Will or a fulfilment of nature\u2019s\nsimplest laws, but is contrary to reason and the will of God.\u201d (_Culture\nand Anarchy_, p. 246.)\n\nThis remonstrance addressed to the rich (these alone have pictures on\ntheir walls and horses in their stables) may have had some effect, for\ncertain it is that in the upper classes artificial checks to conception\nare now widely used, while slum children show no tendency to\nproportionately diminish in number. Individuals whose standard of living\nis high, and whose pecuniary means are small, or who are thoughtful,\nintelligent, prudent, either refrain from marriage, or, marrying, check\npropagation. The natural result is that children of the comparatively\nsuperior types are becoming numerically weaker than children of the\nthoughtless, reckless members of society who exercise their reproductive\npowers to the utmost. It is supremely important that we should recognize\nhow parentage bears upon human life and happiness in far wider relations\nthan either sexual union alone or marriage alone.\n\nMaintenance of species has hitherto been accomplished at an enormous\nsacrifice of individual life. The requirement that there shall arise a\nfull number of adults in successive generations is fulfilled by means\nwhich subordinate the existing and next succeeding members of the\nspecies in various degrees. (See Herbert Spencer\u2019s _Principles of\nSociology_, vol. i. p. 621.)\n\nAmong low forms\u2014inferior to the human organism\u2014the germs of new\nindividuals are produced in immense numbers, the larger part of the\nparental substance being sometimes transformed into these germs. Birth\nhere may be immediately followed by the death of the parent organism,\nand an immense mortality of the young may take place\u2014consequent on\ndefenceless exposure, insufficient food and other untoward conditions.\n\u201cOf a million minute ova left uncared for, the majority are destroyed\nbefore they are hatched, so that very few have considerable amounts of\nindividual life.\u201d (Ibid. p. 622.)\n\nThroughout the course of evolution the natural order in moving from\nhigher to higher types is a gradual decrease of this condition, viz. the\nsacrifice of individual life to the life of the species, and at the same\ntime an increase of compensating pleasures allied with the reproductive\nfunction. When illustrating this natural order, Herbert Spencer points\nto the methods among fishes and amphibians contrasted with those among\nbirds and mammals. The spawn of the former when safely deposited is\ngenerally left to its fate.[3] There is physical cost to adults with\napparently no accompanying gratifications. Birds and mammals, however,\ncarefully rear and tend their offspring. \u201cThe activities of parenthood\nare sources of agreeable emotions, just as are the activities which\nachieve self-sustentation.\u201d\n\nFootnote 3:\n\n There are exceptions to the rule, as in the case of the male\n stickleback.\n\nPassing from the less intelligent vertebrates which produce many young\nat short intervals and abandon them at an early age, to the more\nintelligent higher vertebrates which produce few young at longer\nintervals and aid them for longer periods, this principle clearly\nemerges\u2014\u201cWhile the rate of juvenile mortality is diminished, there\nresults both a lessened physical cost of maintaining the species and an\naugmented satisfaction of the affections.\u201d (_Principles of Sociology_,\nvol. i. p. 628.)\n\nThere is no reversal of this genetic order of nature in the epoch of\nconscious evolution. The processes are different, because man possesses\ndeveloped intellect, aided by scientific knowledge and invention as a\nnew and skilled ally in the struggle to maintain his species at less and\nless cost of individual life and happiness; but the general forward\nmovement takes precisely the same course. With the highest evolved type\nof man this sacrifice of individual life to the species is reduced to a\nminimum, while the interests of species are conserved in a painless, a\nwholly superior manner. And, further, the entire range of domestic\nfeelings\u2014parental, filial, fraternal and intimately social, become\nextended and increasingly capable of bestowing enduring pleasure. The\nultimate goal is easy maintenance of species, without\u2014to any\nunpleasurable extent\u2014subordinating single members of species to that\nend.\n\nLove of offspring, as already explained, has no reproductive instinct at\nits base. It is a feeling\u2014superimposed on organic nature\u2014dependent on\nfamily life or arrangements that involve parental care and more or less\nof adult activity directed to the well-being of the young. This\nsentiment of love of offspring or philoprogenitiveness, is well\nestablished in the British race; but with rampant poverty in our midst,\ncan we wonder that in hundreds of thousands of individual cases the\npaternal relation\u2014so capable of filling the heart with tender emotions\nand joy\u2014creates an actual disgust, or a feeling of despair, malignancy,\neven injustice, as is shown in the touching little satire, _Ginx\u2019s\nBaby_. Ginx frankly gave his wife notice that, as his utmost efforts\ncould scarcely maintain their existing family, if she ventured to\npresent him with any more, either single or twins ... \u201che would most\nassuredly drown him.\u201d Later, when the arrival of number thirteen is\nimminent\u2014the wife being unable longer to hide the impending event\u2014Ginx\nfixed his determination by much thought and a little extra drinking. He\nargued thus: \u201cHe wouldn\u2019t go on the parish. He couldn\u2019t keep another\nyoungster to save his life. He had never taken charity and never would.\nThere was nothink to do with it but drown it.\u201d\n\nNor is even the maternal relation proof against bitterness in untoward\nconditions, although the feelings will be differently expressed, and may\npossibly assume a pious garb. \u201cI\u2019ve \u2019ad my fifteen or my twenty on \u2019em,\nbut, thank \u2019eaven, the churchyard \u2019as stood my friend.\u201d These or similar\nwords have often been heard in an English factory town. The women\nspeaking thus were not otherwise callous or incapable of mother-love.\nThey were gentle, patient, toiling drudges, who had had the\nphiloprogenitiveness of average human nature and the tender joys of\nmaternity perverted into secret care and open hypocritical cant by the\nphysical strain of a too-frequent child-bearing, combined with the\nmiseries of ceaseless labour, pinched means, and comfortless, crowded\nhomes.\n\nThe frequent advent of children who are unwelcome to their own parents\nin a society no longer ignorant of the scientific means by which its\nweakest members may avoid parentage, without any destruction of life or\nany injury to sexual function, is marvellously irrational, and it\nindicates divergence from the well-marked path of evolutional progress.\n\nOpposition to neo-Malthusian practice arises from primitive conceptions\nof life (conceptions antecedent to evolutional theory), while all the\nvarious undefined scruples painfully experienced by individuals are\nsurvivals of the sentiment allied with these false conceptions.\nPrejudice dies slowly, as ignorance is dispelled by the growing light of\nnew knowledge.\n\nI have shown that asceticism is an immoral principle, the action of\nwhich tends to fill individual life with gloom and depression, and to\nthwart or counteract general happiness. I have also shown the absolute\nnecessity for retarding the multiplication of human beings to suit the\nlimits of available subsistence. And now, after pointing out that\nphiloprogenitiveness\u2014which is the groundwork of domestic and social\nvirtue, and ought to be the mainspring of reproduction of species\u2014is\ncontinually liable to be strained, depressed or perverted into\nanti-social bitterness in parental bosoms among the lower classes, I\nmust ask the question: How otherwise than by the easiest method known to\nscience could the difficulties of the position be met and overcome?\n\nMessrs. Patrick Geddes and J. A. Thomson, in their treatise on the\n_Evolution of Sex_, urge the necessity of what they call \u201can ethical\nrather than a mechanical prudence after marriage, of a temperance\nrecognized to be as binding on husband and wife as chastity on the\nunmarried.\u201d (_The Evolution of Sex_, p. 297.) But what do these\ngentlemen mean by the temperance here recommended? It is surely well\nknown that the birth of a large family is perfectly consistent with a\nsparing, most temperate exercise of the procreative function; and surely\nalso it would be folly on our part to look for parental conduct\ncontrolled by ethical motive in the warrens of the poor of our large\ncities, from whence springs an important section of the national life.\n(_Social Control of the Birth Rate_, Pamphlet by G. A. Gaskell.)\n\nIn the homes of the upper classes, adorned with all the amenities and\nrefinements of civilization, parental prudence results mainly from\negoistic motive. Practical reformers will hesitate to assume that\nthose\u2014the less favoured social units\u2014are likely to surpass these in\nmoral elevation, and demean themselves generally in a superior manner!\nBut further, a parental prudence, dispensing with mechanical methods of\nchecking propagation, may even prove the converse of ethical conduct.\nAdvanced sexual morality requires a free and healthful exercise of\nsexual function. That such freedom is not possible under present social\nconditions is irrelevant to the question at issue; the point is that\nconduct unnecessarily traversing this advanced sexual morality is not in\naccordance with rationalized social ethics; it has no scientific basis.\n\nParental morals must conform to the principle indicated by Herbert\nSpencer\u2014reduce to a minimum the sacrifice of individual life and\nhappiness to the life of the species; augment to the maximum the joys of\naffection involved in parental relations. This is possible to a race\namong which are beings of low intelligence and unrestrained passion only\nby bringing into play the laws of heredity through rational breeding.\nBut rational breeding depends on an appeal to ordinary egoistic motive\nand practical resort to the painless mechanical means of checking\nconception.\n\nThere is no general unwillingness to limit their families among the\npoor; what is lacking consists simply in power of control over the\nphysical conditions of fertility. To see children half-starved and wives\nsickly and miserable is no more pleasant to parents of the Ginx order\nthan to those of us who view it from a safe distance; and there is ample\nintelligence to perceive the connexion between, on the one hand,\ndiscomfort and poverty attendant on a family of ten or twelve, on the\nother, comparative comfort allied with a family of only three or four.\n\nA code of ethics covering the interests of the entire nation commands\nstrenuous effort on the part of all thoughtful, intelligent people to\nmake the artificial checks known to the thoughtless and unintelligent.\nIt is not by proudly rejecting scientific invention in this matter that\nwe shall attain to development of higher and higher types of man, but by\nskilfully using it as a powerful ally in our struggle to maintain and\nregenerate species at less and less cost to individual happiness.\n\nApart altogether from man\u2019s partial practice of neo-Malthusian art,\nunder egoistic motives, civilization has created an interference with\nthe original order of race preservation under generous or altruistic\nmotive. Social feeling slowly developing revolts\u2014in detail\u2014from the\ncruel method of the law of natural selection. It spontaneously\nsupersedes that law by one of sympathetic selection. But whereas the\nformer law issued in survival of the fittest, the latter issues day by\nday in indiscriminate survival, and consequent race deterioration. A\ncontrolled rate of increase is not therefore the only position to which\nreason and science must guide us; we have further to escape from the\ndisastrous consequences of the above law and pass to conditions of life\nevolved under the benign influence of a rational and moral law\u2014a law of\nsocial selection, resulting in appropriate birth, or the birth of the\nsocially fit.\n\nThere are thousands of our present day population with whom family life\nis no whit superior to that of birds, whose pairing is immediately\nfollowed by rapid breeding and a complete scattering of the brood when\nthe young are barely fledged. A wise philanthropy in line with the march\nof progressive evolution may lift these thousands to the level of the\nhigher vertebrates, \u201cwhich produce few young at longer intervals and\ngive them aid for longer periods.\u201d The recalcitrant minority refusing to\npractice parental prudence must be treated by society as abnormal\nindividuals, incapable of rising to the standard of average civilized\nhuman nature, and these must be subjected to social restraint.\n\n\n\n\n _PART III_\n ABNORMAL HUMANITY\n\n Men may rise on stepping-stones\n Of their dead selves to higher things.\n \u2014From _In Memoriam_.\n\n\n\n\n THE ELIMINATION OF CRIME\n\n Many a man thinks that it is his goodness which keeps him from crime,\n when it is only his full stomach. On half allowance, he would be as\n ugly and knavish as anybody. Don\u2019t mistake potatoes for\n principles.\u2014CARLYLE.\n\n\nA normal child of five years once asked the meaning of this\nexpression\u2014\u201changing a murderer,\u201d and after explanation said eagerly,\n\u201cBut will hanging the man make that other man alive again?\u201d On receiving\na negative reply, the remonstrance burst forth, \u201cThen why kill him,\nsince when he is dead we can never make him good again?\u201d\n\nThis is a true picture of the thinking and feeling about crime which is\nnatural to the best types of our present-day humanity. These demand that\nour punishments shall either reform the criminal or protect society\neffectively from his malfeasance. As a matter of fact, our criminal code\nand whole machinery and procedure relative to crime accomplish neither,\nand this is freely admitted by men whose position enables them to judge\naccurately and entitles them to express an opinion.\n\nMr. Justice Matthew has said at the Birmingham Assizes that the present\nstate of the criminal law is a hundred years behind the times. Sir\nEdmund Du Cane, Chairman of the Directors of Convict Prisons, says of\nthe solitary system practised in our penal prisons: \u201cIt is an artificial\nstate of existence, absolutely opposed to that which nature points out\nas the condition of mental, moral and physical health.... The minds of\nthe prisoners become enfeebled by long-continued isolation.\u201d In the\nOfficial Report of the Departmental Committee on Prisons, 1895, these\nwords occur: \u201cThe prisoners have been treated too much as a hopeless or\nworthless part of the community. The moral condition in which a large\nnumber of prisoners leave the prison, and the serious number of\nrecommittals, have led us to think there is ample cause for a searching\ninquiry into the main features of prison life.\u201d The late Judge\nFitz-Stephen published his _History of the Criminal Law_ in 1883, and\npointed there to \u201cnotorious evils of which it is difficult,\u201d said he,\n\u201cto find a satisfactory remedy.\u201d Nevertheless, he put down his finger on\nthe crucial spot when he wrote \u201cthe law proceeds upon the principle that\nit is morally right to hate criminals. It confirms and justifies that\nsentiment by inflicting upon criminals punishment which expresses it.\u201d\n\nBut it is not right to hate criminals. It is morally wrong, i.e. it is\ncontrary to these laws of nature, by which alone an elevated and happy\nsocial life may be attained. The emotion of hatred creates vibrations\nproducing evil on the moral plane, as certainly as discordant sounds,\nacting on sensitive ears, produce discomfort; and, if persisted in,\nproduce organic disorganization on the physical plane. Hence, all\npunishment or legal procedure directed against crime, having hatred at\nits foundation, or historic base, must fail. On the negative side,\nhatred has proved ineffectual in protecting society from crime. On the\npositive side, it increases the anti-social feelings, whose natural\noutcome is crime, and frustrates, or annuls, the human forces of love,\nwhich already widely existent, and swaying humanity\u2019s best types, are\nthe true evolutional factors by which to annihilate crime.\n\nMr. Justice Matthew was simply asserting a fact of social science when\nhe stated that the criminal law is out of date. It consists with a\nprimitive stage of social life; but it is totally inconsistent with even\nthe semi-civilization of to-day. The fundamental discord between our\naction and feeling relative to crime declares itself in the uncertainty\nof a criminal\u2019s fate and the steady survival of his type. But, my\nreader, while accepting Justice Matthew\u2019s premise, may doubt the\nconclusion at which Judge Fitz-Stephen arrived\u2014that vindictiveness or\nhate lies at the root of our criminal code, and that our punishments\nexpress it. Moreover, he may condemn by anticipation a supposed tendency\non my part to censure all punishments, and rely solely on a\n_laissez-faire_ system of dealing with crime. Scientific meliorism,\nhowever, does not imply anarchy or the absence of governing law. Its\nmethods repudiate the _laissez-faire_ principle in every department of\nlife, for this reason: Our developed faculties and accumulated knowledge\nmake untenable the negative or inert position. We are impelled in an\nepoch of conscious evolution to take positive action favourable to\nprogress.\n\nMy contention is this: love of all men, not hatred of any man or class\nof men ought to be the basis of our criminal code. Modern science,\nexperience and skill are competent to redeem the criminal class,\nspeaking generally, and in exceptional cases, where redemption is\nimpossible, can render the criminal innocuous to society, while giving\nhim throughout life such innocent happiness as a being organically\ndefective may enjoy.\n\nThis thesis embraces a very wide range of action. It means the\nsystematic rational treatment of evil-doers, from the refractory infant\nand juvenile pickpocket to the burglar, the fraudulent bankrupt, the\nfelon, the traitor, the murderer, and if any exist, the born criminal.\nIt signifies, in short, a complete science complementary to that of true\neducation. For whereas the latter comprises all manner of attractive\nstimuli to noble living, this is the science of necessary social\nrestraints to be applied in nursery, school and prison with the\nuniversal gentleness which springs from universal love. The purpose to\nbe aimed at is, first, improving character by restraining obnoxious\ntendencies; second, reforming character already become anti-social;\nthird, protecting society from all corrupt infusion that might proceed\nfrom morally diseased character.\n\nA leading principle of the criminal law of Great Britain is that\npunishment be adjusted in proportion to the supposed magnitude of each\nindividual offence. If we study this principle, we must perceive the\ntruth of Judge Fitz-Stephen\u2019s allegation, for what connexion has it with\nthe reformation of the criminal? A judge or a jury makes no attempt to\ncompute the amount of prison restraint and discipline necessary to\nreformation, nor are they possessed of facts for forming a judgment.\nTheir whole attention has been focussed on the crime, not on the\ncharacter of the criminal, or the antecedent and future conditions\naffecting the character. Neither does the judicial sentence connect\nitself proportionately with the mischief done to society. A fraudulent\nbanker or commercial speculator, whose downfall involves the ruin of\nthousands, is not dealt with, as compared with a petty thief, on a scale\nof severity expressive of the magnitude of suffering entailed. And the\npetty thief, who steals the rich man\u2019s goods, as compared with the\ncriminal who beats and abuses his wife, is adjudged a severer penalty\u2014a\nmeasure of punishment indicating the superior value of goods over wives,\nwhich is a sentiment appropriate only to barbarous times.\n\nThese anomalies, however, are explainable. Our laws have descended to us\nfrom a barbarous age, when might was right, irrespective of justice; and\nfrom a race whose punishments sprang from revenge, and were roughly\nproportioned to the feeling of revenge. They are little else than\nreactionary forces, of which some are always present in an inchoate\nsociety. Their inapplicability to the task of reforming criminals is\neasily proved.\n\nIn Scotland in a single year not fewer than \u201csix hundred and ninety\npersons were committed to prison who had been in confinement at least\nten times before. Of these, three hundred and ninety-three had been in\nprison at least twenty times before, and twenty-three at least fifty\ntimes!\u201d (_Hill on Crime_, p. 28.) These figures speak for themselves.\nOur whole system is glaringly unscientific. We do not remove the\nconditions that act as causes of crime. We punish, and sometimes\nseverely, yet we let loose again offenders not one whit more prepared\nthan before to withstand the temptations of freedom. We calmly support\nand approve an enormous expenditure of public funds upon criminals and\ncrime; we carefully select good men to be prison managers, officers and\nchaplains; we secure cleanliness and sanitation within the prisons, and\nso forth; but these efforts are utterly futile because the system is\nwrong\u2014the criminal law of Great Britain is based upon a false, an\nirrational principle.\n\nThe causes of crime within our province to deal with are of a two-fold\nnature\u2014objective and subjective. Poverty, i.e. hunger and want, a slum\nenvironment, rough handling in infancy and childhood, a mischievous\ntraining and the absence of all conditions favourable to gentle,\nvirtuous life\u2014these are some of the objective causes creating crime\nwhich society is bound to remove. Among causes deciding the innate\ncharacter of every newly-born babe, the forces of heredity stand out\nconspicuously. I have demonstrated that aggregate humanity, in a\nscientific age, has the means of controlling these forces and directing\nthem to the production of physical, mental and moral health in the\nindividual, and consequently in the community. The born criminal type\nmay become gradually improved by careful and wise treatment under\nlife-long restraints. Meanwhile, to seek reformation of this type, by\nprison discipline alone, and treat it by methods adapted to corrigible\nculprits, is a folly dishonouring to the developed reason of man. We\nhave abundant evidence that the type exists. Mr. Frederick Hill, late\nInspector of Prisons, says: \u201cNothing has been more clearly shown in the\ncourse of my inquiries than that crime is hereditary to a considerable\nextent ... it proceeds from father to son in a long line of succession.\u201d\n(_Hill on Crime_, p. 55.) Mr. J. B. Thomson, Resident Surgeon of the\nPerth Prison, states of the facts of prison life: \u201cThey press on my mind\nthe conviction that crime in general is a moral disease of a chronic and\ncongenital nature, intractable when transmitted from generation to\ngeneration.\u201d And Mr. George Combe, speaking of prisons in the United\nStates of America, wrote: \u201cI have put the question to many keepers of\nprisons whether they believed in the possibility of reforming all\noffenders. From those whose minds were humane and penetrating, I have\nreceived the answer\u2014they did not, for experience had convinced them that\nsome criminals are incorrigible by any human means hitherto discovered.\nThese incorrigibles,\u201d says George Combe\u2014and this is the point to\nobserve, \u201cwere always found to have defective organizations; ... they\nare morally idiotic; and justice, as well as humanity, dictates our\ntreating them as patients. They labour under great natural defects; ...\nto punish them for actions proceeding from these natural defects is no\nmore just or beneficial to society than it would be to punish men for\nhaving crooked spines or club feet.\u201d (George Combe\u2019s _Moral Philosophy_,\np. 306.) And I could refer to many more authorities on the subject were\nit necessary.\n\nAccepting the theory that our born-criminals are victims of moral\ndisease, the question arises\u2014how should we treat them? Fifty years ago\nwe sorely maltreated our victims to mental disease. We bound them hand\nand foot, we punished them sternly for their congenital defects, we\nshunned and hated them, and because they were martyrs to a pitiful\ndisease we made them also the victims of unnecessary and cruel\nsufferings. Few men to-day could glance without a shudder at the record\nof our treatment of lunatics. We consign the history gladly to oblivion,\nand point to changes betokening the better feeling of to-day. \u201cNo one\nthinks of sending a madman to a lunatic asylum for a certain number of\ndays, weeks or months. We carefully ascertain that he is unfit to be at\nlarge, and that those in whose hands we are about to place him act under\ndue inspection and have the knowledge and skill which afford the best\nhope for his cure; that they will be kind to him, and inflict no more\npain than is necessary for his secure custody ... we leave it to them to\ndetermine if, or when, he can be safely liberated.\u201d (_Hill on Crime_, p.\n151.)\n\nThese are the lines on which also should run our treatment of moral\ndisease. If a man is unfit morally to be at large, we must narrow the\nconditions of his life, but make it as enjoyable within the coercive\nrestraints as is compatible with improvement. And on no account must we\nrestore his liberty until those who professionally and officially watch\nhis daily conduct are convinced that he will not again be likely to\nabuse that liberty.\n\nBut apart altogether from individual delinquents, the subjective racial\ntendency to crime demands special treatment, and in this regard I\nmaintain that the enlightened action of an advanced society will be\nanalogous to the ignorant action of an earnest church in the Middle Ages\nwith precisely opposite results. \u201cThe long period of the Dark Ages,\nunder which Europe lay, was due, I believe, in a very considerable\ndegree,\u201d says Francis Galton, \u201cto the celibacy enjoined by religious\norders on their votaries. Whenever a man or woman was possessed of a\ngentle nature that fitted him or her to deeds of charity, to meditation,\nto literature or to art, the social condition of the time was such that\nthey had no refuge elsewhere than in the bosom of the church. But the\nchurch preached and exacted celibacy. The consequence was that these\ngentle natures had no continuance, and by a policy so singularly unwise\nand suicidal that I am hardly able to speak of it without impatience,\nthe church brutalized the breed of our forefathers. She acted as if she\naimed at selecting the rudest portion of the community to be alone the\nparents of future generations. She practised the arts which breeders\nwould use who aimed at creating ferocious, currish and stupid natures.\nNo wonder that club law prevailed for centuries over Europe; the wonder\nis, that enough good remained in the veins of Europeans to enable their\nrace to rise to its present very moderate level of natural morality.\u201d\n(_Hereditary Genius_, F. Galton, p. 356.)\n\nA humane society, guided by rational forces in the epoch of conscious\nevolution, will practise the policy of the church of the Middle Ages on\na different class of subjects. It will gather poor criminals into its\nbosom, and secure for them a safe and happy refuge while exacting\ncelibacy. The racial blood shall not be poisoned by moral disease. The\nguardians of the present-day social life dare not be careless of future\nsocial life and the happiness of generations unborn; therefore the\ncriminal breed must be forcibly restrained from perpetuating its kind.\nNow mark the result. Not gentle natures\u2014as in the case of the church\u2014but\nthe innately vicious natures will have no continuance. The criminal type\nslowly but surely disappears.\n\nTo promote the contentment and comfort of congenital criminals within\ntheir asylum or prison home an alternative to celibacy might be offered,\nviz. surgical treatment, to render the male incapable of reproduction.\n(The treatment indicated is not the operation ordinarily performed upon\nsome domestic animals; this, applied to human beings, would be morally\nand physically injurious. Particulars of the appropriate method were\npublished in the _British Medical Journal_ as early as May 2, 1874, at\np. 586.) Were this course voluntarily chosen, the sexes might\nintermingle without danger to posterity; and since fuller social life\ntends to make all human beings happier, these convicts would become more\nmanageable, and coercive restraints cease to be indispensable.\n\nBut the criminal stock is not great when compared with the actual crimes\nof to-day. Crime in a vast measure is simply produced by the outward\naccidental conditions of life\u2014an evil environment and a grossly\ninadequate training. If we alter the environment of our masses\u2014by\nestablishing a new industrial system that banishes poverty from the\nland, by initiating a Malthusian and neo-Malthusian practice that puts\nthe physical life on a healthy basis, by creating a family life suitable\nto man\u2019s emotional nature, and supplying a true education that embraces\nscientific restraints on all anti-social tendencies\u2014then, but not till\nthen, will crime and the criminal type alike become things of the past.\n\nWe are surrounded to-day in our reformatories and board schools, in our\nhomes and on our streets, by children of na\u00efvely-disobedient or\nrebellious tendency. These are the embryo criminals of a few years\nhence. When a clever romanticist makes one his hero, and describes the\ndevelopment of trickiness in the child, and how he uses it as a weapon\nof defence against the \u201cpolissman\u201d whom he defies, trips up and\notherwise evades (_Cleg Kelly_, by Crockett), we read the account\nwithout compunction, nay, we relish the humour of the situation, and\nhalf approve the issue! Yet this assuredly is no legitimate outcome of\nchildish bravery and sportiveness. Our levity arises from the underlying\nconviction, or the universal feeling begotten of genetic evolution, that\nthe policeman\u2019s jurisdiction here is flagrantly inappropriate.\n\nInfantile disobedience and full-fledged crime seem far apart, but they\nare united by an inward deteriorating process, an outward chain of\ntrespasses more or less petty. The links are all there, connecting the\ntender babe and fascinating street-arab with the thief and murderer.\nSimilarly, on the moral plane, flow the sequences of cause and effect\nthat bring retribution\u2014that inalienable feature of the law of evolution.\nThe crime that society deplores is the natural penalty for society\u2019s\nneglect of children; and there is no escape from the penalty as long as\nthe cause continues. Nor can society plead ignorance here. Herbert\nSpencer and Ruskin have spoken out plainly on this subject. \u201cWhat we\nneed is cessation from all these antagonisms which keep alive the brutal\nelements of human nature, and persistence in a peaceful life, giving\nunchequered play to the sympathies.\u201d (_Herbert Spencer on Arbitration._)\n\u201cIt is,\u201d says Ruskin, \u201cthe lightest way of killing to stop a man\u2019s\nbreath. But if you bind up his thoughts by lack of true education, if\nyou blind his eyes, if you blunt his hopes, if you steal his joys, if\nyou stunt his body and blast his soul ... this you think no sin!\u201d\nVerily, there _is sin_, acknowledged by the noblest, wisest of men, and\nbrought home to us on the lips of babes\u2014\u201cWhy kill the man, since when he\nis dead we can never make him good again!\u201d\n\nSociety has to compass the task of making men good from the beginning;\nand in exceptional cases, where the task is impossible, the victims are\nsimply society\u2019s patients, to be impounded without hurt. We are as able\nto protect our social life from moral as from mental lunatics. The\ninitial step, however (hardly yet taken), is to pass from the mental\nattitude of a barbarous race, whose habits of defence are those of\narbitrary punishment, to that of a civilized nation bent on reforming\nits criminals, and treating its morally diseased members with uniform\nhumanity and brotherly love. As yet the resources of man\u2019s reason and\nscientific knowledge and aptitude have never been called into play to\ndevise a system of consecutive restraints on the \u201cbrutal elements,\u201d a\nsystem to make men good from the beginning by \u201cworking out the beast.\u201d\n\nThe crux of the problem is how to imbue children painlessly with the\ntruth that social life has responsibilities and limitations, obedience\nto which is indispensable. And I submit that this may be done in the\nhomes and nurseries of the future, under a scientifically adapted system\nof training. Hard blows and even chiding tones of the human voice must\nhave no place in childhood\u2019s environment, but authority may be exercised\nthrough the use of a simple appliance for limiting infant freedom. When\nbaby trespasses against some natural law of health or social life, of\nwhich he knows nothing, he is gently but promptly and firmly placed in a\nbaby-prison standing within reach, viz. a goodly-sized basket, high at\nthe sides, softly cushioned all round and weighted, so that it cannot be\noverturned by the infant culprit, who, if refractory, may kick or scream\nin safety there till the paroxysm passes, and he falls asleep. On waking\nhe recalls vaguely, when older, more clearly the occurrence, and he\nbecomes lightly possessed by a subtle sense of authority quite distinct\nfrom individual kindness or unkindness. His human relations are unhurt\nby the necessary training in infancy. He has been checked in wrong-doing\nwithout any wrong association of ideas, and without an awakening of\nanti-social feeling.\n\nI have seen an ignorant nurse teach a child to seek solace for pain in\nan anti-social emotion! \u201cBeat the naughty chair that has hurt poor\nbaby\u2019s head,\u201d was the evil counsel, and the child held out to the chair\nstruck his tiny revengeful blows, and was kissed and caressed in\nconsequence. This happened in a rich man\u2019s nursery. Could one blame the\nignorant nurse? Her infancy was passed in a city slum, and in every such\nlocality children swarm who freely strike out both in self-protection\nand brutal aggressiveness. From birth these little ones live more or\nless in an atmosphere of savage assault. Tyranny and force are the\nruling conditions of their childhood, and the natural result\u2014under the\nunalterable law of cause and effect\u2014is this: vindictive, barbaric\nfeeling is carried hither and thither throughout society at large, and\ndegrades every social class.\n\nWhen home-life in the middle classes has been reorganized, and nursery\ntraining is the outcome of scientific thought, children there at least\nwill escape this taint. They will pass from nursery to schoolroom with\nnerves that have never been unnecessarily jarred. They will be\nphysically stronger, and in temperament more serene. Reared without\nharshness, they will know no craven fear; and since the native attitude\nof childhood towards elders never seen angry or cross is that of\nconfiding love, teachers will have no difficulty in bringing into play\nthe tender emotions that are natural checks upon evil doing, and natural\nincentives to effort in action that is right. If playfulness intrudes,\nand the serious work of a class is hindered by some little urchin\u2019s fun,\nthe master or mistress needs neither to scold nor to cane the offender,\nfor unspoken satisfaction and dissatisfaction are quickly perceived and\nresponded to by children unused to punishment or an elder\u2019s frown.\n\nBut even in the schoolroom an appeal to mechanism may sometimes prove\nuseful. An instrument called \u201ca characterograph\u201d was described by its\ninventor to an Edinburgh audience half a century ago. This instrument\nfor registering had been in use in Lady Byron\u2019s Agricultural School at\nEaling Grove, with moral effects markedly beneficial. There were many\ncomments in the press of that period. It supersedes all necessity for\nprizes, place-taking, or any kind of reward or punishment, and renders\nunnecessary the master\u2019s expressing anger or irritation\u2014\u201cthe worst\nexample a teacher can set to his pupils.\u201d (Mr. E. T. Craig was inventor\nof the characterograph.)\n\nIf we bear in mind that the supreme object of training is _social\nsolidarity_, and that social solidarity rests fundamentally on tender\nrelations between the old, the young, and the middle-aged, we shall\nrecognize the wisdom of elders resigning at the earliest possible moment\nall manifestations of personal authority. The average boy and girl, if\nwell trained, has at fifteen, or about that age, moral powers\nsufficiently developed to control innate propensities. At that epoch to\nthe young themselves should be relegated the ruling of youthful conduct\nin the interests of society. Not to the young singly, however, but in\ntheir corporate capacity. The organizing of juvenile committees and\nconduct clubs will ensue. I need not, however, treat of these here. They\nbelong to the subject of general education, and I am merely touching on\ntraining in its relations to specific crime.\n\nThe point in social science to emphasize is this: At every stage of the\nnation\u2019s history its moral health or disease is the actual resultant of\nprevious conditions of its child-life throughout the length and breadth\nof the land. At the present moment the public mind is astray on this\nsubject. There is no understanding of the restraints necessary on\ninfantile wrong-doing, the wholesome because painless checks to apply to\njuvenile delinquents. Science must guide us to the right path of action,\nsociety must enlist parental authority, or, if need be, coerce the child\nto take the indicated course. By the absence of wholesome checks and the\npresence of brutal conditions in childhood we suffer a vast amount of\npreventible crime. We evolve the criminal by sins of omission outside\nthe prison; we brutalize him further inside the prison by undue,\nill-adapted restraints.\n\nVery significant was the experience of Mr. Obermair, of the State Prison\nin Munich. When appointed governor there, he found from six to seven\nhundred prisoners in the worst state of insubordination, and whose\nexcesses he was told defied the harshest, most stringent discipline. The\nprisoners were chained together. The guard consisted of about 100\nsoldiers, who did duty not only at the gates and round the walls, but in\nthe passages, and even in the workshops and dormitories; and, strangest\nof all, from twenty to thirty large dogs of the bloodhound breed were\nlet loose at night in the passages and courts to keep watch and ward.\nThe place was a perfect pandemonium, comprising the worst passions, the\nmost slavish vices, and the most heartless tyranny within the limits of\na few acres.\n\nMr. Obermair quickly dispensed with dogs, and nearly all the guards. He\ngradually relaxed the harsh system, and treated the prisoners with a\nconsideration that gained their confidence. In the year 1852 Mr. Baillie\nCochrane visited the prison, and his account is as follows: \u201cThe gates\nwere wide open, without any sentinel at the door, and a guard of only\ntwenty men idling away their time in a room off the entrance hall....\nNone of the doors were provided with bolts and bars; the only security\nwas an ordinary lock, and as in most of the rooms the key was not\nturned, there was no obstacle to the men walking into the passage....\nOver each workshop some of the prisoners with the best characters were\nappointed overseers, and Mr. Obermair assured me that when a prisoner\ntransgressed a regulation, his companions told him \u2018_es ist verboten_,\u2019\nand it rarely happened that he did not yield to the will of his\nfellow-prisoners. Within the prison walls every description of work is\ncarried on ... each prisoner by occupation and industry maintains\nhimself. The surplus of his earnings is given him on release, which\navoids his being parted with in a state of destitution.\u201d (This account\nis taken from Herbert Spencer\u2019s _Essay on Prison Ethics_.) It is then\nclearly proved by actual experience that rough handling and brutal\nwords\u2014bolts and bars and bloodhounds\u2014are alike unnecessary in the case\nof first offenders and in the case of the \u201cdesperate gang.\u201d\n\nBut, turning once more from the criminal to the ultimate causes of\ncrime, these are\u2014destitution, or more or less grinding poverty,\ninherited disease, ignorance and all the degraded nurture that crushes\nthe humanities and develops the brutalities of man. A scientific\ntreatment of crime will eradicate these various causes of crime. No\nsummary methods are applicable. There is no short cut to the end in\nview; but by patient perseverance in the scientific meliorism indicated\nin my chapters on Industrial Life, Sex Relations and Parentage, and to\nbe further explained in those on Education and Home Life, the forces\nbrought into play will prove effective in social redemption. They are\nessentially radical and all-embracing. Within reformatories and prisons\nthere may be partially supplied the training for forming and reforming\ncharacter that is nowhere present in the homes and schools of the lower\nclasses to-day. Those criminals who are not structurally defective may\nrecover moral health, and become virtuous or at least harmless social\nunits. In all such cases liberty should be restored; but the State can\nnever be justified in discharging its rescued criminals without\nresources and without protection. They must be supplied with work, i.e.\nsome means of self-support, and guarded from dangers besetting the\ncritical period of liberation. The educating of ignorant criminals, the\nreforming of corrigible criminals, the restraining from further crime of\nincurable criminals\u2014these are duties of the State.\n\nThe time, however distant, will finally arrive when science, applied for\ngenerations to the task of skilfully removing all the causes of crime,\nwill accomplish that glorious aim. By attention to the laws of heredity,\nby checking the too rapid increase of population, by the moral training\nof every member of the community, and by well-ordered, happy, domestic,\nindustrial and social life, the criminal nature will die out, and crime\nitself be simply historical\u2014a thing to study with interest, an\nextirpated social disease.\n\n\n\n\n _PART IV_\n EVOLUTION OF THE EMOTIONS\n\n\nWe must never forget that human aspirations, human ideals, are as much a\npart of the phenomena which makes up this causally-connected Universe as\nthe instincts and appetites that are common to man and the other\nanimals.\u2014DAVID G. RITCHIE.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I\n THE SENTIMENTS OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE\n\n The dawning century will have to undertake a new education of mankind\n if we are not to relapse.... New inventions are less needed than new\n ethics.\u2014Dr. MAX NORDAU.\n\n\nHerbert Spencer tells us that: \u201cFree institutions can only be properly\nworked by men, each of whom is jealous of his own rights and\nsympathetically jealous of the rights of others\u2014who will neither himself\naggress on his neighbour in small things or great, nor tolerate\naggression on them by others.\u201d\n\nThe state of mind or sentiment to which Mr. Spencer here points is\ncomplex. It comprises an egoism that is not anti-social, and an altruism\nthat is broadly social. The genesis of this sentiment is intellectual,\nimplying a recognition in some sort of the laws of nature, by virtue of\nwhich individual rights do not conflict with nature\u2019s harmonies or its\nfundamental organic unity. It is possible, therefore, only to a race\ncomparatively advanced, i.e. intellectually endowed; but the children\nand children\u2019s children of that race may possess the sentiment of\nindividual rights as an instinct with no apprehension whatever of its\nsource or its justification. Its alliance with, and perfect conformity\nto, natural law are certainly not understood, and confusion is increased\nin the public mind by the unscientific teaching of the daily press.\nHere, for instance, is a paragraph from a middle-class journal. \u201cLaw is\ncommand, control. Nature is instinctive force, and can neither give nor\nreceive laws. There are no laws of nature, and there are no rights of\nman. We are using meaningless phrases when we speak of either. Man has\nno natural rights any more than the wolf and the bear. All rights are\nconventional.\u201d\n\nNow, before man had made a direct study of nature, and, marking the\ninvariability of sequence in the precision of its phenomena, had\nattached to that invariability the term \u201claws of nature,\u201d the word \u201claw\u201d\ndenoted a lawgiver issuing arbitrary commands. It is in this primitive\nsense that our journalist uses the word \u201claw.\u201d He entirely ignores its\nappropriation by science and the modern acceptation of the term \u201claws of\nnature.\u201d Nature has no arbitrary commands, he says, and therefore infers\nno laws. We admit the premise while denying the inference. The laws of\nhealth are invariable, although they do not necessarily dominate, since\nother and opposing laws of disorganization may at any moment get the\nupper hand. Man is competent to disregard the laws of life; but if he so\nacts, another course of natural order is initiated, and he becomes\nsubject to pathological laws which conduct him steadily to the grave.\nNecessity without arbitrary command rules in the cosmos; and if\nhappiness, which all humanity desires, is attained, it will be by\nconforming to all the laws of nature that favour that end. Within, there\nare the laws of human organization, without, the laws of circumstance or\nenvironment. The humanity that has intellect and scientific knowledge\nmay, by union and co-operation, take a firm advantage of these laws or\nuniformities of nature and march steadily forward, controlling the\nforces of nature by a willing obedience to natural law.\n\nNo sooner, observe, does this control become possible than natural\nrights come into existence. Man rises in the scale of being to a sphere\nof self-direction and comparative liberty. The wolf and bear and all\nwild animals are on the lower level, and have no natural rights. They\nare controlled by forces external to themselves, and the struggle for\nexistence and survival of the fittest is the law of destiny to them. It\nis not so, however, with the horse, dog, cat, etc., for man has lifted\nall domesticated animals from under the rule of genetic forces, and\nplaced them under the rule of reasoned forces. He controls their\nbreeding, limits their numbers, and gives them a happy life consistent\nwith his own. Further, he claims for them and concedes to them natural\nrights; and note this point, the last phrase of our journalist\u2019s\nmisleading paragraph is strictly true: \u201cAll rights are conventional.\u201d\nConvention means by tacit agreement, and it is by tacit agreement on the\npart of civilized men that rights of men and rights of animals exist and\nare respected. An impulse of the higher life, viz., a law of sympathy,\nimpels civilized man to seek happiness for other beings as well as\nhimself, and intelligence shows him that individual happiness promotes\ngeneral happiness, and further that no individual happiness is possible\nwithout a certain amount of personal liberty.\n\nIndividual rights, then, are a claim for a certain amount of personal\nliberty, and the sentiment of individual rights is an unconscious inward\npreparedness to defend that claim. It lies at the very foundation of\nmodern ethics, since from it there springs the outward equipoise of\negoistic and altruistic forces, the inward, subtle, delicate sense of\nequitable relations, in other words, _justice_\u2014the moral backbone of the\nmodern conscience.\n\nLet us see how we treat, in our nurseries, this foundation of ethics,\nthis sentiment of individual rights. We enter a middle-class nursery\nwhere a baby and his sister Jessie, a child of three years of age, are\nside by side on the floor. An impulse seizes baby to clutch the doll,\nwhich Jessie holds firmly. Baby screams and nurse turns round and lifts\nhim in her arms. \u201cSee, Jessie,\u201d she says, \u201che wants your doll, surely\nyou will be kind to baby brother?\u201d She takes the doll from Jessie and\ngives it to the infant. Jessie throws herself on the ground and kicks\nand screams. A paroxysm of emotion sweeps over her, and until the wave\nhas spent itself tranquillity in nerve or muscle is simply impossible.\nBut the nurse, ignorant of the fact that the child is for the moment\nbereft of any power of self-control, commands her to be still, and when\nnot obeyed, she scolds her severely. Finally she puts her in a corner,\nand there poor Jessie sobs and weeps till pure exhaustion brings her to\npassivity and an abject state of mind which nurse calls \u201cbeing good\nagain.\u201d She signifies her approval of it by a kiss of forgiveness as\nunmerited as the previous anger.\n\nNow here we have an emotion supremely important to the welfare of\nhumanity rudely desecrated in infancy. There was nothing base, sordid,\nexclusive or even selfish in the tempest of feeling that swept away the\nplacidity of Jessie\u2019s little soul. Mingled together there was an impulse\nto defend her personal rights and a hot indignation that any\ninfringement of these rights should occur. And the whole was a wave of\nthe complex forces destined to weld society into an organic whole,\ncapable of maintaining free institutions. When the nurse through\nignorance punished the child for the involuntary expression of a\nvirtuous social-emotion, she was opposing the very order of nature that\ngenetic evolution is striving to attain; she was checking the progress\nof modern civilization.\n\nLater in the day Jessie with her doll restored to her arms is happy\nagain. Baby plays with his rattle on nurse\u2019s knee; but Jessie thinks,\n\u201cMy dolly is a baby too and wants a rattle.\u201d She takes the rattle out of\nbaby\u2019s hands to give to dolly. Baby shouts and kicks, and nurse is\nfurious. She slaps Jessie and calls her a \u201cnaughty child.\u201d There is no\nebullition of anger this time, although the tender little fingers ache\nfrom the rude blow. Jessie shrinks aside with a subdued air. Had her\nformer rebellion been an impulse of pure vindictiveness it would have\nrepeated itself now. It had no such feature. It revealed the fact that\nJessie was the offspring of a self-dependent, self-protective race\npreparing for a new stage of social evolution, and her aspect at the\npresent crisis reveals the same. She did not know she was in the wrong;\nbut vaguely she felt it. She had trespassed on baby\u2019s rights, and\nconscience dumbly stirred in her infant bosom. If intelligence is strong\nthe child questions silently, \u201cWhy may baby take my doll when I may not\ntake his rattle?\u201d The nurse will give no answer. Her province is to feed\nand cleanse and clothe her charges, and, if need be, punish action. But\nthe motive springs of action lie quite beyond her range, and what is the\nconsequence? If Jessie\u2019s intellect predominates over her emotional\nquality, her conscience may develop, although under adverse conditions;\nbut if the balance tends the other way the position is fatal. The child\ngathers her ideas of right and wrong from the frowns and smiles, the\nslaps or kisses of an ignorant woman who is ruling the nursery with an\nauthority purely barbaric, and the budding conscience of a modern\ncivilization adapts itself to the archaic environment and reverts or\nlapses backward.\n\nFurther, observe, the nurse strove to create\u2014in this case, at\nleast\u2014sympathy towards a baby brother. Was this wise? It was not wise,\nalthough well-intentioned. Sympathy never develops under command, and to\norder a child to be kind at the moment when an aggression has been made\non his or her rights is like commanding a steam-engine to move forward\nwithout turning on the steam! Moreover, baby, young as he was, suffered\nmentally and morally by the event. He learned an evil lesson, viz., that\nif he cried he would probably get what he wanted. Vigorously, though\nunconsciously, he will pursue that vicious course and act up to the\nprinciple.\n\nDoes my reader inquire \u201cWhat should the nurse have done?\u201d She should\nhave instantly removed the baby, saying gently to Jessie, \u201cChildren must\nnever take things from one another. Not even a baby can be permitted to\ndo that, and we must teach him better. But see he is so young, he does\nnot know the doll is yours, not his. Would you like to lend it to him\nfor a little? No? Ah, well he cannot have it then, but come and help me\nto amuse him that he may forget the doll.\u201d The older child puts down her\ntreasure to fondle her baby brother, and there are ten chances to one\nthat by-and-bye her sympathy\u2014called out naturally and not by\ncommand\u2014carries her a step further, and she says: \u201cNurse, baby may hold\nmy doll for a little now.\u201d Later, when the brilliant idea occurs that\ndolly would enjoy the rattle, Jessie understands\u2014she does not blindly,\nvaguely feel, she knows\u2014that she must not trespass on baby\u2019s rights. She\nrestrains her impulse therefore to snatch the rattle, and in this\nself-control she is exercising the noblest faculty of her nature under\nthe dominion of a moral conscience\u2014a sense of justice or equivalence of\nrights.\n\nAnd now we pass from an upper middle-class nursery to any British boys\u2019\nschool or playground. We find that quarrels there arise not so much from\nthe simple barbarous impulses of cruelty, hatred, revenge, fear, as from\na different source\u2014an effective sense of personal rights unbalanced by\nan equally effective sense of sympathy with the rights of others. The\nphenomenon here is justice in embryo, self-conscious, but lacking\ndevelopment on the altruistic side. \u201cIt isn\u2019t\u201d or \u201cit wasn\u2019t fair\u201d is a\nphrase frequently upon a schoolboy\u2019s lips, and it is remarkable with\nwhat courage and dignity an urchin of ten or twelve will criticize a\nmaster\u2019s treatment of him, and perhaps tell the man of fifty to his face\nthat this or that \u201cwasn\u2019t fair.\u201d\n\nWere every boy as eager that all human beings\u2014schoolmasters\nincluded\u2014should be as fairly treated as he himself, the only further\nregulation of conduct necessary would be a clear intelligence to discern\ntruth from falsehood in every case of misdemeanour. Instructed\nintelligence is however a minus quantity, and the sympathetic jealousy\nfor the rights of others that exists here and there amongst boys in\nminor quantity, gets deflected from its true course. It links boys of\none age together in a mutual fellowship that excludes masters and all\nothers. Nor is this difficult to understand. Mutual interests is the\nsoil in which sympathy grows; but with arbitrary authority in the field,\nalso conflicting desires, and no distinct teaching on the subject, the\ndeeper relations of life, I mean the mutual interests of teacher and\ntaught and of the whole school as a social unity, are often ignored. To\nshield a companion from punishment, at all hazards, becomes virtue in a\nschoolboy\u2019s eyes, and antagonisms spring up with confused notions of\nright and wrong, and a general impulse to falsehood and deceit in\nspecial directions. These are menacing features of character for the\nsocial life of the future. Men of introspection have recognized in\nthemselves the baneful after-effects of the clannishness engendered at\nschool. Robert Louis Stevenson bewailed the extreme difficulty he had in\nforcing himself to perform a distinct public duty. It involved some\nexposure dishonourable to a former schoolmate! \u201cI felt,\u201d he said, \u201clike\na cad!\u201d\n\nFrom middle-class nurseries where authority is chiefly barbaric and the\nbudding conscience is hurt, children destined to become the \u00e9lite of a\nfuture society and its rulers, pass into schools where there is no clear\nand definite training for the emotional nature, no scientific\ndevelopment of the social, and repression of the anti-social impulses.\nFrom school the student passes to college or university, and is\nemancipated more or less from outward control. When he enters upon the\nduties and pleasures of adult life he presents, in many ways, an element\nof social danger, for this simple reason, his native bumptiousness, his\nsense of individual rights is not held in check by an intelligent\nunderstanding of, and feeling of sympathy with, the equal rights of\nothers. The groundwork of the modern conscience has been tampered with\nwhile authority\u2014propelled by genetic forces of evolution\u2014has gradually\nrelaxed and fallen back before the free-born British schoolboy. By our\npresent system of education we destroy infant virtue in the nursery and\nin the school. We dwarf that sympathy which should grow and expand till\nit bursts forth in manhood into deeds of rectitude, justice, love,\nmanifesting the threefold quality of human nature which alone is\ncompetent to lift the whole area of man\u2019s existence into line with\ncosmic order. Our schools are yearly pouring into the busy world a rich\nharvest of human aptitudes that are quickly absorbed in activities\nmercantile, professional, legislative, but the outcome of these\nactivities is not tuning life into social harmony, it is merely\nincreasing national wealth, and that without any marked increase of\nplenty and pleasure to the nation at large. The picture presented is one\nof perpetual warfare\u2014an outward struggle in money-making for oneself and\nfamily, an inward contentious spirit that reveals itself abroad in our\nblatant imperialism, at home in class antagonisms\u2014the whole re-acting\nfatally on individual character and lowering the general standard of\ncivilized life. Generous enthusiasms die down, the emotional nature\nhardens, till intelligence itself is dimmed and becomes incapable of any\nwide outlook that entails unselfish effort.\n\nAs a rule\u2014though with honourable exceptions\u2014our compatriots advanced in\nlife do not fulfil the promise of their youth; and with forces of nature\namenable to man\u2019s will, if wisely directed, real progress in this\nscientific age is wofully sluggish. We focus attention on environments\nthat press on adults only, and in seeking reform overlook the\nenvironments that vitally effect our infant population, therefore the\nadult life of the future.\n\nHow different is our action in other directions. In horticultural\nnurseries, for instance, progress is not sluggish. Scientific discovery\nand methods of practice are applied and promptly produce definite\nresults. The composite plants are distinguished from simple plants, and\nwhile all are secured in necessary conditions of healthy life\u2014good soil,\nair, light, etc.\u2014those receive from the gardener a special fostering\ncare. He studies the laws of differentiation, the peculiarities of each\norganism with its hidden possibilities of varied efflorescence, and by\nfitting environment to wider issues, watching them day by day,\nnourishing every tendency favourable, checking every tendency\nunfavourable, he induces an outburst of blossom as varied in colour and\nform as it is marvellous in beauty or grace, and that in spite of the\nfact that unaided by natural forces he is utterly powerless to make a\nblade of grass grow.\n\nThat human plants give promise of blossoming into a _moral_ beauty as\nyet undreamed of by the British public is patent to any wise observer of\nthe confused social life of to-day. Our greatest realists in fiction\nnote the point. We have George Meredith putting into the mouth of his\nhero, Matthew Weyburn, these significant words: \u201cEminent station among\nmen doesn\u2019t give a larger outlook ... I have come now and then across\npeople we call common, slow-minded, but hard in their grasp of facts and\nready to learn and logical. They were at the bottom of wisdom, for they\nhad in their heads the delicate sense of justice upon which wisdom is\nfounded ... that is what their rulers lack. Unless we have the sense of\njustice abroad like a common air there\u2019s no peace and no steady advance.\nBut these humble people had it. I felt them to be my superiors. On the\nother hand, I have not felt the same with our senators, rulers and\nlawgivers. They are for the most part deficient in the liberal mind.\u201d\n(_Lord Ormont and his Aminta._)\n\nAs regards physical health, I have shown the necessity for stirpiculture\nand the birth of the fit; as regards mental and moral health, i.e.\nHumanity\u2019s efflorescence on higher planes\u2014the need of the times is less\neugenics than education and training. Germs of truth, justice, love, lie\nlatent in the basic structure of our half-civilized race, and so long as\nwe neglect or destroy these germs it were folly to desire material of\nfiner quality. \u201cOur raw material is of the very best,\u201d said the\nheadmistress of a London Board School, \u201cour children are full of\ngenerous impulses and fearless spontaneity. I sometimes think the\nno-rule in the homes of the masses a better preparation for life than\nthe factitious training given in homes of the classes. But our teachers\nare so few and so seldom scientifically enlightened that we spoil very\nmuch of the good material.\u201d On behalf of the classes my reader might\nargue that susceptibility to beauty or the aesthetic sentiment with its\ncreative expression in art belongs almost exclusively to the upper\nsection of society, and is deemed by some social reformers the very\nfoundation of moral life, the basis of the ethical temper.\n\nIt is not my purpose to provoke comparison between the classes and the\nmasses, and I fully recognize the value of the fine arts as factors in\nthe general elevation of life and character, but I submit that evolution\ndoes not pursue the same line of development in the various races of\nmankind, and in the British race an advanced ethical temper is in\nprocess of formation quite irrespective of the fine arts and the\naesthetic sentiment.\n\nDr. Le Bon laid before the French Geographical Society an account of a\nprimitive group of people, numbering several hundred thousand, who\ninhabit a remote region high up among the Carpathian mountains. Of this\npeople, the Podhalians, he says, \u201cthey are born improvisatori, poets and\nmusicians, singing their own songs, set to music of their own\ncomposition. Their poetry is tender and artless in sentiment, generous\nand elevated in style.\u201d He attributes these qualities to the wealth of\nspontaneous resources possessed by natures which neither know violent\npassions nor unnatural excitements. The British race, moulded by\ndifferent conditions\u2014geographical and historical\u2014has developed\ndifferently. Great masses of our population are wholly insensitive to\nthe influences of art. The picture drawn by Wordsworth of his Peter Bell\ncomes nearer to our native uncultured type\u2014\n\n A primrose by the river\u2019s brim\n A yellow primrose was to him,\n And it was nothing more.\n The soft blue sky did never melt\n Into his heart, he never felt\n The witchery of the soft blue sky.\n\nNevertheless, through another channel he was touched to the quick.\nThrilled into sudden sweetness and pathos by the sight of a widow\u2019s\ntears\u2014\n\n In agony of silent grief\n From his own thoughts did Peter start;\n He longs to press her to his heart\n From love that cannot find relief.\n\nThe hard life of our workers has undoubtedly deprived them, as yet, of\nany widespread aesthetic development, but the chords of their vital\npart, if played upon, produce a sentient state far removed from the\nrudimentary stage. It is a product of centuries of evolution.\n\nThis humanity will move forward to higher planes of existence, and a\nspiritual plenitude\u2014of which aestheticism is by no means the crown and\nglory, but only an imperfect foretaste\u2014by two convergent paths trodden\nconcurrently. These are a steady growth in social qualities and the\nhappiness that flows from these qualities, the creation, in short, of\norganic socialism; and the opening up outwardly of channels of sympathy\nand community of interests throughout the whole nation, causing the\nbanishment of class distinctions, the establishment of an organized\nsocialism. Perfection in art is not the appropriate ideal for this age,\nbut perfection in social life, and it is not from a love of art to a\nlove of mankind and the practices of moral rectitude that our masses\nwill advance. It is by the practice of all the humanities on ever\nbroader, deeper lines, until the nation, vibrating with harmonized life,\nframes new visions of art, and strengthens all the well-springs of art\u2019s\ncreation.\n\nThe aestheticism that belongs exclusively to one social class neither\nelevates general morals nor produces the noblest art. Its narrowing\ninfluences are exemplified in Lord Chesterfield\u2019s advice to his son: \u201cIf\nyou love music, go to operas, concerts, and pay fiddlers to play to you;\nbut I insist on your neither piping nor fiddling yourself. It puts a\ngentleman in a contemptible light; ... few things would mortify me more\nthan to see you bearing a part in a concert with a fiddle under your\nchin.\u201d Lord Chesterfield belonged to a past century, but the spirit of\nhis thought is not dead; it manifests prominently to-day. In my own\nexperience a lady novelist was invited to a London At Home, and accepted\nconditionally. If evening costume were necessary she must decline, but\nif less ceremonious dress were permissible she would gladly appear, and\nthe hostess consenting, she did so. Now I heard a large group of\nmiddle-class ladies passionately condemning this action, on the ground\nthat aestheticism had been outraged and the rules of society set at\nnought by a blot in rooms otherwise beautiful. Yet the novelist had been\ntastefully attired, that was freely admitted. She had sinned merely in\nnonconformity to fashion and in covering her neck and arms. Can we\nseriously believe that the type of humanity to which these ladies belong\nis developing the liberal mind which alone may create and support the\nhighest morality, the noblest art? Are we not compelled to recognize the\ntruth of Mr. J. H. Levy\u2019s profound remark: \u201cIn the present stage of\nhuman progress the aesthetic and the moral are conterminate at neither\nend. Aesthetic emotion may be roused in us by that which is ethically\nodious, and moral feeling may be called up by that which is artistically\nugly.\u201d (_The National Reformer._)\n\nThe true ethical temper is engendered by a complexity of social\nattractions issuing in an inward sense of justice and the delicate\nequipoise of natural rights between _meum_ and _tuum_. The task before\nus is to unite the half-conscious, instinctive justice already existent\nwith an intellectual apprehension and clear understanding of right and\nwrong, in other words, to complete the modern conscience; and in view of\nthis task we must distinctly realize that the sentiment of what is\nproper and improper in conventional society has no ethical value, and is\na false guide to conduct.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II\n RAPACITY, PRIDE, LOVE OF PROPERTY\n\n The facts which it is at once most important and most difficult to\n appreciate are what may be called the facts of feeling.\u2014LECKY.\n\n\nThe area of man\u2019s emotional life is one of vast magnitude. It lies\nbehind the scenes of his outward existence, yet it interpenetrates the\nsocial structure throughout, and stretches beyond it to distances we\nknow not whence or whither. Mysterious as this region is, no sooner does\nman aspire to control the social forces of collective life, as he\nalready largely controls the natural forces of physical life, than he is\ncompelled to apply his reason scientifically to the phenomena of human\nemotions, and to contemplate, trace out and master there the general\nfeatures of the process of evolution.\n\nIn the case of personal development the task is comparatively easy. A\nchild\u2019s feelings are simple, not compound. For the most part they seem\nvague and indefinite, always fleeting and evanescent; but as the child\ngrows his powers of feeling grow likewise and alter in character. Their\nchildish simplicity passes away; they augment in mass, they become\ncomplex, more permanent and coherent in their nature, and far more\ndelicate in susceptibility. Consequently the breadth of range, the depth\nand richness of emotion possible in an adult, as compared with the\nemotions of a child, are as the music of an organ to the sweet notes\nthat lie within the compass of a penny whistle.\n\nIn racial development evolution of feeling has not pursued one\ninvariable course. Distinctive sentiments and modes of feeling\ncharacterize the different races of mankind as well as distinctive\noutward features, and the impressing on a plastic race of these\ndivergent states of feeling is mainly, though not entirely, due to\nexternal conditions\u2014not climatic and geographical conditions only, but\nalso the form of civilization that had taken root and moulded the habits\nand customs of the race. Greek civilization, for instance, tended to\ndevelop largely the aesthetic group of feelings, while in Scotland these\nfeelings, through outward influences I must not pause to consider, have\nbeen stunted in growth, and moral sentiments have had a deeper and\nfirmer development.\n\nAmongst barbarous tribes of men the violent emotions\u2014anger, fear,\njealousy, revenge\u2014generally speaking, hold sway; but there are also in\nvarious parts of the world uncivilized communities where these fierce\npassions are little known, and where, in consequence of the absence of\nwarlike surroundings, the gentle, tender sentiments that have for their\nfoundation family ties and peaceful social life, prevail, and are\nconsiderably developed.\n\nThe conditions of emotional evolution in a given race, then, are\ncomplex. We have to bear in mind a threefold environment\u2014cosmic,\nplanetary, social\u2014pressing upon individual life and powerfully swaying\nthe emotional part of it. Social environment is pre-eminently potent in\nmodifying emotional characteristics; yet the prime factor of change in\nsocial environment springs from this region of feeling, and this factor\nmay, under rational guidance, take a path of direct and rapid\nprogression.\n\nBritish civilization is the product of a turbulent, militant stage of\nevolution, an epoch of military glory, followed by a long period of\nindustrial development and commercial activity. We inherit a survival of\nvirtues and vices from each of these evolutional stages. To the first we\nattribute our courage, independence and proper pride, both national and\nindividual; and we are apt to suppose that without the experience of\nmilitary glory our manly John Bull would have been a milk-sop. That may\nor may not be true; but when we infer that the above characteristics\ndepend fundamentally and absolutely upon a military environment we are\nvastly mistaken. Observe what is said by travellers and missionaries of\ncertain unwarlike tribes found in India and the Malay Peninsula. The\nJakuns are inclined, we are told, to gratitude and beneficence, their\ntendency being not to ask favours, but to confer them. The Arifuras have\na very excusable ambition to gain the name of rich men by paying the\ndebts of their poorer fellow-villagers! One gentle Arifura, who had\nhoped to be chosen chief of his village and was not, met his\ndisappointment with the spirit of a philosopher and philanthropist,\nsaying: \u201cWhat reason have I to grieve? I still have it in my power to\nassist my fellow-villagers.\u201d When brought into contact with men of an\nopposite type\u2014hardy, fierce and turbulent, they have no tendency to show\nthe white feather. The amiable Dhimal is independent and courageous, and\nresists \u201cwith dogged obstinacy\u201d injunctions that are urged\ninjudiciously. The Jakun is extremely proud\u2014his pride showing itself in\nrefusals to be domesticated and made useful to men of a different race\nand therefore alien to himself. The simple-minded Santal has a \u201cstrong\nnatural sense of justice, and should any attempt be made to coerce him,\nhe flies the country. The Santal is courteous and hospitable, whilst at\nthe same time he is free from cringing.\u201d Dalton writes of the Hos\u2014a\ntribe belonging to the same group as the Santals\u2014\u201ca reflection on a\nman\u2019s honesty or veracity may be sufficient to send him to\nself-destruction\u201d; and of the Lepchas, Hooker says, \u201cIn all my dealings\nwith them they have proved scrupulously honest.... They cheer on the\ntraveller by their unostentatious zeal in his service, and when a\npresent is given to them, it is divided equally among many without a\nsyllable of discontent or a grudging look or word.\u201d[4]\n\nFootnote 4:\n\n Herbert Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, vol. 2, pp. 628, 630, 631.\n\nFrom these facts we gather that a number of virtues associated in our\nminds with Western civilization are present amid barbarous tribes, and\nthat the vices associated by us with barbarism\u2014cruelty, dishonesty,\ntreachery, selfishness\u2014are in some cases glaringly absent. Human nature\nis not dependent on culture or Christianity to humanize and make it\nlovable. There is that in the very groundwork of its nature which\nrenders it capable of developing, under favourable conditions, into what\nis admirable, pure and gracious. The traits given us of these peoples\nshow virtue, truth, generosity, moral courage and justice, and what\nnobler, more elevated sentiments have as yet been found in civilized\nman?\n\nThe favourable conditions are an entire absence of warlike surroundings\nand warlike training, hence an absence also of any inheritance of\nwarlike proclivities. These tribes \u201chave remained unmolested for\ngeneration after generation; they have inflicted no injuries on others.\u201d\nTheir social or unselfish feelings have been fostered and nourished by\nthe sympathetic intercourse of a peaceful life.\n\nIn a purely military state unselfish feelings are necessarily repressed,\nwhilst the bold, keen, hard and cruel side of human nature is liberally\ndeveloped. To hate an enemy and avenge an injury are manly virtues. The\npredatory instincts are useful and approved. Treachery is not\ndiscredited, and the man clever enough to take advantage of an enemy and\nsuccessfully intrigue against him may be ranked among the gods! The\nplunderer who falters not in keen pursuit of prey and in the hour of\nvictory shows relentless cruelty is deemed heroic. No thought of\nhappiness or misery to others gives him pause; military glory is his\nabsorbing aim, and in the intervals of peace his callous nature\nmanifests in ruling with tyrannic power slavish subordinates, who bend\nand cringe before him.\n\nNow let us glance at two of these militant characteristics, viz.\nrapacity and personal pride, with a view to observe how their survival\ninto our industrial epoch has vitiated the national life.\n\nThe purely militant stage of British development has passed, and the\noutward form of our collective life is industrial, not military. A\nsanguinary path of glory has no intrinsic fascination for our people,\nand there is no national desire to conquer and rule over races\nestablished on other parts of the earth\u2019s surface, however superior to\nours may be their climate and quarters. Nevertheless, within the last\nhalf century we have fought battles and shed blood copiously in China,\nPersia, Afghanistan, Abyssinia, Egypt, South Africa and elsewhere.\nSeldom, however, has the nation itself clamoured for war. In the year\n1854 a relapse into militant mood occurred, and, in spite of\nunwillingness on the part of individual rulers, the Government yielded\nto a sinister wave of barbaric feeling in the nation\u2014a martial frenzy\nthat impelled to the Crimean War. Since that period wars have originated\nfrom other causes than the will of the nation. Our people, immersed in a\npainful struggle for livelihood at home, are indifferent to the rights\nand wrongs of the many squabbles into which we flounder abroad. General\nmalevolence has no part in this matter; our real collective attitude\ntowards foreigners is one of friendliness, combined with an impulse to\nthe peaceful exchange of commodities, kind words and gentle arts\u2014the\nwhole provocative of love, not hatred.\n\nThe fundamental causes of war, then, have been: first, the commercial\ninterests of a capitalist class, or, if expressed in terms of feeling,\nthe desire in that class for increased wealth\u2014a desire partly the\nproduct of inherited rapacity, a sentiment descended to us from our\nmilitant epoch; second, national pride\u2014a pride which has kindled\nanimosities, embroiled us in disputes and dragged us into wars, the\npettiness of whose small beginnings is only matched by the pettiness of\nBritish conduct throughout their whole extent. But both this rapacity\nand this national pride belong almost exclusively to our ruling classes.\nTheir existence is explained by the action of outward conditions on\nspecial sections of the community. The British passed suddenly out of a\nperiod of constant fighting and feud into a period of frantic industrial\nactivity. Feudal chiefs and their descendants became grasping landlords.\nThere also sprang up a class of sharp-witted, keen-sighted men, whose\nnative rapacity strengthened in the genial hot-bed of our brilliant\ncommercial success. A tremendous start in the international race after\nwealth was secured to Great Britain by her possession of iron, coal,\netc. She absorbed riches from every quarter of the globe, and mercantile\ntriumph swelled the pride already deeply implanted in our industrial\norganizers, our politicians and plenipotentiaries. The great mass of the\npeople were differently affected by industrial conditions. Workers of\nevery description, packed together in towns and factories, rapidly\ndeveloped the qualities of intimate social life, and out-grew, in the\nmain, the savage instincts of militancy. Our commercial wars and\nImperialistic policy are fruits\u2014not of the nation\u2019s brutality, its\ngreed, or its pride, but of its simple ignorance and its blind trust in\nindividuals peculiarly unfitted by inheritance and personal bias to\nguide it aright in relations with other, and especially with weaker,\nnations. All the wars of recent times\u2014a record of cruel bloodshed\ncausing needless sorrow and suffering to the innocent\u2014have been\ninstigated by the ruling classes under the dominion of rapacity and\npride. When these ruling classes are dispossessed of supreme power, and\ncivilized democracies assume public responsibility with political\nsupremacy, the day of disarming of nations will dawn. The world\u2019s\nworkers who, apart from their rulers, have no tendency to undue\naccumulation or national pride, but whose bias, on the contrary, is\ntowards sympathetic co-operation in industry, will strenuously seek the\njoys and blessings of universal peace.\n\nBut although the war-spirit of the ancient Briton dies out and general\nbrutality declines, individual brutality, practised privately, is common\nenough. Class tyranny, sex tyranny, and much of domestic tyranny are\nrampant; and the co-relative feelings, viz. abject fear giving rise to\nhatred, anger, malice, cunning and despicable meanness of soul, are all\nstrongly in evidence.\n\nThe industrial system that succeeded our military system is of no\ngenuinely social type. It is distinctly contentious, and when we\nconsider how it has pressed for about a century upon a plastic race\ninwardly prone to every vice engendered by militancy, the matter for\nsurprise perhaps is that we are as good as we are.\n\nIn classifying emotional states there is a sentiment which, if not\nbegotten, has at least been bred, nourished and widely diffused during\nour industrial epoch\u2014I mean the sentiment, love of property. On no\nsubject are opposite opinions more strongly and disputatiously held than\non the question of the nature and value of this sentiment. It is claimed\nby some as not only the chief support of present-day society, but the\nprime evolutional factor of our entire civilization. A savage only cares\nto secure the things he is in immediate need of. He lacks imagination to\npicture what he may want to-morrow, also intelligence to provide for\nfuture contingencies and sympathetic desire to provide for the wants of\nothers.\n\nNo sooner, however, does an established government give safe protection\nto individual property than prudence and forethought appear. The man who\nacquires property soon surrounds himself with comforts, and inspires in\nothers the desire to follow his example. Social wealth accumulates, and\nenergies are set free for further development. Some social units become\ncomplex, intellectual tastes and love of travel arise, and works of\nart\u2014the treasure-trove of earlier civilizations\u2014are impounded to lay the\nfoundation of artistic life in the later civilization. Aesthetic culture\nnow grows rapidly. Painting, poetry, music abound, and men may be lifted\nabove the meaner cares of existence to an inward freedom, where sympathy\nexpands through the exercise of elevated thought and feeling. Is not\nlove of property, then, a sentiment to honour and conserve? Its genesis\nand history certainly command respect; but the already quoted case of\nthe Podhalians proves that by no means is it an essential in human\nevolution. To that primitive people, as Dr. Le Bon has shown, riches\nhave no charms; they are poor, living principally upon oats made into\ncakes and goat\u2019s milk. They enjoy perfect health and live long. They are\nquick in apprehension, fond of dancing, singing, music and poetry. There\nis clearly no development here of the property-sense, yet the Podhalians\nhave a very considerable development of that group of emotions we term\naesthetic and regard as an evidence of high refinement and culture. We\nare not therefore logically entitled to claim that were British love of\nproperty and British cupidity greatly diminished, art as a consequence\nmust needs decay and the race revert into barbarism.\n\nHerbert Spencer tells us \u201cthat in some established societies there has\nbeen a constant exercise of the feeling which is satisfied by a\nprovision for the future, and a growth of this feeling so great that it\nnow prompts accumulation to an extent beyond what is needful.\u201d (1st vol.\nof _Essays_, 2nd series, p. 132.)\n\nThat point has been overpassed by the British. What we have now to\nstruggle against are varied evils arising from a glut of national wealth\n(but I do not mean by this term commodities of intrinsic value, only\nwealth representing an acknowledged claim on the labour of others) and a\nfrightful inflation of the sentiments allied with wealth, which at one\ntime were useful, but for generations have been producing outward vice\nand inward misery and corruption.\n\nThe British merchant goes on accumulating long after he has amply\nprovided for himself and family, and many a poor man feels towards that\nother\u2019s wealth precisely as a savage feels towards his fetish. He is\nfilled with reverence, admiration, desire and a sense of distance from\nthe golden calf that makes him hopeless, abject, despairing.\n\nThe American millionaire, as depicted by Mr. Howells, will, \u201con a hot\nday, when the mortal glare of the sun blazes in upon heart and brain,\nplot and plan in his New York office till he swoons at the desk.\u201d Such a\nman is as much a victim to over-development of acquisitiveness as the\ndrunkard is victim to an undue development of the love of stimulants,\nand in each case the depraved taste carries ruin to the individual and\nhavoc into society. Social unity is rent in twain. A life of exuberant\nwealth and extravagant expenditure runs parallel with one of constant,\ninescapable poverty, and so long as the nation continues to heap up\nriches in private possession, just so long must we reap an emotional\nharvest of envy, malice, private animosities, class hatreds and a subtle\nestrangement of heart throughout the length and breadth of the land. Yet\neven the great poet Tennyson in his writings exalts into a worthy motive\nfor holy wedlock this sentiment\u2014love of property. An affectionate\nfather, in the poem, \u201cThe Sisters,\u201d exhorts his daughters thus: \u201cOne\nshould marry, or ... all the broad lands will pass collaterally\u201d!\n\nThe small accumulator whose petty hoard of gold was gloated over piece\nby piece has long been labelled miser. He is publicly condemned, and in\nliterature derided. But the merchant-prince who, already wealthy,\ndevotes days and years and his whole mind and heart to business; the\nproprietor of broad lands who adds acre to acre, and anxiously meditates\non their passing collaterally; the rich capitalist who craftily seeks to\nlower wages in the interests of employers; the gambler on the Stock\nExchange; the market manipulator whose predatory instincts are so\npleasurably excited by risks and gains that he will hazard in the game\nall that nobler men hold precious\u2014these beings, I say, are as worthy of\nscorn and infinitely more baneful than the miser. They must take their\ntrue place by his side in public estimation. They are social\ndeformities, morally diseased. In other words, these men are incapable\nof moral duty, which consists in \u201cthe observance of those rules of\nconduct that contribute to the welfare of society\u2014the end of society\nbeing peace and mutual protection, so that the individual may reach the\nfullest and highest life attainable by man.\u201d (_Huxley\u2019s Life_, vol. ii.\np. 305.)\n\nIn the preceding chapter I have shown that the self-regarding\nsentiment exercised with due consideration for the welfare of others\nis a social virtue. It promotes national prosperity and personal\nimprovement. But self-regarding actions, induced by this\nmaster-passion over-acquisitiveness, invariably issue in automatic\nselfishness and general deterioration.\n\nIn regard to aesthetic emotions also the cleavage between rich and poor\nhas a fatal significance. A luxurious, idle, for the most part, inane,\nlife led by the rich, profoundly influences the poor; not by creating\nanti-social feeling only, but by checking aesthetic development. In the\ncity of many slums there is also a west-end of gay shops filled with\nobjects _de luxe_, of showily dressed women, profligate men, theatre,\nmusic-hall and ball-room entrances, at which to stand gazing as into a\nfairy peep-show. Suggestion here plays a mischievous part. Poverty\nhinders the purchase of all commodities that possess any real artistic\nvalue, but commercial enterprise has flooded the markets with\nmeretricious imitations. East-end shops reflect the glitter and glow of\nwest-end attractions, and the ignorant, spell-bound by suggestion,\nbecome possessors of that which degrades and vulgarizes taste or the\nsense of the beautiful. Now that science partially dominates thought,\nour eyes have been opened to the fact of essential unity in human\ngroups. We may trace the cause of a social evil to a special section or\nclass, but the effects of that cause radiate forth till they touch\n_every_ section or class. Dwellers in the west-end cannot escape disease\npropagated by the vilely unwholesome conditions of life at the east-end.\nMicro-organisms of disease are wafted from hither to thither, and on the\nphysical plane social unity is recognized. A like continuity exists on\nthe non-physical side. Minds are as closely united by psychical law as\nbodies by physical law. The experienced facts of hypnotism make this\nclear, and the logical inference is that in Western civilization the\nvices of wealthy classes infect and corrupt the masses.\n\nThat the imagination of the great mass of our people should be snared\nand their evolutional progress thwarted by mental suggestion from a\nbanal, vicious life led by a comparatively small portion of the nation,\nis an outrage on civilization. It renders it imperative that the cause\nof this evil, viz., our contentious, i.e. our competitive system of\nindustry, should be fundamentally changed.\n\nFor every group of human beings the steady growth of those social\nqualities which create happiness and the steady advance in intellectual,\naesthetic and spiritual life, depend on a close community of interests\nand the constant opening up of fresh channels of sympathy throughout the\ngroup. But the British racial group has lost this community of\ninterests\u2014this primary condition of steady growth. It is split up into,\nfirst, a class of property possessors made effeminate by ill-spent\nleisure, often inflated by pride, and at all times demanding the\nartificial pleasures of a luxurious life; second, a class striving to\namass property, a class whose thoughts and desires circle round and\ncentre in property, and who to acquire it often sacrifice serenity of\nmind, health of body, and even life itself; and third, the mass of the\npeople who, having no property, are yet enslaved by it, and who on the\nemotional side of their human nature are debased and corrupted by the\nmental state of the classes.\n\nAs evolution approaches the era of manhood of human reason it becomes\nconscious, and demands a national effort to improve. That effort first\nappears in the strenuous, scientific study of life as it is, in attempts\nat social reconstruction, and at improvement in public and private\neducation. It is seen to be necessary to stamp out all the militant and\npredatory instincts of mankind by ethical nurture and training, while\nall the gentle, gracious qualities of mankind must be carefully guarded\nand nourished, until, in every social unit the effort to improve is\nhabitual, i.e. has become \u201cthe essential mode of its being.\u201d (J. McGavin\nSloan.)\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER III\n PERSONAL JEALOUSY\u2014NATIONAL PATRIOTISM\n\n \u201cJealousy is cruel as the grave.\u201d\n\n We shall progress faster by diligent striving to fashion the feeling\n of the time and stir it from the intellectual apathy which is the\n chiefest curse of the State.\u2014ALEX. M. THOMSON.\n\n The danger that confronts the new century is the recrudescence of\n racial antipathies and national animosities.\u2014HERMANN ADLER.\n\n\nThe passion of jealousy has a long and significant history, and a\npedigree more ancient than the allied sentiment, love of property, which\nhas just been considered. The passion was useful to the welfare of the\ntribe at an early period, but it survives as purely a vice in the midst\nof consolidated nations, for it is essentially anti-social, not\nnecessary to general welfare, and impossible to be exercised\nsympathetically or for the good of others. If I am jealous it means that\nI have a source of personal delight that I would guard from others and\nmonopolise if I could. The happiness may be self-produced or rest on a\nbeing whom I love. In both cases it causes within me fears of\ninterference, suspicion of my fellows, and a general tendency to\ndislike, nay, even to hate them if they dare to meddle with my secret\njoy. The emotion is fundamentally selfish, and when an individual is\nsympathetic all round he becomes incapable of it. He has risen above the\negoistic passion of jealousy.\n\nMr. Darwin tells us that amongst savages addicted to \u201cintemperance,\nutter licentiousness and unnatural crimes, no sooner does marriage,\nwhether polygamous or monogamous, become common than jealousy leads to\nthe inculcation of female virtue.\u201d This gives the clue to the problem of\njealousy\u2019s evolutional value. It has played a part in the destiny of\nwoman, and tended to shape her emotional nature. Its history is\ninextricably intertwined with hers, in all the varying degrees of\nservitude that mark her slow advance from a condition of absolute\nchattelism to one of rational equality with man.\n\nBy virtue of superior strength man has acted on the theory that he was\nmade for God, and woman for him! and in the process of establishing his\ndominancy jealousy appeared and aided powerfully the gradual development\nof a new emotion\u2014constancy, a social grace and virtue as certain to wax\nand grow as jealousy is to wane and slowly disappear.\n\nIn literature one finds a reflection of the entire history of jealousy\nand all its consecutive changes from barbarous times through the ages,\nwhen frequent duels witnessed to the honourable place it held in public\nestimation down to the present day, when it is somewhat discredited, and\nduelling\u2014in Great Britain at least\u2014has ceased altogether. To track this\nhistory were impossible here; I can only point to one or two significant\npictures.\n\nThe play of \u201cOthello\u201d depicts the barbarous social conditions in which\njealousy flourishes. Shakespeare reveals both the anti-social nature of\nthe passion and the intellectual weakness of the mind that harbours it.\n\u201cTrifles light as air,\u201d says Iago, \u201care to the jealous confirmation\nstrong as proofs of holy writ.\u201d And in effect Othello is incapable of\nsifting evidence. The poor device of the stolen handkerchief seals the\nfate of Desdemona! Woman\u2019s subject position is plainly set forth, and\nthe foundations of the passion in masculine master-hood and pride of\npower are fully exposed. Othello\u2019s wife must be his slave and puppet.\n\u201cOut of my sight,\u201d he cries, and patiently she goes. \u201cMistress,\u201d he\ncalls, and she returns. \u201cYou did wish,\u201d he says to Lodovico, \u201cthat I\nwould make her turn.\u201d Desdemona is the very type of patient, gentle,\nenslaved womanhood, the ideal woman of a rough, brutal age. Her father\ndescribes her as\u2014\n\n A maiden never bold;\n Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion\n Blush\u2019d at herself.\n\nObserve, however, inwardly she is more advanced than the men. She\nperceives the low nature of jealousy, and to Emilia says touchingly, \u201cMy\nnoble Moor is true of mind, and made of no such baseness as jealous\ncreatures are.\u201d Alas, for her generous confidence! And when the base\npassion transforms her \u201cnoble Moor\u201d into a monster of cruelty, she, true\nto the type of her sex at the period, resembles a pet dog that fawns\nupon and licks the hand that strikes him. This patient moan is all her\nutterance\u2014\n\n \u2019Tis meet I should be used so, very meet,\n How have I been behaved that he might stick\n The small\u2019st opinion on my least misuse.\n\nThe only dignity she shows is in her refusal to display her sorrow\nbefore Emilia:\n\n Do not talk to me, Emilia;\n I cannot weep, nor answer I have none.\n\nJealousy and duelling flourished long after the Shakesperian period.\nProse fiction in the eighteenth century is full of the subject of\nmasculine rivalry in the appropriation of the female sex. The woman\npassionately desired is the prize or reward of a victory in which the\nhero has manifested adroitness in arts of bloodshed. Feminine will plays\nno part in the decision to which man the heroine shall belong, and the\nrivals for her possession make no pretence of superior character as a\nclaim on her favour. The gentle spiritual qualities that alone create\nunion of heart and mind seem unknown. Master-hood, an apotheosis of\nforce, is the key to the drama; and the rapid rise of the novel in\npublic esteem shows that pleasurable sensations were closely allied with\nthe barbarous actions and feelings that belong to a militant age.\n\nEarly in the nineteenth century George Eliot draws the hero of her first\ngreat novel (_Adam Bede_) in the act of picking a quarrel with a rival\nfor a woman\u2019s love. She shows jealousy in him springing chiefly from a\nsense of property in Hetty. The wounded pride and self-importance of a\ntoo despotic nature finds relief in fighting Arthur Donnithorne. In\n_Middlemarch_ the transition to a higher stage of evolution is marked.\nShe gives us there a graphic picture of a woman wrestling with jealousy\nin the secrecy of her own chamber, and correctly places in the tenderly\nemotional nature of that sex the primary impulse to subdue the vile\npassion. Female jealousy made no appeal to arms, but in a thousand\nsubtle ways it was sending forth currents of anti-social force, and\nwithout a widespread feminine repudiation of jealousy no clear advance\nto higher social life was possible. Dorothea is a true type of\nprogressing womanhood. She gains a victory in the noble warfare we see\nher waging inwardly, and, rising far above the vile passion, she goes\nforth to her rival in a glow of generous emotion that not only compels\nthe confidence of the latter, but for the time draws that selfish,\nnarrow nature up to the level of her own.\n\nThere is no false note in this picture, and if we glance at the\ntranscript of real life at the period we may easily find its\ncounterpart. The well-known writer, Mrs. Jamieson (in her _Commonplace\nBook_) relates: \u201cI was not more than six years old when I suffered, from\nthe fear of not being loved, and from the idea that another was\npreferred before me, such anguish as had nearly killed me! Whether those\naround me regarded it as a fit of ill-temper or a fit of illness I do\nnot know. I could not then have given a name to the pang that fevered\nme, but I never forgot that suffering. It left a deep impression, and\nthe recollection was so far salutary that in after life I guarded myself\nagainst the approaches of that hateful, deformed, agonizing thing which\nmen call jealousy, as I would from an attack of cramp or cholera. If\nsuch self-knowledge has not saved me from the pain, at least it has\nsaved me from the demoralizing effects of the passion, by a wholesome\nterror and even a sort of disgust.\u201d\n\nThe knell of a departing phase of inner life was sounding when womanhood\nacquired the power to sift evidence from childish recollections, to\ndetect the utter uselessness of the suffering jealousy creates and the\nignominy of allowing it to become a cause of suffering at all.\n\nMrs. Jamieson stands on the threshold of a new era, for critical\nintellect here enters the sphere of the emotions, and these, yielding to\nguidance and control, human reason is henceforth a prime factor in\nemotional evolution.\n\nBut further, sympathy when developed to a certain point inevitably leads\nmen astray if not guided by reason. Let me here relate a sequence of\nevents that occurred in my own experience.\n\nTwo girls became deeply attached; they worked and studied together, and\ntheir friendship was a source of constant joy. In course of time,\nhowever, one married, and the other girl felt forsaken. She suffered\nfrom jealousy, and imagined that the husband would suffer similarly if\nshe kept her place in her friend\u2019s affections. A husband\u2019s right\namounted, in her view, to a monopoly of a wife\u2019s tenderness. She strove,\ntherefore, to loosen the bond of friendship; to cool her own ardent\naffection and make no claims, lest it should disturb conjugal bliss. The\naction was brave and prompted by sympathy, but it did not make for\nhappiness. In a few short years the wife on her deathbed spoke thus to\nher former friend: \u201cWhy did you separate yourself from me? How could you\nthink my love would change? I have been happy in my husband and child,\nbut love never narrowed, it widened me. There was plenty of room for\nfriendship, too. I sorely missed you, and felt your loss threw a shadow\nover my married life.\u201d\n\nSympathy alone, then, is no unerring guide to conduct. Nevertheless, in\na society permeated by true knowledge of the nature of the emotions and\ntheir significance in evolution primitive good-feeling may evolve,\npassing through each stage from the basic or simple to the complex, and\nevery generous emotion prove accordant with the truth of things, and\ntherefore productive of inward joy and outward right action, i.e. action\ntending to general welfare even in all the labyrinthine complexities of\na high civilization. _Emotion accordant with the truth of things_\u2014that\nis the crux of the position; and again I can best illustrate the point\nby reference to events that occurred within my own knowledge\u2014events,\ntoo, by no means uncommon. During eight years a girl was engaged to\nmarry a man we shall call Roger. He was in India and she in England.\nThey corresponded, but meanwhile an intimacy sprang up between the girl\nand another man\u2014we may call him Mark\u2014to whom unwittingly her heart went\nout more warmly than it had ever done to Roger. She thought the relation\nto Mark was one of pure friendship, and he knew nothing of her\nengagement to Roger. The latter\u2019s approaching return to England,\nhowever, opened the girl\u2019s eyes to her true position, and on Mark it\nfell as a cruel blow. He had courted affection and responded to it in\nall sincerity, and was merely withheld from an open avowal by the\nconsciousness of, as yet, insufficient means to justify his suit in the\neyes of her parents. When concealment was at an end the problem to him\nseemed simple enough. \u201cWhich do you love best?\u201d he asked, and added\ndominantly, \u201che is the man you should marry.\u201d The girl was not\nconvinced. The knowledge that she could not love Roger best filled her\nwith tenderness towards him. Her emotional nature\u2014wide enough to embrace\nboth rivals with sympathy\u2014could give no decision, and intellect was\nconfused by false teaching in childhood. \u201cDuty,\u201d she thought, \u201cis always\ndifficult; ought I not then to choose the hardest path of the two before\nme, and give up Mark?\u201d In this grave dilemma she turned for advice to an\nelderly man on whose judgment she felt reliance. Bravely and truthfully\nshe stated her case, innocently betraying that ignorance and the wish to\ndo right were dangerously near carrying her into action that was wrong.\n\u201cLet us reverse the position,\u201d said her mentor. \u201cRoger, we shall\nsuppose, has written to you to come out to India and marry him, the fact\nbeing he has fallen in love with another girl. He did not mean to do\nthat. His heart slipped away from you to her unconsciously, and he is\nshocked, and blames himself, not wholly without cause. But being an\nhonourable man, he reasons with himself thus: \u2018I am bound to keep my\nengagement to Mary; I will do so, and strive to make her happy.\u2019 He\nmeets you then with a lie in his heart, not on his tongue, for he will\nsay nothing of your rival and of his sacrifice and pain. Would you be\nhappy, think you? Would you miss nothing? And if later you discovered\nthe truth, would you feel that the generous action was a just one to\nyou?\u201d \u201cNo, no,\u201d she cried, \u201cI never could wish him to sacrifice his\nhappiness to mine; I would infinitely rather he told me the truth, and\nmarried the other girl.\u201d \u201cPrecisely so,\u201d said her friend, \u201cthe truth is\nalways best; but I see you think Roger is less unselfish than you are!\nIs that just to him?\u201d \u201cI hardly know,\u201d she murmured, \u201cmen are jealous,\nare they not?\u201d \u201cJealous, ah, well, we men are frail, no doubt! But were\nI Roger, I tell you frankly, it would not mend matters to me that I had\nwon my wife without the priceless jewel of her love. Be true to\nyourself, my young friend, that means also justice to him, and fling to\nthe winds all fears that make you swerve from the path of open\nrectitude.\u201d The girl fulfilled her difficult task. She relinquished the\nheroic mood, met her first lover with perfect candour, and a short time\nlater became Mark\u2019s wife. \u201cRoger freed me at once,\u201d she said to her wise\nmentor; \u201che\u2019d rather have my friendship, which is perfectly sincere,\nthan love with a strain of falseness. Oh, I am glad, and yet I know he\ngrieves; I would give much to be able to console him!\u201d \u201cAh,\u201d said her\nfriend, \u201cbeware of sentimentality and self-importance there. Roger\u2019s\nconsolation will come through his own true heart. In time he will love\nagain. See to it that you \u2018let the dead past bury its dead.\u2019\u201d\n\nLoyalty to truth is not firmly rooted in humanity, while without truth\nas its guiding principle social feeling, constantly rising, overflows\nold channels and floods with new dangers the semi-civilization of the\npresent. There is no escape at this juncture from the absolute necessity\nof developing the critical faculty and applying it to the social\nquestions of the day; in other words, using reason, intelligence,\nknowledge, as the guides and controllers of feeling.\n\nWe turn now from personal emotions to an emotion that sways mankind\ncollectively, and manifests itself in still more direful results than\nthose of individual jealousy. Patriotism, like jealousy, is of ancient\norigin, and at one time possessed social utility. Without it there could\nhardly have occurred the transformation of vagrant tribes into massive\ncommunities solidly established on one portion of the earth\u2019s surface\nand sectionally swarming to other portions as occasion requires.\n\nThe original element holding a tribe together has been termed by a\nrecent sociologist \u201cconsciousness of kind,\u201d i.e. a feeling not dependent\non intellectual congeniality or emotional sympathy, but simply on\nnearness in place, time and blood. With tribal growth cohesion proves\nnecessary to self-protection from adverse environments, whether of\nnatural forces, wild animals or human foes. Experience reveals that\nunion is strength, and hostility to other tribes fosters union in\nopposition. The inward attitude becomes complex; it embraces cohesion\nand repulsion; it is essentially a _union in enmity_. Now we have seen\nhow in boyhood an innocent camaraderie or _esprit de corps_ begets\ninjustice to schoolmasters, and balks the development of the modern\nconscience; similarly here there are ethical dangers inseparable from a\nsentiment that beginning in \u201cconsciousness of kind\u201d expands into\nsociality, yet has a converse side of hostility and hate. At the present\nday patriotism and international warfare are closely combined. The\nstudent of life who knows that the general trend of evolution is towards\na reign of universal peace, recognizes that although nations have been\nconsolidated by outward warfare and inward patriotism, this sentiment,\nso limited in range and so largely anti-social, can be no virtue for all\ntime. Patriotism belongs to the militant stage of national history, and\nas regards Great Britain it is plainly out of date. Its action is not\ngood, but evil.\n\nThe war in South Africa begun in 1899 was not caused by racial enmity,\nbut by mercantile enterprise. Economic forces involved in Great\nBritain\u2019s competitive commercial system were the prime factors in its\ncreation, but without the existence of a vague unintelligent patriotic\nsentiment in the country generally the Government would not have been\nsupported by the people in the prosecution of that war. Our enfranchised\nmasses, fired by a sudden enthusiasm and racked by sympathy in the brave\ndeeds and cruel sufferings of our soldiers and sailors, saw the\nphantasmagoria of modern warfare in false colours. Imagination was\ngrasped and controlled by a press working\u2014though half-unconsciously\u2014in\nthe interests of a special mercantile class; and while tender emotions\noverflowed in generous help to one\u2019s own kind, a sympathy stimulated by\npublic laudation, the reverse side of the picture was ignored. But in\nthis, as in all wars, sympathy had its counterpoise in antagonism and\nrancorous enmity. All the brutal instincts latent in a race that had\nfought its way to supremacy among European Powers were roused afresh and\nstirred into fatal activity, and the evolving modern conscience and\nsentiments of justice, honour, truth towards all men, were checked and\noverborne by a loyalty that condones the fierce primitive passions.\nHatred and uncharitableness were even voiced from some pulpits, and the\nterm Pro-Boer was opprobriously launched at those lovers of peace who\ntried to defend their country\u2019s foes from exaggerated blame. It was\nskilfully handled to promote militant enthusiasm, and discountenance all\ncriticism of militant action and feeling.\n\nOn the emotional side of human nature inimical effects of warfare were\nwholly disregarded, and opinions on the subject of war given forth by a\nso-called educated class of men and eagerly imbibed by an ignorant\npublic were confused, often false and shamefully misleading. One of\nthese pseudo-teachers alleged that the wars of past times indicated\nchronic disease, but militarism in the present was useful, because in\nthe home-life of the nation the restraints of authority are becoming\nweak (Capt. Mahan). And an eminent statesman announced his impression\nthat the South African war was \u201cdesigned to build up those moral\nqualities which are after all the only solid and the only permanent\nfoundation on which any empire can be built\u201d! (Mr. Balfour\u2019s speech at\nManchester; _Scotsman\u2019s_ Report, January 9, 1900.)\n\nBut the true method of judging an event is to exercise comparison,\ntaking into account a far greater mass of social phenomena than that of\nthe immediate present. Now the careful study of past history has proved\nthat an outbreak of militant fraternity, combined with indulgence in the\nprinciple of enmity, leaves a society less fraternal than before in\nregard to the labours of peace and of building up; and against the claim\nthat military training is a good preparation for civic life there lies\nthe whole testimony of civilization. Further, the survival of militancy\nfrustrates the solving of our great social problems, and the recent\nrelapse to the militarist ideal is a grave hindrance to that social\nscience which would provide the true ways of humanizing defective types.\n(I refer my reader for a fuller statement on these lines to Mr. J. M.\nRobertson\u2019s _Patriotism and Empire_.) \u201cAfter Waterloo,\u201d says Mr.\nRobertson, \u201cit seems to have been realized by the intelligence of Europe\nthat militarism and imperialism had alike pierced the hands that leant\non them.\u201d Nevertheless, they reappeared, as we know, galvanized into\nfatal activity in human affairs, at the close of the nineteenth century.\n\nAgain, the action of international capitalism and the ideal of\nimperialism have been analysed from the standpoint of social philosophy\nby Mr. J. A. Hobson, an advanced and logical thinker on economic\nquestions. His conclusion is that the driving forces of aggressive\nimperialism are the organized influences of certain professional and\ncommercial classes which have definite economic advantages to gain by\nassuming a spurious patriotism, and the most potent of all these\ninfluences emanates from the financier. The power of financiers, exerted\ndirectly upon politicians and indirectly through the press upon public\nopinion, is, perhaps, so says Mr. Hobson, the most serious problem in\npublic life to-day.[5]\n\nFootnote 5:\n\n The _Contemporary Review_ of January, 1900.\n\nIt is not by sanguinary conflicts in which victory turns on superior\nnumbers, superior arms, and superior cunning in military tactics, that a\nnation\u2019s greatness is built up at this period of the world\u2019s history.\nWhat progress demands is not more of national wealth and international\npower; it is a better system of industrial life and a finer type of\nhumanity\u2014men and women of clear intellectual insight, high moral\ncourage, unselfish instincts and humane sentiments guiltless of narrow\nexclusiveness. These men and women, discerning ideally the best methods\nof building up a nation\u2019s greatness _on the happiness of its people_,\nwill aid our half-civilized races to embody that ideal on the physical\nplane, and to educate their children to live up to it and show forth all\nits beauty.\n\nIn the mental basis of a high spiritual life even now our children are a\nreproach, for here and there they emit sparks indicative of embryonic\nsentiment in advance of practice around them. At the height of the Boer\nWar a child in his nursery on being told that his nurse was opening a\ntin of boar\u2019s head for breakfast, exclaimed, every feature quivering\nwith sudden disgust, \u201cCatch me eat my enemy\u2019s head.\u201d\n\nWhen a nation repudiates with similar disgust that wholesale destruction\nof life, which is no whit less evil than the cannibalism of an earlier\ndate, then will war and patriotism cease to be\u2014their place taken by a\ncivilization standing firm on the foundation of human happiness and\nlove.\n\nGiven such outward conditions of life as are favourable to a freer\nexercise of the noblest social attributes and impulses of man, and the\nethical temper will prevail. By ethical temper I mean not only the\nabsence of all animosities that engender conflict, but the presence of a\nstrong sense of personal rights and an equally strong protectiveness\nover the rights of others\u2014a national impulse, in short, to an\nequivalence of liberty and social comfort for all mankind. But this\njustice is a supremely complex emotion\u2014the one of all others that\ndemands most of human capacity. It rests upon mental development, i.e. a\nuniversal enlargement of mind.\n\nIndustrial changes there must be, but these alone will not secure\nprogress; we need _true education_, for in the deeper strata of\nexistence\u2014the region of feeling, the movements of change must be guided\nfrom the old order to the new. Hence the vital importance of moral\neducation\u2014an education that will create an intelligent appreciation of\ntruth wherever presented, and bind all men together in loyalty to truth.\n\n\n\n\n _PART V_\n EDUCATION\n OR\n DIRECT TRAINING OF CHILDHOOD TO THE CIVILIZED HABIT OF MIND\n\n We acquire the virtues by doing the acts.\n We become builders by building.\n ARISTOTLE.\n\n\n\n\n EDUCATION\n\n Next in importance to the inborn nature is the acquired nature which a\n person owes to his education and training; not alone to the education\n which is called learning, but to that development of character which\n has been evoked by the conditions of life.\u2014Dr. H. MAUDSLEY.\n\n\nWe are beginning to realize the responsibilities that rest on each\ngeneration of adults in respect of the life evolving around us. It is\nnot merely the structure and texture of civilization that is affected by\nevery passing generation, it is the intrinsic quality of the human life\nto follow.\n\nWe have seen how the laws of heredity largely decide the physical\nembodiment of the coming lives as a resultant of the reproductive action\nof parents whether motived by ethical principle or by unrestrained\nanimal passion. We have now to consider the second great human factor in\nman\u2019s evolution, viz. nurture or education, which depends in its highest\nterms upon sound knowledge and the application of that knowledge by men\nand women of the period. In an advanced scientific age, the reproductive\nforces of man will be socially controlled and guided to the creation of\nnormal, i.e. healthy, physical life; while the whole apparatus of\nnurture, or the entire range of influence, playing upon childhood, will\nmanifest a rational adaptation of means to a special end, namely, the\nelevation of humanity.\n\nAdaptation necessarily becomes more difficult with the growing\ncomplexities of evolving humanity, but never has man\u2019s intellect been\nstronger than to-day to grapple with difficult problems, or so furnished\nwith the facts required in dealing with this problem of education.\n\nThe marvellous scientific discoveries of the nineteenth century and the\npractical uses to which these discoveries are put, have created in man a\nnew attitude towards external nature. All Western nations partake of the\nscientific bent. They are interpenetrated by reverence for science, and\nare conscious that its method of close observation and study of nature\nis the direct road to material progress. This bent is influencing school\neducation. There are few thoughtful teachers to-day who do not recognize\nthat some hours spent at intervals in country lanes and fields, on the\nsea-shore, or in a farm-yard, with children free to observe according to\nnative impulse, when followed by careful instruction concerning the\nobjects observed, are of far more value than weeks of book-learning\nindoors.\n\nIn many parts of America \u201cnature-studies\u201d on this plan are worked into\nthe public school curriculum.[6] But adaptation implies also a fuller\nknowledge of the rudimentary faculties which are to be scientifically\nnurtured, and here again America has taken the lead. In its\n\u201cchild-study\u201d movement, now spreading in this country, an effort is made\nto apprehend nature\u2019s processes in unfolding mental powers; and the\ninference is that teachers may thwart progress by traversing the true\norder of mental development. This clearly indicates the entrance of a\nscientific spirit into the field of education. It shows regard for the\norder of nature, willingness to be guided by knowledge of that order,\nand a conviction that the laws of a child\u2019s inner being must be\nrespected and no arbitrary compulsion exercised in bringing him into\nharmony with the laws of the environment.\n\nFootnote 6:\n\n The schools of to-day are made more and more into miniature worlds\n where children are taught how to live. The actual industries of the\n world as well as its art galleries, museums and parks are being\n utilized as part of public school equipment. The children are taken to\n the shops, the markets, the gardens, etc. _The New Spirit of\n Education_, by Arthur Henry, _Munsey\u2019s Magazine_, 1902.\n\nA child\u2019s capacities, however, are not centred in his intellect. On the\npassional side of his being, his spontaneous impulses of desire, fear,\njoy, grief, love, hatred, jealousy, etc., have to be studied, and\neducative forces found for their guidance and control. Moreover, the\nultimate aim is not his subjection to fixed rules of life, but the\nestablishment within the heart of the child of a supreme rule over all\nhis passions. And again, every child has characteristics indicative of\nthe course of development undergone by the special race to which he\nbelongs. The geographical position and primitive industry of that race,\nits conquests and failures in struggling upwards from savagery to a\nmeasure of civilization\u2014all have left an impress in specific effects.\n\nIn respect of our formal methods of giving instruction there is much\nthat is open to discussion; but the points usually raised are the best\nmeans of teaching grammar, history, geography, arithmetic, and so forth,\nnot the far more important question of how best to achieve an all-round\ndevelopment in face of the organic unity and marvellous multiplicity of\nqualities in the child of a civilized race. Great improvement has taken\nplace in every branch of school teaching both as regards the knowledge\nof teachers and the methods they adopt in imparting the knowledge;\nnevertheless, these improvements are minor matters as compared with the\ngeneral question before us.\n\nDuring the rise and progress of our industrial system based on\nindividualism, the constant fluctuations of trade, the competing of\nmachinery against human labour, the perpetual danger of getting thrown\nout of work, the utter failure of thrift as any protection from\nintermittent poverty\u2014have been factors eminently calculated to produce a\nhighly nervous type of humanity. Children of that type may happily prove\nbright and eager amid wretched surroundings, but it were folly to expect\nthem to show any impulse towards a high standard of living, any outlook\nbeyond the immediate present, or any inherent check upon action socially\nimmoral.\n\nOn the other hand, our city workers have sprung mainly from an\nagricultural class whose scattered families presented the defects of a\nlow order of life reared in isolation. Many of these defects have been\ncounteracted by segregation within towns, however unfavourable in other\ndirections that may have proved. The close proximity of beings affected\nby the same fateful conditions, the actual sorrowing and rejoicing\ntogether have expanded the emotional nature and engendered true\nsympathy. Professor Huxley once said, \u201cIt is futile to expect a hungry\nand squalid population to be anything but violent and gross.\u201d Yet we\nhave an immense population of workers, often hungry, and at all times\nenvironed more or less by squalor, whose average character is not\nviolent and gross, but distinctly humane.\n\nTurning from the masses to the classes we find some points of difference\nbetween the rich and the poor, viz. differences following from the\ndiverse industrial conditions. Leisure, as commanded by the rich, has\nmade mental development possible wherever desire prompted intellectual\neffort, and the magnificent record of last century\u2019s achievements in\ndiscovery of truth, acquisition of knowledge, and promotion of artistic\nskill, is a gain to the world at large\u2014a gain made possible by\naccumulation of wealth unequally distributed. But intellectual faculty\nhas frequently been depraved through its devotion to wealth production.\nThe true aims of life are lost sight of by chiefs of industry whose\nemotional nature has hardened under the daily spectacle of struggling\nfellow-beings, on whose labour their fortunes are built up. The dignity\nof useful labour has had no vogue in general education. An opposite\nprinciple\u2014that the highest dignity consists in being served by others\nand in possessing the means of constraining and exploiting the labour of\nothers, is impressed on the children of our classes by the whole play of\ncircumstance around them. The property-sense has become unduly\ndeveloped, and a selfish mammon-worship holds the place which an\naltruistic public spirit ought to hold in the inner life of a civilized\npeople. It is true that a showy charity\u2014a patronage by the rich of the\npoor\u2014is everywhere present throughout society, but that which creates\nand supports it is a sentiment wholly different from the simple kindness\nof the poor to the poor. It is without the essential features of that\ncharity that \u201cvaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, seeketh not her\nown ... thinketh no evil.\u201d\n\nNow the scientific spirit of to-day, in observing the uncontrolled play\nof middle-class children, has discovered how great is their interest and\njoy in the spontaneous exercise of the faculty of make-believe. Costly\ntoys will readily be thrown aside to take part in a game of \u201cpretended\u201d\nhousekeeping or shopkeeping, or acting the part of father, mother,\nnursemaid, or cook. And herein there lies, says one of our advanced\nteachers, \u201ca powerful hint how to keep children\u2019s attention alive while\ncultivating to the utmost their imaginative, observing, constructive and\ncorrelating faculties. We must dramatize our school education and\nconnect school ideally with real life.\u201d (Mr. Howard Swan; his\nintroductory lecture at the opening of Bedford Park School.)\n\nBut the \u201cpowerful hint\u201d goes deeper. It points to an instinct or a\ndeeply implanted desire and capacity for actual work on the part of\nchildren of a practical race. To play at work is pleasurable, to do work\nmore pleasurable still. Yet in blindness to the fact that in drawing out\ninto action every rudimentary faculty favourable to happy life lies the\ntrue path of education or an all-round development, society has shut off\nmiddle and upper-class children from the sight and hearing of household\nlabour. In nurseries, amid artificial toys, their daily routine is to\nseek amusement self-centred; and as in these days of small rather than\nlarge families, nursery children are often solitary, there is a\nsystematic repression both of natural activities and infolded natural\nemotions. The same repressions are carried forward into school life.\nDramatized teaching may connect school ideally with real life, but it\ncannot satisfy a child\u2019s cravings for the real, and the companionship of\nchildren of similar age will never call out the complex forces of a\nmany-sided emotional nature. It is not playing at life that is required\nfor education, it is the sharing of life\u2019s duties of service, and\nconstant opportunity given for the practice of varied humanities.\n\nThe children of our superior workers may perchance fare better if the\nmother is a capable woman, and the home not overcrowded. The lighter\nparts of her work are shared by the little ones, and to help mother in\nsweeping and dusting, washing cups and saucers, and placing them neatly\nin the cupboard, etc., are not only interesting and useful occupations,\nthey are educative, for they imply a simultaneous training of the eye,\nthe fingers, the mental faculties and the heart. But overcrowding, the\nmiserable housing of the poor, and the early age at which infant\nschool-life begins, makes such home-training difficult even to the best\nof mothers, while to the upper classes\u2014frost-bound in artificial\ndomestic customs, all home-training seems impossible.\n\nNothing, however, should deter a student of evolution from proclaiming\nthat the home-life of our people will largely decide the nation\u2019s\nfuture. Unless the great problem of the housing of the poor is rightly\nsolved, and unless educated women become roused to the necessity of a\nchanged home-life in the interests of their children, and set themselves\nvoluntarily to the task of domestic reform within their own circle, the\nsocial state can never be greatly improved.\n\nAll children born in a civilized nation have a right to education. That\nthis principle has been fully acknowledged is evidenced by our\nEducational Acts and the innumerable Board Schools that stud the\ncountry. But as long as population among the masses rises without check,\nthe highest aim of education, viz. the development and elevation of\nindividual character must, as regards their children, remain in\nabeyance. The only practicable line of action is to gather them together\ninto large schools, and while bestowing general instruction in reading,\nwriting, arithmetic, etc., to subject them to some hours of systematic\nguidance and control. This signifies obedience to rule and order\u2014a\nuseful discipline to juveniles of Bohemian nature, and it is the only\nmethod of restraining tendencies to licence, without rousing a spirit of\nrevolt. Fresh air, wholesome food, ample bathing, and the play of\nsunlight and colour upon nerves of sensation\u2014these stimulate bodily\nhealth, while music, and the personal influence of high-minded teachers,\nthrow into vibration finer nerves of sensibility, and elevate the mental\nand moral tone. But beyond this point, large schools are incapable of\nscientific adaptation to the needs of a modern education in a rapidly\nsocializing community.\n\nIt was in the year 1837 that there issued from the press a work on\neducation written by Isaac Taylor, who there lays down this proposition:\n\u201cIf large schools were granted to be generally better adapted to the\npractical ends of education than private instruction, the welfare of\nsociety on the whole demands also the other method. The school-bred man\nis of one sort, the home-bred man of another\u2014the community has need of\nboth. Hence no tyranny of fashion is more to be resisted than such as\nwould render a public education compulsory and universal.\u201d[7]\nNotwithstanding this warning, the tyranny of fashion is carrying us\nyearly more and more into the production of school-bred women, as well\nas school-bred men. Our girls\u2019 high schools are replicas of our boys\u2019\npublic schools, and society suffers still more from the loss of the\nhome-bred woman than the home-bred man.\n\nFootnote 7:\n\n _Home Education_, p. 22.\n\nAgain, the late Professor D\u2019Arcy W. Thompson, in his charmingly-written\n_Day-dreams of a Schoolmaster_, gives us the fruits of a ripe experience\ngained during twelve years of boyhood in a large public school, and many\nyears of manhood as teacher of classics in schools and university. His\nboyhood, he tells us, was dreary because of the monotonous routine. He\nwas \u201cfed on dull books, and the manuals were in many cases mere tramways\nto pedantry. His mental training was a continuous sensation of\nobstruction and pain. His spiritual parts were furrowed.\u201d (Observe,\nthere were no nature-studies at that period.) The incitement to effort\nwas the cane or the tawse, and flogging, he believes, never instils\ncourage, it has transformed many a boy into a sneak. \u201cLet us discard\npunishment,\u201d says the Professor, \u201cand endeavour to make our pupils\n_love_ work.\u201d The whole educational system in his day was mechanical and\nartificial, yet when he strove to initiate new methods the boys were\nwithdrawn from his charge. Parents understood little of true education.\nThey were slaves to custom. \u201cHow is it,\u201d he asks, \u201cthat fathers with a\npersonal experience like my own send their boys to school?\u201d He answers:\n\u201cThey say to themselves, \u2018Depend upon it if there were no virtue in\nbirching and caning, in Latin verses and Greek what-you-may-call-\u2019ems,\nthey would not have held their ground so long amongst a practical people\nlike ourselves!\u2019 So Johnnie is sent to the town grammar school and the\ngreat time-honoured gerund-stone turns as before, and will turn to the\nlast syllable of recorded time.\u201d For the gerund-stone he would\nsubstitute an easy _viv\u00e2 voce_ conversational method of instruction in\nall elementary classes, and throughout the school; for coercion, the\nmore than hydraulic pressure of a persistent, continuous gentleness.\n\nThirty years before the _Day-dreams_ was published, one writer at least\nwas open-eyed to the defects of school education. He charged parents\nwith adopting the new boarding-school system because it spared them some\nresponsibility, and children were apt to be teasing and importunate.\n\u201cBoys advance at school quickly,\u201d he said, \u201cin knowledge of the\nauxiliary verbs, the mysteries of syntax and the stories of gods and\ngoddesses; but I am confident that the reason why women generally are so\nmuch better disposed than men is this: they live domestically and\nfamiliarly. They are penetrated with the home-spirit, they are imbued\nwith all its influences, their memory is not fed to plethora while the\nheart is left to waste and perish. No daughter of mine shall ever be\nsent to school; at home the heart, wherein are the issues of all good,\ndevelops itself from day to day. There children ripen in their\naffections. There they learn their humanities, not in the academic\nsense, but in the natural and true one.\u201d[8]\n\nFootnote 8:\n\n _Self-Formation_, by Capel Lofft, vol. 1, p. 42.\n\nWhere, alas! do we find to-day the daughters of the classes who are not\nsent to school? Our girls\u2019 high schools overflow; and that, not by the\naction of State control, but by the voluntarily assumed yoke and tyranny\nof fashion. Girls emerging from these schools are not \u201cso much better\ndisposed than men.\u201d They are certainly not domesticated and imbued with\na home-spirit. They may have gained in refinement\u2014even to\nfastidiousness! and in the knowledge of Latin and Greek, or what is\ncalled the higher culture, but they are characterized generally by a\nspirit of pleasure-seeking. They become, in many cases, what has aptly\nbeen called \u201cnonsense women, prepared only to lead butterfly lives.\u201d\n\nNow, parents who shirk the responsibility and effort entailed in shaping\ntheir children\u2019s characters to the best of their ability can only expect\ntheir own self-indulgence to become intensified in the lives of their\nchildren. Let me not, however, be here misunderstood. The movement for\nthe higher education of women is a step forward in civilization. Many\nwomen are born with great mental capacity, and without the specific\nintellectual culture now obtainable the world would lose much, while the\nnonexercise of such native powers creates inward misery. But culture,\naccording to Matthew Arnold, implies the study of perfection, and the\nlate Professor Huxley\u2019s ideal is expressed as follows:\u2014\u201cThat man has had\na liberal education who has been so trained in youth that his body is\nthe ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the\nwork that as a mechanism it is capable of; whose intellect is clear,\nwith all its parts of equal strength and in smooth working order; whose\nmind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of\nNature and of the laws of her operations; one who\u2014no stunted ascetic\u2014is\nfull of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel by\na vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learnt to\nlove all beauty, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself.\nSuch an one and no other has had a liberal education, for he is as\ncompletely as man can be in harmony with nature.\u201d (An Address at South\nLondon Working Men\u2019s College, January, 1869.)\n\nChildhood is characterized by sensational activity. The reflective and\nreasoning powers lie comparatively dormant. Mobile sensibility is the\ndistinguishing feature of childhood, and parents and teachers taking\nadvantage of the law of nature whereby pleasurable sensation stimulates\ngrowth should train children step by step to the enjoyment of _useful_\nactivities, to physical and manual dexterity; to simple efforts in\npursuit of knowledge; to infantile firmness in discharge of duty; to\nunconstrained dignity in defence of the right, and sympathetic jealousy\nover the rights of others; to gentleness towards all mankind; to\nadmiration of all that is noble in character, to veneration of age,\nexperience and virtue; and to the love of truth and justice and personal\ndevotion to both. These are the qualities of human nature that make for\nreal civilization; and further progress requires their steady\ndevelopment in the race.\n\nNow, these qualities cannot be evoked by school methods nor even by the\neasy _viv\u00e2 voce_ conversational instruction proposed by Professor\nThompson. An indispensable factor in the process is a rich, full,\ndomestic environment, an atmosphere suffused with affection and\nvibrating with varied activities\u2014_a home-life_, in short, where the\ndelicate qualities of noble character will not be commanded to come\nforth, but will come of themselves through the play of circumstance,\ni.e. by the action of example and gentle sympathetic co-operation.\n\nIn upper-class houses, even where wealth and luxury abound, there are\nnone of the diverse and liberal domestic surroundings conducive to early\ntraining. The first essential is that the nurseries be freed from all\nphysical, mental and moral forces that belong to a comparatively\nprimitive stage of evolution. Nurses drawn from the masses\u2014however\ncarefully selected\u2014are incompetent by nurture for training infants in\nthe best way. The authority they have known has been archaic, and\nelements of barbarism have been near them from babyhood, while education\nas yet has done little to raise their intelligence to the plane of\ncivilized thought. Hence an ordinary nurse, of kindly and affectionate\ndisposition, may seriously misdirect the budding conscience of a babe,\nas I have shown in my chapters on Emotional Life.\n\nTo women of great attainments and culture the training of infancy\nproperly belongs, and that training in the homes of the classes will be\nof the highest value to the State. The problem of how to create in\nchildhood a ready obedience to authority without jarring the nerves, or\nchecking freedom unnecessarily, is a very difficult one. It requires a\ncultured intelligence to grasp the problem and carry out the true method\nof its solution. The aim in the training of infancy is to develop\nsuperior types of men and women by evoking the higher qualities of human\nnature _in a sphere of comparative liberty_. A babe in the nursery, let\nus say, has had his attention caught by the flames leaping up in the\nwell-guarded grate. He creeps towards them and pushes his fingers\nthrough the wires of the guard. The educated nurse gently lifts him to a\nsafe distance, but he starts creeping again to the fire. Now there are\nin the nursery some baskets of different size and depth, all softly\nlined and weighted. Baby is put into one of these to amuse himself with\na toy until the fascinating flames are forgotten.\n\nAn older child flings her ball in another child\u2019s face. Nurse tells her\nthe ball might hurt, but on persistence in the selfish amusement she,\ntoo, is firmly placed in a larger basket or nursery prison, and must\nstay there till the impulse to be disobedient has passed off; for the\nprinciple which guides nurse in the training of these infants is this:\nliberty abused must be abridged.\n\nAfter a few such experiences the little ones feel that a network is\naround them\u2014a network of authority never physically painful and that has\nno connection with anger.\n\nAs the reasoning powers develop they feel that liberty is theirs in the\nstraight course of obedience to authority, and later they find that this\nauthority represents a knowledge of the laws of nature, for when in\ngarden and field they join in the nature-study lessons, they discover\nthat if plants creep into unfavourable conditions, they languish; if\nanimals run counter to laws of health, they suffer and die.\n\nFrom nursery to home-training the infants pass forward. Their nerves\nhave never been irritated by harshness, nor their affections repressed,\nand their impulses to unhurtful activities are of normal strength. In\nthe more advanced training now given, the aim is no longer to impress\nautomatically, but rationally to guide the growing intelligence. Blind\nobedience is not required, but every command is explained and related to\nthe facts of happy and healthful life. At this point a discriminating\njudgment is profoundly necessary, and the child should be studied\nindividually, for to each there comes the right moment when self-rule is\npossible, and unless outward restraints are wisely withdrawn that power\nof self-rule may be injured.\n\nThe human types to be desired are not slavish, but independent beings,\ncapable of noble service to God and man; and choosing to do right\nbecause they know true happiness lies that way.\n\nAt sixteen or upwards the young thus trained may safely leave home for\nhigh school or university, in pursuit of the special instruction\nrequired for their future career. An education that has laid the\nfoundation of noble character, comes to no abrupt conclusion. The love\nof truth when firmly implanted prompts to the acquisition of new\nknowledge, and knowledge is boundless as the universe. Fields of science\nbecome the happy hunting-ground of minds that are markedly intellectual,\nand although self-culture supersedes formal instruction, and original\nresearch supersedes the following of authority, education moves\ncontinuously and steadily forward.\n\n\u201cThe environment,\u201d says Clifford Harrison, \u201cthat lies open to men\nrationally developed is as vast as the ideal that lies before them. This\nenvironment is not a spiritual matter merely; not of the soul alone, but\nof body, mind, soul and spirit; not of heaven only, but of earth as\nwell; not of eternity and a beyond, but of time and here.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n _PART VI_\n CONDITIONS IN AID OF HAPPY LIFE IN A DEVELOPING CIVILIZATION\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I\n THE NEEDS OF ADOLESCENCE\n\n The woman\u2019s cause is man\u2019s: they rise or sink\n Together, dwarf\u2019d, or godlike, bond or free:\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,\n How shall men grow?\n \u2014TENNYSON.\n\n\nAdolescence is a critical period in the life of an individual. At that\nperiod, character, speaking generally, fully manifests, and the life is\ndecided for good or evil. What advanced ethics requires is that each\nadult generation should deliberately examine its inheritance from the\nprevious, less conscious, less informed epoch, in order to detect and\ndestroy every social snare that entangles unwary feet in adolescence;\nand to devise the best methods of bringing to the young the wisdom and\nsympathy of their seniors.\n\nIn the autobiography of the late Anthony Trollope (vol. 1, p. 69), some\nfacts of his own adolescence are stated in a spirit as generous as it is\ncandid. His fate, like that of thousands of young men in his day, and in\nthe present day, was to live at that critical time in a town, surrounded\nby all the attractions that a keen competitive commercialism has created\nto supplement profits\u2014though at the expense of young men\u2019s money and\nmorals\u2014and with no private retreat save a solitary lodging, a shelter,\nbut in no sense a home. \u201cNo allurement to decent respectability,\u201d he\nsays, \u201ccame in my way.\u201d For the spending of his evenings, the choice lay\nbetween what he calls \u201cquestionable resorts\u201d and sitting alone reading\nor drinking tea. \u201cThere was no house in which I could habitually see a\nlady\u2019s face and hear a lady\u2019s voice, and in these circumstances the\ntemptations of loose life will almost certainly prevail with a young\nman; at any rate they prevailed with me.\u201d[9] Similar evidence may be\nfound in a realistic, powerful novel, _Jude the Obscure_. Mr. Thomas\nHardy there depicts the tragedy of unfulfilled aims, the shipwreck of\nwhat might have been a noble life; and the cause of shipwreck is pointed\nout in the words of the dying Jude: \u201cMy impulses and affections were too\nstrong ... a man without advantages should be as cold-blooded as a fish\nand as selfish as a pig to have a really good chance of being one of his\ncountry\u2019s worthies.\u201d Now, affection and the impulse to love purely can\nnever be too strong for the interests of general evolution, therefore we\nare entitled to assume that the environment is at fault. The fact that\nthousands of young men deprived of healthy home-life succumb to the\ntemptations of city-life, condemns our industrial competition. Public\nconsciousness has not grasped the needs and dangers of adolescence, and\nthe slowly evolving community-conscience disregards the terrible penalty\npaid in general degradation for retaining a system of industry that\nproduces among other evils \u201cquestionable resorts where young men see\nlife in false, delusive colours.\u201d These and all other injurious outcomes\nof our tragic struggle for the necessaries and amenities of life, will\npersist until the individualistic system of industry disappears, i.e. is\nsuperseded by a rational collectivist system. Standing as we do on the\nverge of conscious evolution, that time is not yet, but something may be\ndone by parents and guardians of youth to counteract the evils of a\ntransitional epoch.\n\nFootnote 9:\n\n More recently still the world has been afforded a glance into the\n inner history of a life destined to noble uses and high achievements.\n In the meridian of his fame Professor Huxley wrote thus to Charles\n Kingsley: \u201cKicked into the world a boy without guide or training, or\n with worse than none, I confess to my shame that few men have drunk\n deeper of all kinds of sin than I. Happily my course was arrested in\n time\u2014before I had earned absolute destruction\u2014and for long years I\n have been slowly and painfully climbing, with many a fall, towards\n better things.\u201d\u2014_Life of Professor Huxley_, vol. 1, p. 220.\n\nProgress in an evolving society largely depends upon true union, i.e.\nmental, emotional and spiritual union of the sexes. But a careful\nexamination of the prominent movements in society, and especially the\nvarious divisions of the woman\u2019s emancipation movement, reveals that all\nare defective through inattention to this fundamental need. They do not\naim at social conditions in which solidarity of heart and soul will\nnaturally ensue.\n\nThe woman movement is the issue in great measure of pent-up forces of\nyouth in the female sex of the upper classes. It is less the revolt of\nlabour against poverty, injustice, and overtaxed strength, than a revolt\nfrom enforced idleness on the part of the victims of wealth. The\nposition is graphically put before us by the late Charles Reade in his\namusing tale _The Woman Hater_.\n\nFanny Dover, a common enough type of upper-class femininity, appears to\nthe woman-hater a mere shallow-minded, selfish coquette, till suddenly\nat an unexpected emergency she assumes new and very different colours.\n\u201cHow is this?\u201d he exclaims. \u201cYou were always a bright girl and no fool,\nbut not exactly what humdrum people call good ... you are not offended?\u201d\n\u201cThe idea,\u201d says Fanny, \u201cwhy I have publicly denounced goodness again\nand again.\u201d \u201cYes, and yet you turn out as good as gold!... I have\nwatched you; you are all over the house to serve two suffering women.\nYou are cook, housemaid, nurse and friend to both of them. In an\ninterval of your time so creditably employed you cheer me up with your\nbright little face and give me wise advice! Explain the phenomenon.\u201d \u201cMy\ndear Harrington, if you cannot read so shallow a character as I am, how\nwill you get on with those ladies upstairs ... but there, I will have\npity on you. You shall understand one woman before you die ... give me a\ncigarette.... What women love and can\u2019t do without if they are young and\nspirited, is excitement. I am one who pines for it. Society is so\nconstructed that to get excitement you must be naughty. Waltzing ...\nflirting, etc., are excitement, ... dining _en famille_, going to bed at\nten, etc., are stagnation; good girls mean stagnant girls; I hate and\ndespise these tame little wretches; I never was one and never will be.\nBut look here, we have two ladies in love with one villain\u2014that is\nexciting. One gets nearly killed in the house\u2014that is gloriously\nexciting; the other is broken-hearted. If I were to be a bad girl and\nsay: \u2018It is not my business; I will leave them to themselves and go my\nlittle mill-round of selfishness as before, why what a fool I must be! I\nshould lose excitement. Instead of that I run and get things for the\nKlosking\u2014excitement. I cook for her and nurse her and sit up half the\nnight\u2014excitement. Then I run to Zoe and do my best for her or get\nsnubbed\u2014excitement. Then I sit at the head of your table and order\nyou\u2014excitement. Oh! it is lovely.\u2019 \u2018Shall you be sorry when they both\nget well and routine re-commences?\u2019 Of course I shall; that is the sort\nof good girl I am.\u201d\n\nThis youthful exuberance or restlessness is favourable to social\nadvance, and the woman movement has accomplished good service in\nclaiming and turning it to useful account. But here, as in all partial\nreforms, new evils dog the footsteps of the new good effected. To-day we\nhave numerous city workers of the female as well as the male sex,\ncompelled by the exigencies of their labour to live far apart from their\nnearest and dearest, in solitary lodgings like Anthony Trollope, or at\nbest in the make-believe homes limited to inmates of one sex. I do not\ninfer that these girls fall under any special temptations to licence,\nbut, deprived as they are of the immediate influences of early\nassociations and the subtle tendernesses of home-life, I hold it\nimpossible that their emotional human nature should not suffer loss.\nTheir need for the happy and useful exercise of activities which were\nrunning into mischievous courses, is satisfactorily met, but at the\nexpense of domestic traits, and these are precisely what lie at the root\nof human fellowship\u2014that union of heart and soul which is indispensable\nto true progress.\n\nSome social reformers regard the higher education of women movement as a\npotent factor in uniting men and women through the mutual interests of\ncultured thought. A knowledge, however, of Greek, Latin, the classics,\netc., accomplishes little so long as the sexes are not educated\ntogether, and this form of culture has no _direct_ bearing on elevation\nof character and development of the emotional side of human nature.\nCricket, golf, and all our fashionable out-door sports have done more,\nin creating mutual interests and furthering progress by securing for\ngirls greater social freedom than was previously theirs, and Mr. H. W.\nMassingham spoke truly when he said: \u201cNo special complications have\nfollowed in any marked degree the vast extension that has taken place in\nthe field of girls\u2019 free companionship with men. Yet what would our\nfathers have thought of it?\u201d[10] But sports are for the hours of\nleisure, and ample leisure belongs only to the idle or to a minor\nsection of female workers. Meanwhile we have thousands of young women,\nof different calibre to Fanny Dover, whose noblest attribute, viz. their\ninnate capacity for all the finer vibrations of social feeling, is never\ncalled into play.\n\nFootnote 10:\n\n _Ethical World_, June, 1900.\n\nAmid all the kaleidoscopic scenes of our transition period, a new figure\nof womanhood has undoubtedly appeared\u2014a type not characterized by\nfrivolity or love of excitement, but by strenuousness, sincerity,\nrefinement, moral courage, a will-force in short, that breaking through\nselfish limitations seeks nobler spheres of action. This will-force is\nsubject to constant recoil. It is thrown back on itself by adverse\nconditions of society, of industry, of private individual life.\n\nIn _Jude the Obscure_ this new type of woman is skilfully sketched.\nSusan Bridehead is a creature of high aspiration, rich inward resources\nand manifold imperfections. She has foibles and feminine vanities, but\nthe human nature is essentially large-minded, generous, truthful. \u201cI did\nnot flirt,\u201d she says to Jude, \u201cbut a craving to attract and captivate,\nregardless of the injury it might do, was in me ... my liking for you is\nnot as some women\u2019s perhaps, but it is a delight in being with you of a\nsupremely delicate kind ... I did want and long to ennoble some man to\nhigh aims.\u201d Here we have love transferred from the lower reaches of pure\nsensation to a higher level of tender sentiment, and energized from the\nintellectual plane. This denotes a slow evolution of ages during which\nall the grossness, i.e. the coarser vibrations of primitive love, are\ntransmuted into the finer vibrations of sympathetic, altruistic feeling.\n\nIt is important to see clearly the distinction between primitive and\nmodern love, in order that no confusion may arise in contemplating the\nideal social life that scientific meliorism forecasts. The intrinsic\nquality of primitive love is illustrated in Mrs. Bishop\u2019s description of\nher favourite horse\u2019s attachment. \u201cI am to him an embodiment of melons,\ncucumbers, grapes, pears, peaches, biscuits and sugar, with a good deal\nof petting and ear-rubbing thrown in!\u201d Human attachments based on these\npleasurable sensations or simple animal appetites and passions, form the\nmain soldering ingredients in humanity\u2019s mass; but love\u2019s development\nhas marched concurrently with true civilization, and to men and women in\nthe van of civilization one chief cause of misery to-day is repression\nof the normal, healthy impulse to pure and unselfish love.\n\n_Unselfishness_ is the distinguishing feature of higher forms of love,\nand an unselfishness that had its origin not in conjugal union but in\nmotherhood. Mr. Finck, in his study of love\u2019s evolution, puts it thus:\n\u201cThe helpless infant could not survive without a mother\u2019s\nself-sacrificing care, hence there was an important use for womanly\nsympathy which caused it to survive and grow while man immersed in wars\nand struggles remained hard of heart and knew not tenderness....\nSelfishness in a man is perhaps less offensive because competition and\nthe struggle for existence necessarily foster it.\u201d (Henry Finck\u2019s\n_Primitive Love_, pp. 160\u2013161.) The social need for a specialized\nunselfishness has tended to differentiate the sexes emotionally, and in\nprocess of building up the entire structure of social life the pressure\nof outward forces has carried this differentiation further. I am not\nthen traversing the natural laws of evolution when I assume that all\nquestions relating to women are at this date pre-eminently important.\n\nThe population problem, as I have shown, can only be solved through a\ndiminution of the birth-rate, and throughout the British nation the\nfamily group is breaking up. It is disintegrating especially in the\nupper and middle classes.\n\nThe movement towards industrial socialism is the outcome of masculine\nthought and energy. Man is its mainspring, although many thoughtful\nwomen take part in it. Conversely, the house-ruler, woman, must be the\nmainspring of a movement towards domestic socialism, although no success\nwill accrue without the steadfast aid and co-operation of man. That some\nwomen are already fitted to begin this great work is evident from much\nof our female public service. Let me quote some words recently spoken of\nlady-workers by a male critic, Mr. H. W. Massingham: \u201cThey have moral\ncourage and refinement. They do not tire more easily than men; they do\nnot shirk the detail work; they take to drudgery.\u201d Pioneers of the new\nmovement must be religious in the best sense, i.e. their philosophy must\nbring into touch the worlds seen and unseen, inspiring action conducive\nto personal and universal happiness.\n\nThe task before them is of double intent, viz. of immediate utility and\nof far-reaching benefit. It will attract inferior natures as well as the\nsuperior, for a well-organized modern home will present more\nconvenience, comforts and embellishments than the family homes of the\npast or present, and at smaller expense. Herein a certain danger lurks.\nPioneers will have to guard against dropping out of the enterprise its\nsupreme purpose and main evolutional value, viz. the raising humanity on\nto higher levels of happiness. There is no other policy to this end than\nthat of domestically uniting the sexes from infancy, in order that in\nthe idealistic period of adolescence soul may meet soul with fearless\nunreserve and young men and women realize by experience that in the pure\nrealms of thought and feeling the closest union is possible. It is this\nunion manifesting in dual sympathy that will become the liberating force\nof the world, and in it and through it woman\u2019s emancipation will be\ncomplete.\n\n Woman is not undevelopt man\n But diverse ...\n Yet in the long years liker must they grow;\n The man be more of woman, she of man;\n He gain in sweetness and in moral height,\n She mental breadth, nor fail in child-ward care\n Till at the last she set herself to man,\n Like perfect music unto noble words;\n And so these twain upon the skirts of time,\n Sit side by side ...\n Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,\n Self-reverent each and reverencing each\n Distinct in individualities,\n But like each other ev\u2019n as those who love.\n Then comes the statelier Eden back to men;\n\n \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00b7\n\n Then springs the crowning race of humankind,\n May these things be!\n _The Princess._\u2014TENNYSON.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II\n DOMESTIC REFORM\n\n The animating spring of all improvement in individuals and in\n societies is not the knowledge of the actual but the conception of the\n possible.\u2014H. MARTINEAU.\n\n How shall the new era be inaugurated? By ceasing to strive for self\n and family; by thinking of both only as instruments of the common\n weal.\u2014PROF. A. W. BICKERTON.\n\n\nThe model family home of the British middle class half a century ago\ncomprised a father and mother of sound constitution and domestic habits\nwith a group of children of both sexes\u2014a group large enough to supply\ncompanionship to one another, and a family income sufficient for\ncomfortable maintenance and recreation, occasional travel and the free\nexercise of hospitality. If homes of this type were widely and firmly\nestablished throughout the land they might be competent to breed,\nnurture and send forth into the world a good average material of human\nlife for repairing waste and building up the British nation. But in the\npresent epoch such homes are exceedingly rare, and the trend of social\nforces and modern ideas alike make for their becoming still rarer.\n\nTo speak only of the more obvious factors of change, State action in\nreference to the education of the young lifts children of the masses at\nalmost an infantile age out of the effective control of family life, and\nin our centres of national industry economic forces bring about a hasty\npairing and breeding, with an abrupt scattering of the brood that\nresembles the nesting of birds rather than the home-making of rational\nbeings; while so immature are the heads of these evanescent family homes\nthat the break-up is by no means an unmitigated evil.\n\nAmong the classes, forces of a higher, more penetrative order are\nworking similarly. Prudence is acting towards the restraint of\npopulation in a manner that narrows the basis of family groups and\nshortens the natural term of their existence; and under a new impulse of\nright reason and high resolve the educated section of the female sex is\ndeliberately forsaking the domestic hearth to share the world\u2019s labour\nwith man. These concurrent movements in society are destroying family\nlife on the old lines, and by the homes of the present, individual needs\nare met only temporarily and provisionally.\n\nOne conspicuous result is an ever-increasing discomfort to the aged.\nThey are stranded in homes become empty, or wander abroad seeking touch\nwith their kind. Distinctly are they shunted off the rails of busy life\nbefore a lowered vitality prompts to inertia. The British \u201cPhilistine\u201d\nlacks sentiment. Old age makes no special appeal to him, and he is\ncontent to bestow on relatives no longer young a brief moment of his\nprecious time, a fragment of his tenderness. At an earlier stage of our\nsocial evolution the mature in years were centres of a rich, full,\ndomestic life, and pivots on which turned the wider social life\nencircling it. At the present stage of that evolution the young and the\ncomparatively young focus and absorb the whole sunshine of life, while\nthe guardians of their infancy pass into declining years enveloped in\ngloom.\n\nThis premature effacement entails on society a double loss\u2014first, the\nloss interiorly of that individual happiness which intensifies and\nraises the tide of life; second, the loss of activities guided by and\nbased upon _mellow experience_.\n\nSociety is too materialistic to recognize that human beings physically\non the down-grade may be psychically on the up-grade, and pre-eminently\nfitted to inspire and promote progress. But in thinking of latent\npossibilities realizable in a better environment we are bound not to\njudge by average humanity, but by the superior types of the preceding\ngeneration. The old age of W. E. Gladstone, Harriet Martineau, Mary\nSomerville, and others was neither gloomy nor unproductive. The\nlast-mentioned at the age of eighty-one turned her attention to writing\na book on microscopic science. \u201cI seemed,\u201d she says, \u201cto resume the\nperseverance and energy of my youth. I began it with courage, though I\ndid not think I could live to finish it.\u201d She did, however, finish it,\nand lived to the age of ninety-two, maintaining at all times her habits\nof study and a full social intercourse with many friends. (From\n_Personal Recollections_, by her Daughter.)\n\nIt is not intellectual powers only that are running to waste. Under the\ndouble pressure of competition in trade and competition in the labour\nmarket, good manual workers are found ineffective and dismissed at an\nearlier age than formerly.\n\nAn immense mass of our industrial population is forced by circumstance\ninto the workhouse when still comparatively active, and life there is\nbut a gloomy vacant existence\u2014a complete suppression of the best\nfaculties of body and mind.\n\nComparing the past with the present in respect of the old age of\nworkers, we are told by Professor Thorold Rodgers that village homes\nwere centres of multifarious occupations, in which naturally the aged,\nif able, would take part. And in towns, although streets were narrow, at\nthe rear of the houses there were gardens where old and young together\nspent the long summer evenings. \u201cNot long ago,\u201d says the American Social\nScience Committee Report of 1878, \u201cthe farm found constant employment\nfor the men of the family\u2014the women had abundant employment in the home,\nthere was carding, spinning, weaving.\u201d \u201cAnd the neverending labour of\nour grandmothers must not be forgotten, who with nimble needle knit our\nstockings and mittens. The knitting-needle was in as constant play as\ntheir tongues, whose music only ceased under the power of sleep.... Now\nno more does the knitting-needle keep time to the music of their\ntongues, for the knitting-machine in the hands of one little girl will\ndo more work than fifty grandmothers. Labour-saving machinery has broken\nup and destroyed our whole system of household and family manufacture,\nwhen all took part in the labour and shared in the product to the\ncomfort of all.\u201d\n\nThe system that has superseded that of \u201chousehold and family\nmanufacture\u201d has been adverse to the aged from the first, and neglect of\nold age has become a wrong-doing that eats like a canker into our social\nlife.\n\nAs Professor Bickerton well remarks: \u201cUnhappiness is the disease of\nsocial life, and misery is an indication that there is something wrong\nwith our social system. Just as it is unreasonable to expect bodily\nhealth under insanitary conditions, so we cannot look for social concord\nand joy unless mankind be placed in circumstances that suit his social\nnature. Man has been considered too exclusively as a producing machine\nwith subsidiary mental capacity, whereas he is essentially a moral being\nwith deep emotions and universal sympathies. The cure for the\nuncleanliness of society is not difficult. The plans for the edifice of\nhuman life are obtainable. What are the plans? Those laws of nature\nwhich are concerned in the development of mankind. What is the cure?\nSuch understanding of the principles of evolution and such consonant\naction as shall restore to the race an environment befitting its\nhumanity.\u201d (_The Romance of the Earth._)\n\nNevertheless, we cannot return to a system of household and family\nmanufacture. To relinquish mechanical aids to production would be\ncontrary to, not consonant with, evolution. A civilized race outgrows\nits primitive conditions of life and industry\u2014new wine must be put into\nnew bottles.\n\nThe immediate step of advance as regards manual labour is this\u2014in our\ncentres of local administration there should be organized municipal\nemployment with shortened hours for elderly people, the wage to be\nsupplemented by pensions ample enough to secure for these workers an\nhonourable social standing instead of a pauper\u2019s dole. But a closer\nadaptation to humanity\u2019s needs may be quickly achieved by the classes\nwhere poverty plays a less part in the social phenomena. Of present\nconditions Mr. Escott, in his _England, its People, Polity and\nPursuits_, thus speaks: \u201cThe nation is only an aggregate of households.\nModern society is possessed by a nomadic spirit which is the sure\ndestroyer of home ties. The English aristocracy flit from mansion to\nmansion during the country-house season; they know no peace during the\nLondon season. Existence for the wealthy is one unending whirl of\nexcitement, admitting small opportunity for the cultivation of the\ndomestic affections. The claims of society have continually acquired\nprecedence of the duties of home.\u201d\n\nIn the middle class, however, wedged in between the rich and the poor,\nthe greatest factor of change is the servant difficulty, and this\ndifficulty we must glance at in its causal relations.\n\nCivilized communities divide broadly into two parts\u2014productive units\nwhose labour supplies what is needful for existence, and unproductive\nunits whose existence depends on the labour of others. The latter have\nbeen correctly termed \u201cparasites.\u201d M. Jean Massart explains in his\nscientific scrutiny of social phenomena,[11] that during the period of\nour industrial development a force of integration has gradually\nstrengthened the main body of the social organism, giving it power to\nresist in some degree the burden of parasitism. Consequently arbitrary\nauthority and slavish subserviency have abated, and two movements\naffecting family life in the middle class are discernible\u2014first, there\nis an increasing revolt from domestic service as a form of labour\ndirectly opposed to the spirit of independence that is growing in\nworkers and to the force of integration which by ranging them shoulder\nto shoulder is preparing them for a new form of industrial life; second,\nsons of the aristocracy and daughters of the middle class are joining\nthe ranks of producers with some sense of the dignity of labour and the\ndegradation of a purely parasitic existence. Social parasitism is not\norganic. It is an extraneous condition induced in a society developing\nits civilization. No man is necessarily a parasite; he acquires the\ncharacter in the course of his life history, and happily the young are\nrefusing to acquire it.\n\nFootnote 11:\n\n _Parasitism, Organic and Social_, p. 121.\n\nObserve, then, it is not in one or two sections of our community life,\nbut in all sections that diverse causes are producing one uniform\nresult\u2014the break-up of the family home; and behind all the more\nsuperficial causes there is working a profound factor of change in the\ncentripetal or constructive and the centrifugal or destructive forces of\nnature. Whilst the latter destroys old forms, the former prepares for\nthe new form\u2014prepares, not only by an integration of workers, but by a\nfresh inspiration of love and desire for work. Hence women and men\nendowed with reason, knowledge and practical skill may bring the life of\ntheir own immediate circle into express and positive line with this\nconstructive, profoundly evolutional, movement.\n\nDomestic reform implies the relinquishment of that whole system of\nhousehold labour that requires the combination of a subject with a\nparasitic class. Co-operation among equals takes the place of masterful\nauthority and slavish subjection, and heavy labour will be relieved by\nscientific appliance. Labour-saving contrivances in family homes hardly\nexist. There has been little spur to invention on these lines. But, as\nin industrial fields, a saving of money, material and labour by the use\nof machinery has followed the introduction of organized co-operation,\nso, doubtlessly, a similar process will follow the gradual adoption of\norganized co-operation within the home. This is not the solution of the\nservant problem merely. It has a far wider significance. Many educated\nwomen who are now seeking useful work and economic independence outside\nof home-life will find these within the domestic circle, and further\nwill find that it is possible to combine such necessary conditions of\ndignified life with fulfilment of duty alike to the aged and to the\nyoung.\n\nPioneers who aim at social solidarity must in practice recognize labour\nas the indispensable basis of social life and social institutions. All\nmethods of wage-payment dependent on industrial competition will be\nrepudiated for a system that acknowledges every form of useful work as\nentitling the worker to financial independence; and in the emotional\nsphere, with its possibilities of inner union and solidarity, who can\nmeasure the impetus towards the desired goal that will be given by the\nsetting of the solitary in families and the re-gathering of the old into\nthe bosom of a rich, full, domestic life.\n\nLet us suppose that from fifteen to twenty groups\u2014they may be families\nor groups of friends\u2014combine and pass out from their numerous separate\nhouses into one large commodious dwelling built for them or bought and\nadapted to their purpose. The bedrooms are furnished on the continental\nplan with accommodation for writing, reading, solitary study, or rest by\nday, and all the latest improvements in lighting, heating and\nventilating, etc. By the rules of the house\u2014except for cleaning\u2014no one\nenters these rooms uninvited by the inmate, who has there at all times,\nif wished, perfect privacy and the most thorough personal comfort. Two\neating apartments are placed contiguous to the kitchens, and by taking\nadvantage of every invention to facilitate cooking and serving, the\nlady-cooks and attendants may place prepared food on the table and sit\ndown to partake of it with their friends. One wing of the house is set\napart for nurseries and nursery training, another for school teaching,\ninclusive of indoor kindergarten; a music-room well-deafened enables the\nmusical to practise many instruments without jarring the nerves of\nothers; a playroom for the young and a recreation-room set apart for\nwhist and chess, etc., a billiard room, and if desired, a smoking room;\na large drawing-room where social enjoyment is carefully promoted every\nevening, a library or silent room where no interruption to reading is\npermitted, these, and a few small boudoirs for intercourse with special\nfriends form the chief outer requirements of the ideal collectivist\nhome.\n\nAll the details of household management may safely be left to pioneers\nof the new woman movement; it belongs only to scientific meliorism to\npoint out the general features and structure of the reformed domestic\nsystem and to show its vitally important position in relation to any\nrational scheme of wide-reaching social reform.\n\nHumanity as a whole has to climb upward in the scale of being and to\nleave behind it the individual or family selfishness allied with animal\npassions that are purely anti-social; it has further to develop that\nself-respect that allied with heart-fellowship brings in its train all\nthe social virtues that distinguish the man from the brute. Germs of\nthat self-respecting life are with us even now, but the soil in which\nthey will spring up to vigorous growth must be created, i.e. brought\ntogether by man himself. The fitting of character to a new domestic\nsystem should not be difficult in the case of children under wise\ntraining, for it is as easy to acquire good habits in childhood as bad\nhabits, and the wholesome atmosphere of a well-regulated superior home\nwill powerfully and painlessly aid in shaping the young. But for the\ngrown-up to alter personal habits, and adapt thought and feeling to a\nnew order of every-day life, the task is not easy. It may press heavily\non the ordinary adult at the initial stage of the movement. Happily that\ntask may be rendered easier by mutual criticism kindly and gravely\nexercised. The method was practised for upwards of thirty years in the\nOneida Creek Community with a marked success. Criticism, says one of the\nmembers, is a boon to those who seek to live a higher life and only a\nbugbear to those who lack ambition to improve. It was to the community a\nbond of love and an appeal to all that is noblest, most refined and\nelevated in human nature; it helped a man out of his selfishness in the\neasiest, most kindly way possible. Whereas in ordinary life the\ninterference of the busybody, the tongue of the tale-bearer, the shaft\nof ridicule, the venom of malice, are unavoidable\u2014in the Community such\ncriticizing was almost unknown. It was bad form for anybody to speak\ncomplainingly of anyone else, because criticism was the prerogative of\nthe Community, and was instituted to supersede all evil-speaking or\nback-biting. Nor was it an occasion for direct fault-finding merely.\nThose criticizing were always glad to dilate on the good qualities of\ntheir subject, and to express their love and appreciation of what they\nsaw to commend. (Abel Easton, Member of the Oneida Community.)\n\nAnother member, Allan Estlake, thus speaks: \u201cCriticism was a barrier to\nthe approach of unworthy people from without, and equally a bar to the\ndevelopment of evil influences within.\u201d The practice was not original.\nMr. Noyes found it established in a select society of missionaries he\nhad joined previous to his forming the Oneida Community.\n\nOne of the weekly exercises of this society, he tells us, was a frank\ncriticism of each other\u2019s character for the purpose of improvement. The\nmode of proceeding was this: At each meeting the member whose turn it\nwas, according to alphabetic order, to submit to criticism, held his\npeace while the others one by one told him his faults. This exercise\nsometimes crucified self-complacency, but it was contrary to the rules\nof society for any one to complain. I found much benefit in submitting\nto this ordeal both while I was at Andover and afterward.[12] If a\nnumber of young men adopted criticism as a means of improvement it\nshould not be more difficult to pioneers of the new domestic life, young\nand old, provided they have the same desire to improve. It might be\nirksome to the young, until they had learned to profit by it, as all\ndiscipline is at first, but when \u201cour young people,\u201d says Mr. Estlake,\n\u201chad formed habits in harmony with their means of improvement they\nlearned to love the means by which they had progressed and to rejoice in\nthe results of sufferings that were incident only to their\ninexperience.\u201d[13]\n\nFootnote 12:\n\n _The Oneida Community_, Allan Estlake, p. 65.\n\nFootnote 13:\n\n _The Oneida Community_, Allan Estlake, p. 66.\n\nPersonal habits in the new domestic life will be judged in their\nrelation to the general interests of the household, and regulations made\nto safeguard these interests. Cleanliness, orderliness, punctuality are\nessential to home comfort, but conventional etiquette destroys the\ngeniality of domestic freedom. While simple rules of a positive kind are\nstrictly observed, the negative rule of non-interference with personal\nhabits that are unhurtful to others will be the most stringent of all,\nand for this reason\u2014happiness is the great object to attain, and a\nsupreme condition of happiness is the free interaction of social units\nwithout intrusive interference.\n\nCommittees will be necessary\u2014for organizing labour on a method that will\nensure variety to workers and frequent leisure\u2014for consultation on the\nbest means to adopt in training children individually\u2014for management of\nthe finances\u2014for recreative arrangements\u2014and for purposes of general\ndirection and control.\n\nAuthority will of course devolve on these committees chosen by members\nof the household from among themselves. Every relic of primitive\ndespotism must be banished from the home: it is a self-acting republic.\nSince children reared in the home will be one day responsible citizens\nof a republican state, it were well to enlist them early in the work of\ncommittees. They will learn thereby to subordinate personal desire to\nthe will of the majority, and to co-operate in action for the common\nweal. The amusements and conduct of children are well within range of\ntheir own understanding, and although supervision by adults is\nnecessary, great freedom should be allowed them in the management of\ntheir conduct clubs and amusement committees.\n\nThe relinquishment of personal property is not desirable at the present\nstage of social evolution; for individuals\u2014and there may be some\u2014who,\nhowever willing, are unable to adapt themselves to the new system,\nshould possess the power to return to the old system without let or\nhindrance.\n\nNevertheless, be it sooner or later, the ideal collectivist home of the\nfuture will realize, though at first imperfectly, the beautiful\nconception held by Isaac Taylor of the ideal family home of the past.\nHere is the picture: \u201cHome is a garden, high-walled towards the\nblighting northeast of selfish care. In the home we possess a main means\nof raising the happiest feelings to a high pitch and keeping them there.\nNo disparagement, no privation is to be endured by some for the\naggrandizement or ease of others. Along with great inequalities of\ndignity, power and merit, there is yet a perfect and unconscious\nequality in regard to comforts, enjoyments and personal consideration.\nThere is no room for grudges or individual solicitude. Whatever may be\nthe measure of good for the whole the sum is distributed without a\nthought of distinction between one and another. Refined and generous\nemotions may thus have room to expand, and may become the fixed habits\nof the mind. Within the circle of home each is known to all, and all\nrespect the same principles of justice and love. There is therefore no\nneed for that caution, reserve or suspicion that in the open world are\nsafeguards against the guile, lawlessness and ferocity of a few.\u201d[14]\nThere, too, may be wholly discarded that reticence with which, as with a\ncloak, the modern, civilized man, says Lucas Mallet, strives to hide the\nnoblest and purest of his thought.\n\nFootnote 14:\n\n _Home Education_, Isaac Taylor, pp. 33 and 34.\n\nThe new system fully worked out will make homes permanent instead of\ntransitory. It will check the premature sending of girls out into the\nworld and the tendency of young life generally to drift. It will develop\nindustrial activities and give effective household labour. It will\nlessen the sordid cares of humanity and increase its social joys. It\nwill create an environment calculated to restrain tempestuous youth and\ncause every selfish passion to subside in the presence of mutual love.\nIt will perfect education by co-ordinating the life of the young and\nsecuring that the entire juvenile orbit is governed by forces of fixed\ncongruity. It will provide every comfort for old age and garner its\ndearly-bought experience. It will promote healthy propagation causing\nthe birth of the fit; it will facilitate marriage of the affections and\nmake early marriage possible. It will tend infancy in a wholly superior\nmanner, and by scientific breeding, rearing, training, produce future\ncitizens of the State of a higher intellectual, moral and spiritual\ntype.\n\n\n\n\n _PART VII_\n RELIGION AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFE\n\n\n\n\n PRIMAL ELEMENTS IN HUMANITY\u2019S EVOLUTION\n\n\n SECTION 1\n\n Is this material universe self-sufficient and self-contained, or is\n not the \u201cother conception,\u201d the true one, viz. \u201cthat of a universe\n lying open to all manner of spiritual influences, permeated through\n and through with a divine spirit, guided and watched by living minds\n acting through the medium of law indeed, but with intelligence and\n love behind the law; a universe by no means self-sufficient or\n self-contained, but with feelers at every pore groping into another\n supersensuous order of existence where reigns laws hitherto unimagined\n by science, but laws as real and as mighty as those by which the\n material universe is governed?\u201d\u2014SIR OLIVER LODGE, \u201cThe Outstanding\n Controversy between Science and Faith,\u201d _Hibbert Journal_ for October,\n 1902.\n\n\nTo the man of Western civilization, whose environment in youth was a\ndomestic atmosphere of Sabbath-day Christian orthodoxy and week-day\nreligious indifference along with a social atmosphere of commercial\nindividualism and the steady pursuit of sense pleasures, it is no easy\ntask to form a correct judgment regarding the true position of religion\nand its relative worth in evolution.\n\nA study of the subject reveals that not only the more and less civilized\nraces of mankind have each some specialized form of religion, but the\nnon-civilized savage tribes of the earth are similarly endowed. Their\nworship may be degraded to the last degree, but it holds them in its\ngrasp, and in studying these facts we are compelled to believe that\nhumanity is so constituted that its deepest needs are only to be\nexpressed through and by religion.\n\nThe various religions of the world must have been essential to\nevolution, since evolution, as applied to man, signifies the ample,\nthorough development of every integral part of human nature in each\nindividual. But while recognizing religion as a necessary expression of\nhuman nature and a supreme characteristic of man, we have also to\nrealize that its forms are as various as the distinctive differences\namongst men, and that changes from time to time inevitably occur for\ngood or evil in every religion. None are stationary, none are perfect.\nAnd the spiritual verities which lie at the base of all are constantly\noverlaid by superstitions, while the external forms harden and grow\ninoperative for good.\n\nNow, on the theory that religion is in effect necessary to evolution,\nand further, that it represents fundamentally an emanation from the\nplane of spirit, i.e. from a region transcending our phenomenal\nexistence, what would nineteenth century intelligence _a priori_ expect\nof the various divergent religious systems? That amid variations, some\nstriking similarities would exist to indicate the identity of their\noriginal source. It would expect also to find some statement of facts in\nnature not otherwise known to man, some recognition of the stupendous\nmovement of evolution\u2014the elucidation of which in its physical aspect is\nthe grand achievement of modern science\u2014and some hint of the laws\ngoverning that movement. Further, it would expect to find guidance to\nright conduct and some indications of the paramount purpose and end of\nuniversal life.\n\nHitherto, as it happens, the investigating spirit of modern science has\nconcerned itself little with theological matters; and the recognized\nexponents of our own racial theology are incompetent judges here. Their\ntraining has made of them religious specialists so interpenetrated by\nsectarian dogma that they are incapable of assuming the mental attitude\nof a genuine criticism claiming no superiority for Christianity over\nother great religions, save such value of position as lies in its later\nbirth and development. Outside the churches, however, comparative\ntheology is not neglected, and it is freely admitted now by many earnest\nstudents of the subject that all the great religions of the world\npossess spiritual, ethical and philosophical ideas in common.\n\nHinduism deals with startling facts of the invisible world. In the\nVedas[15] it teaches that consciousness is the foundation or groundwork\nof all nature, that matter and force are instinct with conscious life.\nBehind these is the great unmanifested Deity\u2014the \u201cUnknowable\u201d of our own\nSpencerian philosophy\u2014the Illimitable, Eternal, Absolute, Unconditioned\nSource of the Universe, incognizable and inconceivable to the finite\nfaculties of man. With manifestation there appears the threefold aspect\nof Deity\u2014the supreme Logos of the Universe\u2014a Unity in Trinity and a\nTrinity in Unity, the reflection of which as Consciousness, Substance,\nForce, runs throughout nature, and is also shown in the Christian and\nother creeds and the Pauline description of man\u2019s triune\nconstitution\u2014body, soul and spirit. The doctrine of evolution is taught\nin Hinduism on far wider lines than the modern intellectual conception\nlays down. The latter, dealing with outward appearance, bases itself on\nphysical phenomena. The former transcends phenomenal existence and human\nexperience. It embraces the superlatively great, the infinitely small\nand complex, and presents a cosmogony evolutional throughout, while it\npoints to a spiritual development for the individual so extensive and\nsublime that the Western mind, unused to metaphysical thought, is unable\nto grasp and clothe it in words. In this philosophy there is no\nstultifying of human endeavour by the view of the soul\u2019s opportunities\nas confined to three score years and ten. That span of life makes but a\nsingle page in the soul\u2019s vast evolutional history, for at the centre of\nHinduism lies a rock-bed of belief in re-incarnation\u2014that process of\nnature which accomplishes the gradual growth and spiritual elevation of\nhumanity by means of the individual soul\u2019s successive returns to\nphysical life, with intervening periods of spiritual rest or latency.\nThe threefold nature of man gives him touch with three levels of\nexistence, and Hindu religion represents him bound to a wheel\nunceasingly turning in three worlds, viz. a world of waking\nconsciousness or the physical body, and of two other worlds to which he\npasses successively at and after death, and in which he works out his\nlatest earthly experience and assimilates all its fruit, then returns\nthrough the gateway of birth to begin a fresh course of discipline and\nlearning.\n\nFootnote 15:\n\n It is from the study of the Vedas that the educated Hindu seeks to\n derive his creed. I refer my reader to Mr. J. E. Slater\u2019s _Higher\n Hinduism in relation to Christianity_.\n\nTurning from the transcendental to the scientific and practical sides of\nHinduism, we find an external worship and broad polity calculated to\nregulate human conduct in every relation of life, religious, national,\nsocial, family and personal\u2014the entire system founded on the law of\ncausation on all planes of being. By our own scientists, that law is\nrecognized on the physical plane as the invariable sequence of cause and\neffect. Hinduism regards it as working also on higher planes, and terms\nit the law of action or Karma\u2014the moral retribution which brings out\ninexorably in one life the results following from causes arising in\nprevious lives. Responsibility therefore rests with every\nself-conscious, reflective being, and divine justice is shown\nreconcilable with the free-will of man through the union of Karma and\nre-incarnation. \u201cGod is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth that shall\nhe also reap.\u201d\n\nThe religion of the Parsis, i.e. the modern form of Zoroastrianism, has\nequally with Hinduism a metaphysical philosophy, and an outward worship,\nwhile mingled with all there is an astronomical teaching based on the\nsame conception of nature as is found in Hinduism, viz. that it is the\nmanifestation, in infinitely varied forms, of the one universal\nconsciousness or mind. The constitution of humanity is two-fold. Spirit\nand matter are two distinct and different principles, both are in man;\nand he is capable of siding definitely with either. The ethic of\nZoroastrian faith is based on the belief that he will throw himself on\nthe side of the pure, that he will battle for it and maintain it. To be\nat all times actively on the side of purity is a clear personal duty.\nThe devout Zoroastrian must keep the earth pure and till it religiously.\nHe must perform the functions of agriculture as a service to the gods,\nfor the earth is the pure creature of Ahura Mazdao\u2014the Supreme Spirit to\nbe guarded from all pollution. And passing from the outer to the inner\nlife of the individual, the constantly-repeated maxim is this: I\nwithdraw from all sins by pure thoughts, pure deeds, pure words.\n\nIn Taoism, a religion of China of earlier date than Hinduism or\nZoroastrianism, there exists a fragment of ancient scripture called the\nClassic of Purity, wherein man is regarded as a trinity, viz. spirit,\nmind, body. To quote from Mr. Legge\u2019s translation: \u201cNow the spirit of\nman loves purity, but his mind disturbs it. The mind of man loves\nstillness, but his desires draw it away. If he could always send his\ndesires away, his mind would of itself become still. Let his mind be\nmade clean, and his spirit will of itself become pure.\u201d (Here we have\nthe idea, expressed in all religions, of the conflict between the higher\nand lower nature in man and the necessity for spirit to dominate mind\nand body. Refer to St. Paul\u2019s Epistle to the Romans, vii. 15, 21, 22 and\n23.)\n\nAgain, Buddhism has absorbed the attention of modern Oriental scholars\nthrough the fascination of the Buddha\u2019s purity and elevation of thought.\nThere are two divisions of this faith, viz., the Mahayana, that of the\nNorthern Church, found in Tibet, Nepaul, China, Corea, and Japan, and\nthe Hinayana, that of the Southern Church, found in Ceylon, Burmah,\nSiam, etc. The Mahayana (Greater Vehicle) is closely allied to Hinduism\nin its teachings regarding the spiritual world, the continuing ego of\nindividual man, the life after death, the rites and ceremonies of\nworship, and the mystic side of personal religion. In the Hinayana\n(Lesser Vehicle) of the Southern Church, much of this mystic teaching\nhas been dropped, nevertheless it retains a wonderful system of ethics,\nwith appeals made to human reason, and a constant attempt to justify and\nrender intelligible the foundations on which the morals are built.\nBuddhism is clearly the daughter of the more ancient Hinduism. Its\nscriptures are the echo of the Hindu scriptures, and the general\nteachings, while thrown into a less metaphysical form, are penetrated\nwith the Hindu spirit. Causation is in both an unbroken law. In the\nDhammapada, for instance, it is written: \u201cIf a man speaks or acts with a\npure thought, happiness follows him like a shadow that never leaves him.\nIf a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him as the\nwheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage. He who has\ndone what is evil cannot free himself of it, he may have done it long\nago or afar off, he may have done it in solitude, but he cannot cast it\noff.\u201d\n\nBuddha taught that evil is overcome only by its opposite, i.e. good:\n\u201cLet every man overcome anger by love, let him overcome the greedy by\nliberality, the liar by truth,\u201d etc., etc. And here the religion is\nclosely in touch with Christian ethics: \u201cLove your enemies, bless them\nthat curse you, do good to them that hate you,\u201d etc. \u201cLove is the\nfulfilling of the Law.\u201d With regard to man\u2019s destiny, Buddha\u2019s teachings\nbuild on his hearers\u2019 acceptance of the Hindu doctrine of\nre-incarnation.\n\n(In the Pali Canon occur these words: \u201cThe Bhikshee [the disciple] sees,\nwith eye divine, beings dropping away and reappearing, he knows them\nreaping according to their several karma, degraded and ennobled,\nbeautiful and ugly, well-placed and ill-placed.\u201d From this and many\nother passages of the Pali Canon \u201cit is clear and evident and beyond a\nshadow of doubt,\u201d says J. C. Chatterji, \u201cthat the Buddha taught the\nidentity of the re-incarnating ego, though he did not give it that name.\nHe called it Consciousness or Vignana.\u201d\u2014_Theosophical Review_, Jan.,\n1898, p. 415.) Without that his system falls to the ground. The path of\nsalvation he points to implies a persistent course of personal effort,\nand he who would tread that path must open his mind to discriminate\nbetween things that are transitory and those that are real and\npermanent. To the former belong all the pleasures of sense, every\nearthly desire and ambition, and every selfish thought.\n\nDeep within man\u2019s nature, however, there lies hid a germ or seed of the\npermanent. This will persist throughout all the ages amid the fleeting\nphantasmagoria of many lives, and this he must cherish, nourish,\ndevelop. He must resist and renounce the corrupting influences of the\nflesh. He must master his passions, steady his mind, and control,\nenlighten and elevate his thoughts. Further, he must purify his emotions\nand actions, pervading the world with a \u201cheart of love, far-reaching,\ngrown great and beyond measure.\u201d (The Tevijja Sutta.) Finally, the\nindividual consciousness will expand, until, able to function in subtler\nvehicles than those of physical matter, the man passes out of the\nchrysalis state of formal existence to emerge upon higher levels of life\nand reach at length the Buddhist Nirvana\u2014that supreme crown of\nimmortality and acme of conscious bliss.\n\nThis pilgrimage of the soul through many births and deaths, with its\nsteadfast struggles and gradual liberation from all earthly debasing\nentanglements, forms a striking contrast to certain teachings of the\nmodern Christian Churches. Dogma there presents to us an undeveloped\nhelpless soul, as playing\u2014within a circumscribed area of earth\u2019s\nsurface\u2014its one little game of experimental life. The fate of the soul\nfor all eternity hangs in the balance, all its chances for weal or woe\ndepending on a single throw of the dice. And what are the terms of the\ngame? Conditions of life so adverse, in millions of cases, that defeat\nis a foregone conclusion. No wonder civilized men with a seedling of\njustice in the soul, reject the whole scheme of nature allied with this\ndogma, and frankly disavow religious faith.\n\nBut the question arises, how does it happen that Christianity, with an\nethic fundamentally the same as that of every other great religion of\nthe world, diverges so completely here? Is it conceivable that\nChristianity, while of Divine origin, has become in process of time\ndwarfed and deformed to the extent even of losing some _essential_\nfeatures? It holds, as sectarian pulpits represent it, no doctrine of\nre-incarnation, and appears to have no clear basis of metaphysical or\nphilosophic thought. Moreover, it has elements impossible to reconcile\nwith the mental and emotional developments of a scientific and\nintellectual age. The anthropomorphic conception of Deity, the almost\nliteral interpretation of the Jewish allegory of creation, the\npersonalization of the metaphysical and mystic Trinity; the approval of\nthe barbarous sacrifices and vengeful Deity of the Old Testament; the\nanti-evolutional doctrine of the vicarious Atonement in the New\nTestament; the crude ideas concerning the soul, heaven and hell; and the\nabsence of any evolutional theory applied to human destiny\u2014all these,\nand above all the ignorance and pride that claim for this particular\nform of religion a unique position in the world\u2019s history, and assume\nthat it alone and no other religion is the revelation of God to man,\nshow an ample justification for the fact that the most intelligent men\nand women of Western civilization stand outside the Christian Churches\nto-day, or are in them from motives that have nothing to do with devout\nreligious feeling.\n\nIf, however, we turn to the history of the Church and search its ancient\nrecords, or if unable ourselves to grapple with the problem, we place\nconfidence in the evidence of students who have done so, we find that an\nentirely new light is thrown on Christianity and its real position. In\nthe writings of the Christian Fathers, there is a constant reference\nmade to grades of members and teaching within the early Church. First,\nthe general members, and from those the pure in life went into a second\ngrade. The latter formed the \u201cfew chosen\u201d from the many called. But\nbeyond these were the \u201cchosen of the chosen,\u201d who, \u201cwith perfect\nknowledge lived in perfection of righteousness according to the law.\u201d\nClement of Alexandria, one of the greatest of the Fathers of the Church,\nwrote: \u201cIt is not to be wished that all things should be exposed\nindiscriminately to all and sundry, or the benefits of wisdom\ncommunicated to those who have not, even in a dream, been purified in\nsoul ... nor are the mysteries of the word to be expounded to the\nprofane.\u201d Origen tells us that Jesus conversed with His disciples in\nprivate, and especially in their most secret retreats, concerning the\nGospel of God; but the words He uttered have not been preserved. And\nwhen Celsus assailed Christianity as a secret system, Origen replied\nsuch a notion was absurd, \u201cbut that there should be certain doctrines\nnot made known to the multitude and which are revealed after the\nexoteric doctrines have been taught, is not a peculiarity of\nChristianity alone, but also of philosophic systems, in which certain\ntruths are exoteric and others esoteric.\u201d Elsewhere he explains that\nScripture is threefold in meaning, that it is the \u201cflesh\u201d for simple\nmen, the \u201csoul\u201d for the more instructed, the \u201cspirit\u201d for the \u201cperfect,\u201d\nand in corroboration he quotes from Scripture the words of St. Paul, \u201cWe\nspeak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom,\u201d and \u201cwe\nspeak wisdom amongst them that are perfect.\u201d\n\nWe have here, then, more than a trace of some deeper teaching than\nappears on the surface of Christianity, some mine of hidden truth too\nsacred and profound for open display to the undiscerning multitude. Is\nit not evident that Christianity contains at its centre, known only to\nthe few, the same transcendental and spiritual conceptions, the same\nsupra-physical and mystical philosophy as the ancient religions contain?\nBut if this be so, how came the most precious truths of religion to be\napparently lost?\n\nThey were lost through the uncomprehending ignorance of the early\nfollowers of the Master, Christ, and the sectarian bigotry of\necclesiastics who cut themselves apart from the holders of the inner\nteaching and, becoming a majority, overcame the learned few, stamping as\nheretics the last remnants known as Christian Gnostics, Manicheans,\nPelasgians, and Arians, all of whom, counted schismatics, were\neventually crushed out through cruel persecution by the victorious\northodox Latin and Greek Churches. Nevertheless, some fragments of the\nhidden wisdom of the early teaching have survived in the uncomprehended\nsymbols of the creeds and ceremonies of the Churches. (I refer my reader\nto Mr. C. W. Leadbeater\u2019s work, _The Christian Creed_.)\n\nThat re-incarnation and Karma formed part of the original teaching is, I\nthink, abundantly evident. In Gnosticism and Manicheism they were\napparent. The Christian Fathers speak plainly of these doctrines, and\nOrigen refers to Pythagoras, Plato and Empedocles as holding them.\nMoreover, Jesus Christ is made to utter a clear statement concerning\nJohn the Baptist, that implies the doctrine of re-incarnation, and his\nanswer to the question about a blind man, \u201cwho did sin, this man or his\nparents, that he was born blind?\u201d shows the acceptance in the early\nChurch of both doctrines. The whole incident reveals that the subject of\nre-incarnation was familiar to the followers of Christ, and Josephus\nexpressly states that the Pharisees held the doctrine of re-birth. There\nis then little doubt that in the _early_ Church the belief was widely\nspread, but later at a General Council\u2014a Council held after darkness had\nbegun its reign\u2014it was formally condemned and stamped as a heresy.\n\nBearing in mind the view that all the great religions come from the same\nspiritual source, it is significant to find the following in the\nwritings of a rigid Roman Catholic historian, viz. A. F. Ozanam: \u201cHaving\nburst over the borders of the country to which it had once been\nconfined, Buddhism at the year 61 B.C. made a new appearance on the\nscene, and invaded all Northern Asia.... This great movement could not\nbut influence the West. It effected its entrance (into Christendom)\nthrough the Gnostic sects. The Gnosis was the designation of a higher\nscience or initiation reserved for a handful of chosen spirits.\u201d Again,\nspeaking of the Manicheans, he says: \u201cIt is difficult to decide whether\nManes drew his system originally from these Buddhist sources or found\nthe teaching which he handed down to his disciples held by former\nGnostic sects, themselves impregnated with the Oriental doctrine.\u201d\n(Ozanam\u2019s _History of Civilization in the Fifth Century_, vol. i. pp.\n247 and 254.) It is easy to see that this Oriental doctrine was none\nother than the hidden wisdom of Jesus and Paul as well as of Buddha.\n\nThe special doctrine of re-incarnation is said to be absent in the\nfragments of the Avesta and in the Zend commentaries, and absent also in\nthe latter Pahlavi doctrines. It is not held by the modern Parsis. \u201cOn\nthe other hand,\u201d says G. R. S. Mead, B.A., M.R.A.S., \u201cGreek writers\nemphatically assert that the doctrine of re-incarnation was one of the\nmain tenets of the Magian tradition.\u201d The same author elsewhere remarks:\n\u201cSince Bardaisan, like all the great Gnostics, believed in\nre-incarnation, such a conception as the resurrection of the physical\nbody was nothing but a gross superstition of the ignorant.\u201d (The\n_Theosophical Review_ for March, 1898, p. 17.)\n\nTo judge Christianity fairly, it was necessary to know something of its\norigin, its antecedents and the early phases of its life. We had to\nfollow the history of its early sects and observe the changes effected\nin the Church by forces playing upon it from without. The Church\ngradually rose into a position of social influence and authority, from\nwhich it again declined, and it was during the latter condition that in\nits struggles to maintain power and supremacy amid adverse forces it\ndropped out the mystic beliefs difficult of apprehension by Western\nminds; it ceased to order and classify its adherents, and it ultimately\nadapted its doctrines to the materialistic spirit of the dawning era of\nmodern science.[16] Nevertheless, the Church retained its pure _ethical_\nteaching. It has held up to view the noble unselfish life of its founder\nJesus of Nazareth. No one could deny that during the period even of its\ndegradation, this religion has proved to millions of human beings a\nsource of vital comfort and joy, and to some extent of spiritual light.\n\nFootnote 16:\n\n Tertullian complains: \u201cThey have all access alike; they hear alike,\n they pray alike, even heathens if any such happen to come among them.\u201d\n\nThe tendency of Protestantism was to assert the claims of all men\u2014the\nweak and childish as well as the thoughtful and intellectually strong\u2014to\na clear understanding of the Church\u2019s whole teaching. In pursuance of a\npolicy to meet this demand, the Church gave forth a simplified\npresentation of God and Nature that contradicts the plainest facts of\nscience, and creates within minds of deeper, more expanded faculty, a\nconscientious revolt from the Christian faith to an attitude of honest\nscepticism. Outside the Church, however, other forces of evolution have\nprevailed to carry man forward, and to-day there exists an earnest and\ndevout spirit of inquiry, and a strong dissatisfaction with the purely\nmaterialistic theory of Nature.\n\nConspicuous among the forces of change are, first, the study of physical\nphenomena on scientific methods, a study which, by convincing the\nWestern mind of a profound mystery behind all phenomena, gives fresh\nimpulse to speculative thought, and rouses effort to reach and apprehend\nthe law of evolution. Second, the study of psychic phenomena revealing\nmodes of consciousness hitherto ignored, and impelling science to\npenetrate the hidden recesses of our psychic activities and investigate\nsome of the heights and depths of man\u2019s inner constitution. Third, the\nhistorical studies that throw new light on the marvellous civilizations\nof the past and those religions that are more ancient than Christianity.\n\nWhatever the ultimate outcome of these studies may prove, it is clear\nthat the perspective of early faiths\u2014their range and reach\u2014was vaster\nthan that of current Christianity, and this perception is creeping into\nour popular literature and laying hold of public thought. For instance,\na recent writer remarks: \u201cThe modern scientific revelation of stellar\nevolution and dissolution seems a prodigious confirmation of Buddhist\ntheories of cosmical law.\u201d And again, \u201cWith the acceptance of the\ndoctrine of evolution old forms of thought crumbled, new ideas arose to\ntake the place of worn-out dogmas, and we have a general intellectual\nmovement in directions strangely parallel with Oriental philosophy.\u201d\n(Lafcadio Hearn\u2019s _Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life_.)\n\nThis movement necessarily will advance only by carrying with it, i.e.\nconvincing step by step, the reason of man, and seeing that Oriental\nphilosophy has the doctrines of re-incarnation and Karma at its\nfoundation, these must be tested and the fact ascertained whether or not\nthey are consistent with the laws of phenomenal existence already\ndiscovered and believed in by the Occidental mind. \u201cTo-day,\u201d says\nLafcadio Hearn, \u201cfor the student of scientific psychology, the idea of\npre-existence passes out of the realm of theory into the realm of fact,\u201d\nand he quotes in corroboration of this statement Professor Huxley\u2019s\nopinion of the theory\u2014\u201cNone but very hasty thinkers will reject it on\nthe ground of inherent absurdity. Like the doctrine of evolution itself,\nthat of transmigration has its roots in the world of reality, and it may\nclaim such support as the great argument from analogy is capable of\nsupplying.\u201d (_Evolution and Ethics_, p. 61, Ed. 1894.)\n\nAt this epoch of the world\u2019s history, the humanity that exists is of an\ninfinitely varied character. At one end of the scale, we have in savages\nthe simplest forms of racial types, at the other the most complex forms,\nand between these every conceivable variant. The distinctions go deeper\nas we ascend the scale, and there are no two beings alike in their\npowers of abstract thinking, the nature of their intellectual, emotional\nand moral qualities, and the groupings of these qualities\u2014in a word,\ntheir individualities. Now one thing demanded by the developed\nintellects of this age is a generalization that will cover and explain\nthese perplexing differences. The law of heredity does this to a very\nlimited extent only. So far as the physical structure is concerned it\nexplains much; but when we come to the mental and moral developments,\nits insufficiency is apparent. Genius and idiocy may be found springing\nup from the same parent stock and under identical conditions of training\nin childhood. Variety of character will appear in children of the same\nfamily from almost the moment of birth. One infant comes into the world\nhandicapped by a sullen temper and vicious disposition, another with the\nmost lovable traits. It is inconceivable that these incongruous effects\nflow from congruous causes on the physical plane. And were we able to\nlogically accept these physical causes as adequate, no civilized being\ncould morally respect the ordering of a universe wherein innocent souls\nnewly created enter life handicapped by vicious propensities. Either the\nPower behind all phenomena is a malevolent Power, or the universe is a\nchaos\u2014the inconsequent outcome of random chance.\n\nThese painful alternatives cease their troubling, however, and all\nperplexities gradually disappear as the mind of man grows into a clear\napprehension of evolution in its full significance. The basic law of\nevolution is that all existence proceeds in cycles, each having its\nobjective and subjective arc. In other words, there is a constant flow\nof motion and consciousness from without within and from within without.\nOn the lowlier levels of life, this law is observed and science based\nupon it. In the vegetable kingdom, the leaves, stalk and flower of a\nspecific plant perish as completely as though they had never existed;\nbut the subjective entity remains, and in due course it reappears,\nclothed in a different vestment of cells, the same in all the details of\nits intricate form.\n\nIn the insect kingdom, all the wonderful changes that transform a\ncrawling slimy caterpillar into a glorious vision of beauty and grace\ntakes place in silence and darkness\u2014from within without. Here the law of\nevolution takes a wider range than in the vegetable kingdom. Form,\nfunction, habit, all are changed, yet we know by actual observation that\nthe soaring butterfly and crawling caterpillar are intrinsically one and\nthe same. Moreover, the whole process of change is accomplished in the\npupa stage independently of that food supply which\u2014to the scientific\nconception\u2014seems indispensable in the generation and continuation of\nvital force. (I must here refer my reader to the full discussion of this\nsubject in chapters v. and vi. of Dr. Jerome A. Anderson\u2019s\n_Re-incarnation\u2014A Study of the Human Soul_.)\n\nNow in our habit of regarding humanity in its higher aspect as the acme\nor crown of terrestrial life, we are apt to forget the potent connexions\nthat link it with life in general. But re-incarnation, if we would judge\nit philosophically, must not be wrenched from its place in the order of\nnature and studied as an isolated fragment.\n\n\u201cAll evolution consists,\u201d says Mrs. Besant, \u201cof an evolving life passing\nfrom form to form as it evolves, and storing up the experience gained\nthrough the forms; the re-incarnation of the human soul is not the\nintroduction of a new principle into evolution, but the adaptation of\nthe universal principle to meet conditions rendered necessary by the\nindividualization of the continually evolving life.\u201d (_The Ancient\nWisdom_, p. 234.) The doctrine of human evolution summed up in the term\nre-incarnation cannot be proved in the same sense as a new discovery in\nphysics can be proved\u2014that goes without saying. But we may claim that it\ncan be so nearly proved by reasoning that no intelligent being who\ncorrectly apprehends the idea and applies it with patience to the\nexperience of existence, whether in or out of the body, can fail to\nbelieve it as fully, for example, as the modern scientific world\nbelieves in the electro-magnetic theory of light. That theory is no\nlonger argued about. It is the only theory that will explain all the\nfacts. And of re-incarnation in a higher domain we may equally affirm it\nis the only theory that explains the facts and is consonant with all the\nknown laws of nature. It is luminous with a truly scientific aspect. It\nsatisfactorily accounts for the inherent differences in character that\nheredity leaves unexplained, and it renews our faith in love and wisdom\nas underlying the phenomena of earthly existence, notwithstanding\npresent appearances.\n\nBut add to this the fact that every great religion of the world, except\nmodern Christianity, holds it more or less completely, whilst\nChristianity also originally held it; and if a spiritual and ethical\ntheory of the universe be tenable, then cultured minds rejecting\nre-incarnation must either have failed to study the subject in its\nantecedents and bearings, or they must be by constitution profoundly\nunphilosophical. (I refer my reader here to chap. iii. of Mr. A. P.\nSinnett\u2019s _Growth of the Soul_.)\n\nAfter all, it is a comparatively few men and women who seek intellectual\nclearness of vision, and are restless of soul till they grasp a theory\nof the universe and an interpretation of life that alike may satisfy\nhead and heart\u2014the mass of mankind is unthinking. And as we contemplate\nthe stupendous task of evolution in developing each individual soul out\nof the embryonic condition of the savage to a conscious control and\nexercise of all the divine potencies of a perfected spiritual man, we\nfeel no surprise that the major part of humanity stands yet in its\nchildhood. Unequal development is the natural corollary of general\nevolution. The heart of modern man, however, is for the most part in\nadvance of his head, and it is here, viz. on the emotional side of human\nnature, that religion\u2014no matter what the specific form may have been\u2014has\nministered to man\u2019s needs and proved an all-important factor of\nevolution.\n\nRevelation, as Lessing (who believed in re-incarnation) declares, has\nbeen the education of the human race. \u201cIt did not,\u201d he says, \u201cgive\nanything that human reason left to itself would not arrive at, but it\ngave the most important of these things earlier\u201d\u2014that is, before the\nreasoning faculties were fully developed in man. (Lessing\u2019s Treatise:\n_The Education of the Human Race_, translated by the Rev. F. W.\nRobertson.)\n\nThe founders of every religion\u2014the great and wise ones of the earth\u2014have\nguided the race in its slow and gradual ascent from infancy to manhood,\nand even through the degeneration to which every religion has been\nsubjected from human ignorance and selfishness.\n\n\n SECTION 2\n\nWe have now to turn from racial religions to personal religion, and as\nthe springs of individual conduct lie earlier in the heart than in the\nhead, spiritual developments begin there. It is in accordance with\nnatural order that the right conduct and simple devotion of millions of\nhuman beings, intellectually blind, should yet aid the steady advance of\nevolution towards its highest goal.\n\nThe pilgrim soul pressing forward through a long series of births and\ndeaths has a chequered career of conquest and defeat, until, experience\nguiding effort and overcoming waywardness, the animal stage of existence\nhas been distanced and left behind. But each of these pilgrim souls\npursues a path specifically its own, that is, differing from that of\nevery other pilgrim soul. The paths pursued are divided by Eastern\nthought into three distinct classes. First, that of action; second, that\nof devotion; third, that of wisdom. In the first class are to be found\nmen and women of infinitely varied powers taking part in all the\nactivities of the world, and striving with keenness to attain certain\ndesired results. Commencing, it may be, with low, selfish, narrow\nmotives of action, these gradually alter and improve, till motive and\naction alike have become pure, unselfish and directed to the widest\nbeneficence. Such types of humanity tread the first path, that of\naction, and in it are harvesting precious experience. They are\ndeveloping interiorly the powers that make for righteousness.\n\nTo the second class belong all the world\u2019s sincere religionists, those\nbeings whose regard\u2014whether of fear or love\u2014goes out to an ideal person.\nThe person, observe, may be of low or of high grade in accordance with\nthe subjective development of the individual worshipper. As the object\nof devotion becomes purified, love casts out fear, and advance on this\npath proceeds. Men and women adoring their conception of Krishna, or\nBuddha, of Ahura Mazdao, or of Jesus Christ, are treading the path of\ndevotion, and may rise to the highest emotions of altruism, the most\nselfless service of the Supreme, thus harmonizing ever more and more the\nhuman will and the Divine will.\n\nPilgrims of the third and smallest class are men and women whose\nconstant desire and endeavour is to search out the truth of things. In\nthe earlier grades of this path will be found scientific investigators\nof physical phenomena; more advanced on the path are materialist\nphilosophers and all individuals directing their efforts to an\nexamination of man in the regions of emotion and mind. Above these again\nare the men and women whose search is into the innermost nature of\nthings, and who, in the intensity of that search, lose more and more\ntheir feeling of self, and merge themselves in Divine knowledge.\n\nTo summarise the three paths: The first is a progress through human\nactivities from motives of self to motives of highest altruism. The\nsecond is a progress through religious emotions, from fear of an\ninvisible demon, to the most selfless love of an ideal person and\nunswerving devotion to true ideals. The third is a progress from the\nsimplest efforts to discover truth to the acquisition of Divine wisdom\nby means of the immensely increased faculties of the perfected man.\n\nThese three paths, like different ways up a mountain, meet at the top,\nwhere pilgrims attain to the qualities of all, and not only of the one\npath mainly traversed by each. All attain in the end to the fullest\ndevelopment of human power and faculty, and to complete liberation from\nthe chain of births and deaths. That personal goodness and religious\nzeal are the measure of spiritual development is only the Church\u2019s view,\nand it ignores a large part of human efforts and activities. Without\npersonal goodness certainly no spiritual life is possible, but beyond\nthe acme of personal goodness to lofty heights of knowledge, of wisdom,\nof transcendent love and benevolence, rises the pilgrim human soul under\nDivine tuition.\n\nWe have now to inquire wherein the pilgrims resemble one another? The\nfeature common to all is the inner attitude of self-surrender. It may\nspring from impulse or a half-unconscious sense of duty. Or, it may\nresult from the reasoning faculty, from reason controlling and directing\nconduct with a full consciousness of responsibility. Again, it may be\nallied with all the sacred aspirations and inspirations that follow upon\na long course of development, but whatever the cause and degree, this\nattitude of mind makes it possible for the spiritual forces working in\nand through humanity as a whole to manifest there, expanding the heart\nand mind, and creating a further soul-evolution.\n\nThere is a law in nature which has been well called the pulse of our\nplanetary system, a law of giving out. It involves no absolute and\nultimate sacrifice; and it is the only law by which progress and\nexaltation in nature can be actually achieved. Now this law is a central\npart of the teaching of every great religion. The Logos, we are told, in\nbringing into existence an infinitude of centres of consciousness, made\nthe voluntary sacrifice of limiting His own boundless life. This thought\nis expressed in the Christian Scriptures thus: \u201cThe Lamb slain from the\nfoundation of the world.\u201d This first great outbreathing of the life of\nthe Logos is the earliest presentation of the law of sacrifice\u2014that law\nwhich prescribes that at every stage of evolution life and energy shall\nbe given out for the benefit of some consciousness on a lower grade than\nthe giver. This great principle of evolution is manifest in the\nunselfish benevolence of all good men and women; even when they are\nworking as yet in blind obedience to the scarcely articulate impulses of\ntheir awakening spiritual natures. (I refer my reader to p. 452 of Mr.\nA. P. Sinnett\u2019s _The Growth of the Soul_.)\n\nTo our minds pain seems necessarily connected with sacrifice, but pain\nproceeds wholly from discord within the sacrificer, i.e. from antagonism\nbetween the higher part of his nature which is willing to give, and the\nlower part whose satisfaction lies in grasping and keeping. The process\nrequired in each case is a turning from the selfish, individualistic\nattitude to that of a social, altruistic giving\u2014a giving joyfully for\nlove\u2019s sake. The transition naturally involves some pain, for the\nconscious will has to gradually master the animal part of the nature,\nand subordinate it to the higher self.\n\nMan is, in the order of evolution, primarily subject to animal desires.\nHis consciousness moves on the sensuous plane of existence, and he\nclings to the physical elements in nature. By-and-bye he learns to\nrelinquish an immediate material good for a future good equally\nmaterial\u2014it may be a greater worldly prosperity for himself or his\nfamily. This sacrifice is not essentially noble, but it prepares the way\nfor a harder lesson, and one that calls out a deeper faculty within him.\nHere again the process is one of exchange, but not of one form of\nsensuous good for another. It is the exchange of material possessions or\nsense pleasures for something of an entirely different order in nature\u2014a\nreward not visible, nay, possibly far off beyond the tomb.\n\nWhen humanity was in its childhood, religion inculcated and pressed upon\nit this form of sacrifice; and as we ponder the martyr lives that stud\nthe pages of history we recognize the fact that thousands of human\nbeings practised the precept, and learned to endure, as seeing the\ninvisible, to stand morally upright without earthly prop, to value\nspiritual companionship and joy in an inner life of purity and peace\nwhen outward conditions were adverse and dark.\n\nA later, far higher phase of the law of sacrifice, is that wherein no\nreward is thought of, or desired. Reaching manhood, humanity grapples\nwith the duties and accepts all the grave responsibilities of an\nadvanced evolutional stage. Duty becomes the motor of action,\nself-mastery and love of one\u2019s fellows the very keynotes of man\u2019s music.\nThe animal part of his nature becomes subordinate to the higher self.\nThe third great lesson of sacrifice works within, the lesson, viz. to do\nright simply because it is right, to give because giving is owed by each\nto all, and not because giving will in any shape be pleasing to or\nrewarded by God.\n\nDuring the various stages of progress, the pain aspect of sacrifice is\nclearly seen. Nevertheless, a soul\u2019s passionate grip upon things\nphysical and sensuous relaxes, and a day arrives when to give\nspontaneously, freely, lavishly, is purest joy. Then is man\u2019s life\nmerging into Divine life, and sacrifice is no more pain. Vital\ndissonances cease to rend man\u2019s heart, for his inner consciousness has\nsoared above the selfish separateness of phenomenal existence into\nrealms of nature where unity and love are the all-prevailing principles\nof life. We know these principles in action through the beautiful,\nselfless earthly pilgrimage of Him we call the Saviour of Mankind, whose\nwhole career was an At-one-ment with the Divine.\n\nThe \u201cVicarious Atonement\u201d doctrine of Western faiths to-day is both an\necclesiastical device for increasing priestly power and a\nmisapprehension of the law we have been considering\u2014the law of\nsacrifice, by which the worlds are made, by which the worlds are living\nnow, and by which alone the union of man with God is brought about. That\nnoble doctrine of antiquity was changed by Medi\u00e6val Christianity into a\npicture of the Godhead\u2014Father and Son, in opposition to one another\u2014a\npicture that \u201cshocks all reverence, and outrages reason by bringing all\nmanner of legal quibbles into the relationship between the Spirit of God\nand man.\u201d (_Four Ancient Religions_, Annie Besant, p. 166.) Again, a\nrace whose reasoning faculties are developed must needs repudiate the\nChurch\u2019s dogma of \u201cImputed Righteousness\u201d\u2014a righteousness not inwrought\nor attained to, but applied externally\u2014a covering to what is corrupt and\nbase, yet deemed sufficient to secure a perfunctory pardon of sin, a\nnon-merited Divine favour.\n\nThe real At-one-ment with the Divine, whereof Jesus the Christ is our\nArchetype, admits of no substitutions, no subterfuges, makes no\nfictitious claims. It signifies an actual transformation or process of\nchange, the inner consciousness passing from the lower to function on\nhigher levels of being.\n\nIt is easy, however, to apprehend how the necessity of thinking of all\nsupra-physical things, i.e. the finer phenomena of existence, by means\nof analogies and figures of speech that are purely physical, led to much\nof error in the earlier stages of human development; and there is a\nsense in which the \u201crobe of righteousness\u201d is a not inapt analogy or\nfigure. When speaking of the pilgrimage of the soul, the picture\npresented is that of a concrete toiler, ascending slowly, breathing\nheavily, sighing and evidencing effort to all our outer senses, yet we\nknow that the soul\u2019s best efforts are mostly hidden from sight and\nhearing and touch. But no confusion arises. The mental conception to\nwhich the figure points is that of efforts as great though directed to\nevils that are chiefly mental, emotional, moral, not physical.\nSimilarly, the \u201crobe of righteousness\u201d figure must not be overstrained.\nMan\u2019s soul is clothed upon by, or clothes itself in (it matters not\nwhich, we say) robes or garments of flesh, and of finer physical\nelements than flesh, elements intangible to his five senses. The flesh\ngarment or body is constantly changing, and so are the bodies of desire\nand of thought. The changes occur through the action and interplay of\ndiverse subtle forces. Fresh elemental matter is borne in from without\nto replace the atoms of structures tending to decompose, while a process\nof selection, determination and assimilation proceeds through the action\nof forces within.\n\nBut the same laws of growth apply to realms of nature less open to\nobservation, and a careful selection and choice of material is as potent\nand necessary in building the bodies of desire and thought as in\nbuilding the body of solid flesh. And what are the available materials\nhere? In the hidden life of our own thought and feeling we are conscious\nof an unceasing flow of transient states, or we may express it, currents\nof emotional and mental vibrations reaching us from we know not whence,\nwaves breaking upon us from without. If we deliberately choose the\nelevated moods, the purest, swiftest vibrations, and seek habitually to\nretain these and make them our own, sweetness and light must inevitably\ncharacterize the habitation we are slowly building for our inner\nconsciousness. In other words, the vehicles of our feeling and thought\nwill become as \u201crobes of righteousness.\u201d\n\nDesires, passions, emotions form what has been called the astral\nbody;[17] aspiration and thought or the action of reason, imagination\nand the artistic faculties, create a still subtler, or mind-body, while\nthe blend of the two is what we are accustomed to observe as ruling\ncharacter. And when the physical is cast off at death, man\u2019s\nconsciousness passes into his subtle bodies and into regions of bliss\nwhither we may not follow, but of which St. Paul gives us a glimpse when\nhe says \u201cwe have a building of God, a house not made with hands, Eternal\nin the Heavens.\u201d\n\nFootnote 17:\n\n A real body of subtle matter interpenetrating the flesh body and\n visible to some clairvoyants.\n\nNow, to minds permeated by cruder ideas of man\u2019s body and soul the above\nwill seem mystical and unreal. Nevertheless, there are many minds,\nscientifically trained to a close observation of the manifold phenomena\nof life with all the finer forces and elements in nature, that are ready\nto accept a truer conception of the complex constitution of man. To all\nsuch, the proof of the actual existence of these transcendental vehicles\nof consciousness lies in hypnotic and other psychic phenomena, and in\nthe evidence of experience. For, given a certain amount of intimate\nintercourse, and the man within the man shows himself to the eye of his\nfriend through expression, attitude, gesture. But what the mental eye\nsees behind the veil of flesh must exist in some form. Hence the eye\ndiscerns not the consciousness, but its phenomenal garment or vehicle,\nand the texture organized is coarse, brutal, degraded or animal,\nsensuous, selfish, or of a finer and purer nature, divinely human,\nindicating the grade and quality of the animating principle or soul\nwithin.\n\n\n\n\n SUMMARY\n\n\nPassing back once more from personal religion, or the rise and\npurification of the inner nature of the individual man, to the great\nsubject of religion in general, we must again have recourse to physical\nanalogies or figures of speech. A mighty stream or current of spiritual\nvibrations has flowed from the beginning behind the circumstances of\nhistory; and each branch of the human family has caught up, retained,\nand manifested a portion thereof. But the manifestations have at all\ntimes been governed by the receptive capacity of the particular race and\nits inherent distinctions. Every formulated religion is of dual\ncomplexion: first, the initial motive, which is spiritual; second, the\nexpression, which is due to ideas, and these are furnished by the mind.\nThe creeds, dogmas, rituals, are outgrowths of the age, civilization and\nlocality.\n\nChristianity has ostensibly been the religion of Western Europe during a\nlong period of development in all the material appliances of a civilized\nlife when mental and physical forces, engaged in accumulating wealth,\nhave dominated this development and tended to depress and destroy the\nhigher impulses and aspirations of man. Christianity, already weakened\nby errors that had crept in, was unable to withstand the corrupting\ninfluences of a money-making age. It adapted itself to the sternly\npractical business-like son of the West, and dropped out much of the\nimaginative and reflective side of its teaching. But the \u201cold order\nchangeth,\u201d and, as has been shown in previous chapters, one great\ndepartment of civilized life, viz. the prevailing system of industry, is\nhastening to its dissolution. That system has been tried in the furnace\nof a longsuffering, patient experience, and found to create national\nwealth in abundance, while utterly failing to subserve general\nwell-being, and bring about a just arrangement of social conditions.\n\nThrough all the channels of the nation\u2019s best thinking there has sounded\nlow, but clear as a clarion note, a call to social reform, and now, in\nthe depths of industrial confusion, amid dumb despair and loud-voiced\npublic discontent, the still small voice of conscience speaks audibly,\nand a stirring of dry bones over the whole field of action, betokens the\nawakening to a new era of existence. Spiritual vibrations have loosened\nthe foundations of our materialized, selfish life, and pierced through\nthe crust of callous indifference to the heart of the nation. A new\ntenderness lurks there. It prompts to the entire overthrow of our\nhideous industrial warfare and the substitution of a well-ordered system\nbased, reared and maintained through the action of wide-reaching love.\nBut love was the distinguishing feature of early Christianity, and the\ngenius of its teaching. Through the figure of family life, with its\ntender ties, unselfish actions and unity of interests and feeling, did\nChristianity strive to allure to the broader, higher, deeper love that\nembraces all mankind and manifests throughout all human relations.\n\nPioneers of the social revolution may abjure the churches, creeds and\nrituals, and boast themselves agnostic, but none the less are they\naiding the reembodiment, on this material plane, of the true religious\nspirit, or the birth of a religion fitted for the nation\u2019s age and\ncivilization.[18]\n\nFootnote 18:\n\n Mr. Lester F. Ward (in his new work published in 1903) formulates a\n distinction between human and animal societies by saying that the\n environment transforms the animal while man transforms the\n environment. This transformation constitutes what he calls\n \u201cachievement,\u201d and is the characteristic feature in human progress.\n The products of \u201cachievement\u201d are not material things. They are\n methods, ways, principles, devices, arts, systems, institutions.\n\nThe Church, it is true, gives no formal countenance to the industrial\nrevolution, but that does not disprove my contention that it is the\n_distinctive religious movement of this age_, and that it is in line and\nharmony with the religious movements of former ages. These may seem to\nhave been less secular than this, but they always embraced a reformation\nof social and individual life. The actual distinction arises from the\nChurch\u2019s own deficiencies, and from the greater elaboration of modern\nsociety, causing an almost undue prominence to be given to the outward\nchanges necessary at the beginning of a modern reformation. The Church\nmust inevitably conform itself to the industrial revolution. It must\nreform itself from within; and this is clearly perceived by many of its\nmembers.\n\nWhilst I write a conference of the Young Men\u2019s Christian Association is\ntaking place. A question discussed was: \u201cWhat is the cause of young\nmen\u2019s drifting away from the Church?\u201d One speaker remarked that to his\nmind the cause was the want of fixity of opinion on the great\nfundamentals of their common Christianity. Young men found that\nministers were not agreed upon what they preached, and until the Church\nmade up its mind as to what was really the truth, there could be no\nremedy for this drifting. Another speaker said he knew young men who\nhated the Church, and said it was not consistent. They pointed to the\nslum dwellings in their great cities, and asked what the Church was\ndoing to remedy the state of affairs there disclosed. In fact, they\nsaid: \u201cSalvation is hardly worth the taking, it\u2019s so mixed up with\nmoney-making. If the Church was to reach young men, it must take up a\nmore consistent attitude with regard to all social questions.\u201d (From the\n_Scotsman_.)\n\nBut religion is not of the Church alone, religion appertains to the\n_totality_ of life; and the right ordering of all the conditions of the\nnation\u2019s material existence is the first step in the attainment of a\nnational religious life. For, observe, the broad current of spiritual\nvibrations encompassing the race can have no free course and ingress to\nthrill the nerves and quicken the pulse of the nation so long as there\nendures a fierce, brutal struggle for the means of potential life\u2014a\nstruggle that hardens the heart and coarsens the fibre of rich and poor\nalike. The movement we call Economic Socialism is a veritable recurrence\nof the cry of the Prophet Esaias: \u201cPrepare ye the way of the Lord, make\nHis paths straight.\u201d[19]\n\nFootnote 19:\n\n What profits it to the human Prometheus that he has stolen the fire of\n heaven to be his servant, and that the spirits of the earth and of the\n air obey him, if the vulture of pauperism is eternally to tear his\n very vitals and keep him on the brink of destruction?\u2014HUXLEY.\n\nThe Church militant must adjust itself without and within to the social\nindustrial revolution, to a wider development than hitherto in man\u2019s\nreasoning powers, and to a profound impulse in man\u2014an impulse born of\nexperience\u2014that is carrying him towards the vast region of philosophic\nmysticism which lies behind the common Christian creeds and doctrines.\nThe poet caught the shadow of coming events when he wrote\u2014\n\n So all intolerable wrong shall fade,\n No brother shall a brother\u2019s rights invade,\n But all shall champion all:\n Then shall men bear with an unconquered will\n And iron heart the inevitable ill;\n O\u2019er pain, wrong, passion, death, victorious still\n And calm, though suns should fall.\n\n Oh priests who mourn that reverence is dead,\n Man quits a fading faith, and asks instead\n A worship great and true.\n I know that there was once a church where men\n Caught glimpses of the gods believed in then:\n I dream that there shall be such church again\u2014\n O dream, come true, come true.\n \u2014W. M. W. CALL.\n\n\n\n\n SYNOPSIS\n\n The world has a purpose.... That purpose aims not at man as an end,\n but works through him to greater issues.\u2014H. G. WELLS.\n\n Man has already furthered evolution very considerably, half\n unconsciously and for his own personal advantage, but he has not yet\n risen to the conviction that it is his religious duty to do so\n deliberately and systematically.\u2014FRANCIS GALTON.\n\n\nMore than a century has elapsed since Pope\u2019s line was written: \u201cThe\nproper study of mankind is man,\u201d yet it is only of recent years that\nphysiology has entered upon the proper method of that study. Discoveries\nmade in the last century have thrown fresh light on individual human\nnature. The marvellous potency of thought has been demonstrated, and the\nmomentous fact of diverse states of basic consciousness made\napparent\u2014the fact, namely, that the mind of individual man is not\nfunctionally limited to his physical consciousness.\n\nAgain, that every human being should have freedom to be happy was\nrealized by many at an earlier epoch; but what the essential nature\nmight be of a happiness that could satisfy the conflicting desires of\nhumanity differentiated in all its units\u2014seemed an insoluble problem.\nPsychology, however, indicates the solution of that problem, for it\nshows that individual happiness is intimately bound up with, and\ndependent upon, _general happiness_. The \u201csubliminal or unconscious\nmind,\u201d otherwise termed the super-physical consciousness that is common\nto all mankind knows no settled peace and comfort while the areas of\nphysically conscious life are scenes of perpetual conflict. Man to be\ntruly happy must be so collectively and not merely individually or\nsectionally.\n\nNow the scheme of social reform I advocate points the way to a\nunification of thought that working itself out through the diverse\nchannels of visible life will eject the causes of evil, bring order\nwhere chaos has reigned, and slowly but surely establish the foundations\nof universal peace. As Richard Harte has well said: \u201cHuman beings at\npresent are like a number of little magnets thrown promiscuously into a\nheap, with their poles pointing in every direction, and wasting their\nstrength in opposing each other. These little magnets have to point in\nthe same direction that they may become bound together into one great\nmagnet, all powerful to attract good, all powerful to repel evil.\u201d\n\nThe new system of action bases its thought on the complexity of human\nnature. It recognizes that the component cells of the physical body are\nlives which must suffer if the laws of their well-being are not\nsubserved, and the suffering translates itself into pain or into\nsub-conscious distressful melancholy. It perceives that the social\ninstincts of man hitherto thrust back and crushed are: \u201cthe various\nneeds of universal attraction all tending towards unity, striving to\nmeet and mingle in final harmony\u201d (Zola). And further it apprehends that\na lofty aspiration\u2014a divine impulse\u2014hovers on the threshold of\nconsciousness waiting to enter as brutal passions and vicious\npropensities are conquered and dispossessed.\n\nThe evils that infest and corrupt our social life and that man must\ndeliberately uproot and eliminate before general happiness becomes\npossible are\u2014poverty, i.e. a life-long struggle to obtain food, shelter,\nclothing; the birth of individuals weak and unfit; disease, premature\ndeath; enforced celibacy; late marriage; drunkenness; disorganization of\nfamily life; prostitution; war; and industrial competition; social\ninjustice and inequality; individual tyranny; crime; barbarous treatment\nof criminals; disrespect of natural function and consequent injury to\nhealth; conventional folly; social repression of innocent enjoyment;\nreligious bigotry; the feebleness of religious guidance and confusion of\nreligious thought.\n\nPartial views of society as well as of individual human nature have\nhitherto prevailed and given birth to specifics of all kinds for the\ncure of the diseases of society, and these in the growing tenderness of\nhumanity, have been eagerly adopted and applied, to prove disappointing\nin the main. The new system deals with society as a whole and throughout\nall its parts. It requires a full comprehension of each and all the\ngroups or classes of social phenomena and their inter-relations.\n\nViewing society as a whole, we realize that there are no remedial\nspecifics in the case, that general happiness will be obtained only by a\nprocess of evolution, and that the process is one of continual\nreadjustment of multitudinous relations, or unceasing adaptation of\nindividual human life to a social environment, and of social environment\nto individual human life. The evolution of social environment proceeds\ntowards the highest ethical state which implies a system of society\nbased upon justice and equality. But the realization of this state\nrequires a perfected humanity, hence the path of progress is also in the\ngradual improvement of individuals\u2014the creation of a superior race whose\nspontaneous impulses will construct and support a perfected social\nsystem.\n\nUnconscious evolution has carried us forward from savagery through many\ntransitions to a state of civilization which, though grossly imperfect,\ncontains within it a new element of advance. Here and there throughout\nsociety the power of love and reason combined has become strong, and\naided by a scientific knowledge of man and the conditions of his life,\nit is capable of design, and of intensifying the action of evolutionary\nforces and immensely increasing their momentum. Reason, however, must\ninvent an effective policy of meliorism which so unites the practical\nmethods of reform as that each will add strength to all, and the result\nprove a powerful factor of change in the society on which it is brought\nto bear.\n\nThe strife of competition throughout the whole sphere of industrial life\ngives free play to selfishness and the passion of militancy, and\npermeates society with the warlike spirit.\n\nAdvance in morals is the sure step to a better and happier future; but\nman\u2019s moral nature is largely conditioned by heredity, training and\nenvironment, while these, at present, are all unfavourable to a high\nmoral state. A progressive system of general reform therefore has to\nembrace and combine rational breeding, rational training and a rational\norder of life in which sympathy and co-operation will take the place of\nindividual competition, and general happiness\u2014not wealth\u2014be the clear\naim of man.\n\nThe conscious element in evolution is as yet too weak to alter society\nmuch or rapidly, but in all civilized countries\u2014Germany, France,\nBelgium, etc., as well as Great Britain,\u2014changes towards the collective\ncontrol of land and capital and the reorganization of industry on\ncollectivist principles, have begun, and it is of supreme importance\nthat other changes, equally necessary, should be initiated to advance\n_pari-passu_ with those.\n\nA central source of corruption is to be found in the disintegration of\nthe ancient family group\u2014the unfitness of an archaic domestic system to\nachieve the ends of rational training and the acquiring of habits of\nrational breeding. At the same time there is a growth in social feeling\nand a spread of public opinion in favour of industrial socialism with\nsome legislative and local action to carry it out, that together,\npresent conditions propitious to change in domestic living and sexual\ncustom. Consequently a reconstruction of domestic life on modern\nprinciples among educated people fitted to adapt life to moral ends is\npre-eminently a feature of the new order.\n\nAt present excessive labour on the part of the proletariat, and enforced\nidleness on the part of many men and women within the classes, are fatal\nto progress. Vital forces are exhausted on the one hand, repressed on\nthe other, while the sub-conscious feeling that craves unity and\nsolidarity is outraged and restrained. To restore _work_ to its\nlegitimate place in human life is a primary aim of the new domestic\nsystem. That system must be built up on the principle that work for the\nbenefit of all is the duty and privilege of each, and without a due\nshare of social labour no normal man or woman in health can attain to\ninward peace.\n\nAs regards religion, man\u2019s abstract thought must purge itself from\nmaterialized ideals, his concrete thought from selfish aims, for he is\nessentially a religious being and psychical studies affirm that within\nhim there lie latent faculties that relate him to worlds unseen\u2014worlds\nas yet unrealizable in human consciousness.\n\nIn the visible world religious forces must be directed to the great work\nof social reform. To unselfishly promote the welfare of generations\nunborn is a profoundly religious course of action. The purest, noblest\nfeelings of man may be enlisted in the cause of progress through\nunion\u2014for social reconstruction, scientific education, gentle training\nof the young, associated domestic life, facilitation of happy\nmarriage\u2014and for the comfort of all mankind, whether good or bad, clever\nor dull, fortunate or unfortunate.\n\nCo-operation in work to the banishment of idleness and its accompanying\nmisery _ennui_ is the primary object of the new domestic system, but\nother ends to attain are\u2014economy, by means of joint labour and joint\nexpense to the relief of monetary anxieties and domestic worries;\nstability of social position, i.e. no member needing to fear that his\nhome will break up independently of his wishes; social intercourse and\nenjoyment relieved of conventional etiquette or tyranny; freedom for\nfriendship between the sexes and such conditions of family union as will\npromote mental capacity and altruistic sentiment in each individual;\nearly marriage without disregard of social responsibility and based upon\nmutual knowledge of character, habits and tastes; a fitting refuge for\nold age, rendering impossible the premature destruction of valuable\nsocial forces which age alone can supply, and securing the material,\nintellectual and emotional surroundings necessary for comfort up to the\nlast moment of life.\n\nIn the lower social strata where any reconstruction of family life is\nnot yet possible, what is immediately required is a gradual rise of\nwages with steady improvement in all the conditions of industrial\nlabour. Society also must relinquish such patronage of the poor as\nfosters their too rapid increase, undermines their self-dependence and\ntends generally to deterioration of race. Parental responsibility must\nbe strongly inculcated and strictly upheld. Public teaching should be\ngiven in all natural laws affecting society, especially the laws of\nhealth, increase, and heredity; and, under conditions respectful to\nhuman dignity, Malthusian doctrine should be taught, and a knowledge of\nneo-Malthusian method very carefully imparted.\n\nIn the higher social strata within the newly constructed modern homes\nsexual conduct and parentage with its far-reaching results for good or\nevil must be controlled or guided into the path of racial regeneration.\nThe scientific study of man\u2019s nature gives sexual passion an honourable\nposition relatively to human life. It rests on the conscience of each\nadult generation as an imperative social duty to influence the young\ngeneration in such wise as that this great passion shall subserve\nphysical and social health and cease to create degradation.\n\nA due activity in growing organs strengthens organic function;\ntherefore, with early marriages and freedom to young love, checked only\nby scientific knowledge of the laws of health, propagation at the age of\nmaturity is bound to put forth vitality of good quality. In conscious\nevolution sexual functions are no longer regarded as essentially allied\nwith propagation. They are regarded, however, as properly subject in\nyouth to parental and social control; and that control acts as a\nperpetual restraint upon licentious, dissolute tendencies and a shield\nto the young love that seeks personal happiness consistent with domestic\npurity.\n\nNo less potent is the action of control in another direction. Physiology\nof sex and the laws of inheritance are carefully studied by guardians of\ndomestic peace who, rejecting the ordinary and vulgar conception accept\nthe teaching of science, and science points to philoprogenitiveness, or\nlove of offspring, as the proper motor force in reproduction. Were this\nforce the antecedent cause of parentage throughout the nation, disease\nand premature death would be undermined and gradually subside.\n\u201cIndiscriminate survival\u201d gives way before that \u201crational selection and\nbirth of the fit\u201d which is a fundamental condition of social\nwell-being\u2014the master-spring to a rapid evolution of general happiness.\n\nThe transition, however, from our present state of confused sentiment,\nillogical thought, and disastrous action in the field of _eugenics_ or\nstirpiculture, to clearness of purpose and consistency of life, must\nnecessarily be a work of extreme delicacy and patient endeavour. Its\nachievement requires the nuclei of collectivist homes. Its nurture must\ntake place in the bosom of a superior domestic life. The process, in\nshort, implies an alteration in humanity itself, to be brought about by\nsuch preparatory alteration in outward conditions as will set up and\nbring into play the constant interaction of new social forces.\n\nIndividualism in domestic life vitiates the movement towards socialism\noutside domestic life, for it gives us misshapen units unfit for a\nbetter social system\u2014a system that seeks to banish tyranny, despotism,\npride, self-will and every anti-social emotion in order to establish the\nperfect justice and equality that are essential to the highest ethical\nstate. It is a necessity of socialism to lay hold of the family and\nfashion it anew so that it may produce a superior material of human\nlife, i.e. individual men and women whose enjoyments lie chiefly in\nsympathy and whose spontaneous impulses are towards an essentially\nsocial life.\n\nAnd further, not only is our present domestic system wholly incapable of\ndealing with sex relations so as to adapt them to stirpiculture, not\nonly is it so feeble as to be absolutely impotent in the regulation of\nthe conduct of masculine youth outside its boundaries, but it is\ndestitute also of elements required in the organizing of a progressive\neducational system.\n\nHome education has almost disappeared in the disintegration of family\nlife, while in society the strong forces of aggregation which under\ndiverse conditions of industry and convention group mankind in sections\nhave moulded schools to massive proportions. The youth of the nation is\nin a great measure cut off from the home influences which are calculated\nto teach mankind \u201chumanities, not in the academic but in the real\nsense.\u201d It is congregated in universities and large schools for superior\nculture and day schools for culture of a less exalted order. In the\nformer, young men and maidens are separated. Domesticity\u2014the quality in\nhuman nature on which depends the consolidation of society, is\ndisregarded, whilst to the development of mutual interests, affinity of\ntastes, harmony of habits and unanimity of social aims between the sexes\nno attention is paid during the plastic period of life when individual\ncharacter is in process of determination. In day schools boys and girls\nare often associated, but under such conditions of mechanical routine,\ncramming, conflicting and alternating authorities, irregular and erratic\nforces of moral control, as to make these schools provocative of evil,\nfostering every anti-social instinct of man.\n\nCo-ordination in the life of the young is the demand of the new system\nof general reform. The nursery, school and playground must be\nharmonized, and the entire juvenile orbit, within and without the home,\ngoverned by intellectual and moral forces of fixed congruity. The object\nand aim of true education is the fullest development of an individual\u2019s\nbest powers of thought, feeling, action, by means of their happy\nexercise at every stage of growth from childhood to maturity. Now\nbook-learning or culture in schools accomplishes very little, but a\ndirect study of nature is an incomparable aid to this end. Each object\nand process in nature from that of the infinitely great to the\ninfinitely small\u2014if fittingly dealt with by teachers\u2014is instinct with\ncharm for the young of an intelligent race. It excites imagination,\nawakens thought, kindles enthusiasm, stimulates every latent mental\nfaculty, while the endless variation of beauty in nature\u2014under training\nto close observation\u2014makes aesthetic appeal to the sense perceptions,\nand in calling forth wonder, admiration, delight adds richness\nimmeasurably to the quality of human life. Nevertheless the springs and\nchecks of a true education lie deep in a world of feeling. For their\nexercise home-life is indispensable. Family love is the primary motor\nforce in the education of the feelings, and without the presence of a\nwide domestic circle habitually fostering the sympathetic and repressing\nthe selfish emotions no high water-mark of civilization will be reached.\n\nThere is in man a group of emotions of comparatively recent origin\nrequiring scientific treatment of the utmost delicacy and precision. On\nthe further development of that group depends in a very special manner\nthe rapid evolution of an ethical social system. The group is\nthreefold\u2014egoistic, altruistic, moral. It comprises a sense of personal\nrights, a sympathetic jealousy for the rights of others, an intellectual\nand moral sentiment of justice, or equivalence of liberty and social\ncomfort for all mankind. The first element is already very perceptible\nthroughout society. The second is more rare; it must be strengthened or\nassiduously created in the nursery, schoolroom and domestic circle by a\nsystem of training whose characteristic is extreme gentleness. The\ntender shoots of sympathetic jealousy are incapable of growth in an\nenvironment of harsh sound or brutal force. Hence the authority that\nbegets antagonism has no place in the perfected education of the future.\n\nAs the young emerge from childhood the responsibilities of life become\naids in education, and immensely develop the above emotions. Discipline\nof conduct within their own order appertains to the young; whilst\nsociety, within and without the domestic circle, demands the thorough\nregulation of young life. Conduct clubs and combinations for a variety\nof social ends, both sexes taking part, arise among the young; and these\npromote in the highest degree the healthy growth of such virtuous\nemotion and habits in the individual as are indispensable to ethical\nsocialism. The method adopted is a just and intelligent criticism to\nwhich the youthful mind has previously been trained.\n\nSince pride of birth, pride of wealth and habits of domination and\nluxury are all unfavourable to the growth of a moral sentiment of social\njustice, it is not in the upper ranks of society we need look for the\npublic spirit that will devise methods of gradually equalizing the\nlabour of life and its rewards and undermining present class\ndistinctions. As little likely is the sentiment of social justice to\nspring spontaneously in a fortunate capitalist class where pride of\nacquisition strongly opposes the principle that reward should not be\nproportioned to personal capacity\u2014that mental labour has no title to\ninordinate distinction, but that other useful exertion ethically\nrequires fullness of reward. Reconstruction is necessarily a growth from\nbelow. From the proletariat comes the impulse towards industrial\nreconstruction, and it is in the middle class\u2014and the less wealthy\nsection of that class\u2014that the beings exist who by segregation may form\ncollectivist homes capable of by-and-bye aggregating into the solid\nfoundation of a pure and elevated republican society.\n\nEducation in these homes where mixture of ages, from the white-haired\ncentenarian to the infant in arms, creates all manner of tender ties,\nwhere gentleness and love are the main stimuli in training, where\nauthority is exercised consistently and reasonably, and replaced at\nmaturity by reason and self-control\u2014must eventuate in the production of\na superior moral and intellectual type.\n\nThe order of social evolution, computed roughly, is as follows: In the\nfirst stage, social equality exists; it is an epoch of savagery. In the\nsecond stage, differentiation issuing in class distinctions takes place;\nthe birth of social inequality and injustice arising naturally through\nexercise of superior brute force and cunning. Civilization has here its\ngenesis; and coercion, tyranny, robbery, injustice, avarice, love of\npower, inequality, are stimuli of civilization and prime elements in the\nformation of strong nations. Individuals who are inferior, then whole\nclasses socially weak, are compelled by forces, individual and social,\nto minister to the wants of the strong and superior. Civilization\nnurtured by inequality and injustice develops in the superior classes of\nsociety and slowly spreads downwards. In the third stage, reaction\noccurs, prompted by civilization itself! Justice and liberty develop in\nthe lower or inferior social classes and spread very slowly upwards\nwithout destroying a civilization, become inherent in the superior type\nof man. The fourth stage is one of readjustment in which civilization\nbecomes general and there is a gradual return to social equality.\nUltimately society will have no class distinctions of the present order,\nno idlers or parasites, no poor and no coercive government. Voluntary\nco-operation or concerted action for social ends is a self-regulating,\nself-controlling force which, when fully developed in the new domestic\nand industrial systems is able to dominate society throughout its length\nand breadth.\n\nThe path of social reform I advocate has now, in its main features, been\nplaced before my readers.\n\nOutside the general policy that will cause the direct action of the\nsystem to become a great factor of social change, however, there are\nsundry courses of less direct action, it is bound to pursue. These bear\nrelation to, first, pauperism and patronage of the poor; second, the\nproletariat; third, the criminal classes; fourth, the position of woman;\nfifth, the young; sixth, conventionalism; seventh, political action.\n\nIn the first relation the specific policy is to carefully discriminate\nbetween benevolence that is beneficial and benevolence that is\nmischievous in its results on social well-being. Whilst exercising the\nformer, it gives no support to charities that hurt the independence of\nthe poor, or relieve them of parental responsibility. In reproduction it\ndiscountenances and opposes the social force of _indiscriminate\nselection_ which results in survival of the unfit. It seeks to initiate\nand press forward the counteracting social force of _intelligent\nselection_, which brings about the birth of the fit.\n\nIn the second relation, the specific policy strenuously supports\ncombinations of workers for the raising of wages, mutual help and\ndemocratic political aims preparatory to general socialism.\n\nIn the third relation, the specific policy strives to enlighten public\nopinion upon the nature of crime and the philosophic principles of its\ntreatment. It elaborates a new method in which vindictiveness, the\nessence of punishment, has no existence; but gentleness towards all\nevil-doers issues in, first, the effectual protection of society;\nsecond, the reform of corrigible criminals; third, the gradual\nextinction of crime. It urges upon government a cautious deliberate\nadoption of this method.\n\nIn the fourth relation, the action of the policy is to promote the\nenfranchisement of women, and at every point aid the movement of advance\nto the position of social equality of sex.\n\nIn the fifth and sixth relations, it inculcates by admonition and\nexample, and especially among the young, a return to simplicity of\nmanners, habits and dress. It repudiates conventional etiquette, and\nopposes the tyranny of fashion. It promotes the association of the sexes\nin youth under condition of adult control, whether the union be that of\nmarriage, of friendship or of simple intercourse and companionship. It\ndiscountenances and takes no part in the excitements of an artificial,\nfrivolous society, but it creates and fosters the vigorating excitements\nof useful labour, alternating with unconstrained and \u201ctranquil\ndelights.\u201d\n\nIn the seventh relation, the specific policy agitates for alteration of\nthe marriage laws, the laws of inheritance of property and the land\nlaws. Equality of sex is required as the basis of the marriage law,\naccompanied by the condition of easy divorce in order to facilitate the\ndissolution of false ties in favour of the true. The laws affecting\nchildren require adaptation to the ethics of social justice and sex\nequality. Laxity must give way to strictness in respect of parentage;\nand child-birth be recognized as an event bearing directly upon the\ninterests of the general public. Hence modification here entails the\nrecognition of illegitimate children and the counteracting of the\nvicious tendency to shirk parental duty and social responsibility. The\nland and property laws must be adjusted to a levelling process\u2014the\naction of paring down large estates and diminishing the massive\nproportions of private property so slowly as to create no individual\nsuffering or social confusion, such legislative measures being directed,\nhowever, to land nationalization and nationalization of capital as their\nfinal aim.\n\nIn conclusion, let me add, I claim to have shown that \u201cscience in the\neconomic field gives certain facts from which a line of social evolution\nmay be foreshadowed,\u201d and that religion and science give, in wider\nfields, facts and principles that point to lines of illimitable\nprogression for man. \u201cWhether these lines will be followed depends not\nupon immutable laws beyond our control, but upon the _human will_.\u201d The\ngeneral policy I advocate is distinctly reliable so long as it rests on\nscientific methods and knowledge, but no question is finally exhausted.\nIn the sphere of rational reform free-thought must ever be considered\nand respected.\n\n New occasions teach new duties;\n Time makes ancient good uncouth;\n They must upward still and onward,\n Who would keep abreast of truth.\n\n\n\n\n INDEX\n\n\n A\n\n Abyssinians, The, 134\n\n Acquisitiveness, 213\n\n Adler, Hermann, 218\n\n Adolescence, 257\u2013266, 335, 341\n\n Adulteration, 45\n\n Aesthetic sentiment, 197\u2013200, 203, 211, 215\n\n Aged, The, 269\u2013272, 331, 338\n\n Allen, Dr. Nathan, 120\n\n Amiel, 10\n\n Anderson, Dr. J. A., 306\n\n Anxiety, 117\n\n Arabs, The, 134\n\n Arians, 299\n\n Arifura, The, 205\n\n Aristotle, 235\n\n Arkwright, 26\n\n Arnold, Matthew, 150, 249\n\n Asceticism, 15, 98, 105, 110, 113, 146, 156\n\n Associated Homes, 276\u2013283\n\n Association, Young Men\u2019s Christian, 322\n\n Astral body, 317\n\n Atonement doctrine, 315\n\n\n B\n\n Balfour, A. J., 231\n\n Bardaisan, 301\n\n Bebel, August, 112, 119, 149\n\n Besant, Annie, 306, 315\n\n Bickerton, A. W., 268, 272\n\n Birth-rate, 80\u201393, 109, 265\n\n Bishop, Mrs., 264\n\n Blackley, Canon, 91\n\n Bon, Dr. Le, 197, 211\n\n Bosanquet, Mrs. B., 65\n\n Bread-baking, 72\n\n Buddhism, 293\u2013295, 300, 303\n\n Bushmen, The, 132\n\n\n C\n\n Capital, 25, 41, 55, 329\n\n Capitalists, 26, 41, 208, 338\n\n Carlyle, Thomas, 5, 163\n\n Carpenter, Edward, 16, 19, 142\u2013144, 148\n\n Carr, G. Shoobridge, 85, 92\n\n Celibacy, 90, 95, 111, 126\u2013129, 138, 172\n\n Celsus, 298\n\n Chatterji, J. C., 1, 295\n\n Chesterfield, Lord, 199\n\n Children, 3, 233, 238\u2013253, 281\n\n Children, Training of, 176\u2013179, 188\u2013194, 197, 237\u2013253, 264, 281, 282,\n 331, 335\u2013338\n\n Church, The, 321\u2013323\n\n Civilization, 38\u201340, 44, 204, 206, 216, 233, 248, 250, 297, 319, 328,\n 339\n\n Clairvoyance, 9\n\n Clarke, William, 23, 46\n\n Clement of Alexandria, 298\n\n Cochrane, Baillie, 180\n\n Combe, George, 170\n\n Communism, 59\n\n Consciousness, 290\u2013295, 303, 313\u2013318, 325\n\n Co-operation, 51, 331, 339\n\n Craig, E. T., 178\n\n Criticism, Personal, 278\n\n Crime, 121, 163\u2013182, 340\n\n Criminals, 67, 82, 121, 122, 164\u2013182, 340\n\n Crockett, S. R., 174\n\n Culture, 7, 13, 95\n\n\n D\n\n Dairy produce, 70\n\n Dalton, 205\n\n Darwin, Charles, 80, 83, 91, 93, 96, 125\n\n Death-rate, 89\u201393, 110\n\n Degeneration of race, 83, 91, 115, 123, 159, 332\n\n Dhimal, The, 205\n\n Disease, 91, 99, 115\u2013120, 124, 150, 170, 215\n\n Divorce, 135, 136, 341\n\n Domestic reform, 244, 265, 268\u2013283, 330, 334, 338\n\n Du Cane, Sir E., 164\n\n Duncan, Mathews, 126\n\n\n E\n\n Easton, Abel, 279\n\n Economics, 21\u201375\n\n Education, 115, 166, 174, 177\u2013179, 182, 234\u2013253, 331, 335\u2013338\n\n Education, State, 66\u201369, 244, 269\n\n Ellis, Havelock, 103\u2013105, 142\n\n Eliot, George, 5, 6, 12, 115, 222\n\n Emerson, R. W., 139\n\n Emigration, 93\n\n Empedocles, 299\n\n Environment, 204, 239, 250, 253, 321, 328\n\n Escott, T. H. S., 273\n\n Estlake, Allan, 279, 280\n\n Eugenics, 114\u2013130, 196, 283, 330, 333, 334, 340\n\n\n F\n\n Fabian Essays, 25\n\n Factories, 25, 27\u201330, 55, 209\n\n Fashion, 200, 245, 331, 341\n\n Finck, Henry, 264, 265\n\n Fitz-Stephen, Judge, 164, 167\n\n Food, 23, 34, 39, 79, 84, 92\n\n Freedom, 16\n\n Free-will, 292\n\n\n G\n\n Galton, Francis, 94, 126\u2013129, 172, 325\n\n Gaskell, G. A., 109, 157\n\n Geddes, Patrick, 94, 157\n\n George, Henry, 32, 43\n\n _Ginx\u2019s Baby_, 155\n\n Gnostics, The, 299\u2013301\n\n Goodness, 4, 18, 105, 206\n\n Government, 211\n\n Greg, W. Rathbone, 99, 100\n\n\n H\n\n Happiness, 1\u201319, 98, 146, 188, 218, 232, 266, 270, 272, 325\u2013329\n\n Hardy, Thomas, 258, 263\n\n Harmony, New, 30\n\n Harrison, Clifford, 253\n\n Harrison, Frederic, 45\n\n Harte, Richard, 131, 326\n\n Health, 116, 129, 196, 333\n\n Hearn, Lafcadio, 303, 304\n\n Henry, Arthur, 239\n\n Heredity, 108, 114, 120\u2013124,158, 169, 237, 304, 305, 307, 329\n\n Hill, Frederick, 168, 169, 171\n\n Hinduism, 289, 291, 292\n\n Hinton, James, 103\n\n Hobson, John A., 21, 33, 46, 51, 74, 232\n\n Hooker, Sir W., 205\n\n Horticulture, 195\n\n Hos, The, 205\n\n Hottentots, The, 134\n\n Howells, W. D., 213\n\n Huxley, T. H., 9, 12, 79, 92, 96, 214, 241, 249, 258, 304, 323\n\n\n I\n\n Ibsen, H., 104\n\n Individual Rights, 185\u2013200, 233, 250, 339\n\n Industry, Organized, 48, 51\u201375, 210\n\n Industrial Revolution, 23\u201350\n\n Industries, Routine, 72\n\n Interest, 54, 57\n\n\n J\n\n Jakuns, The, 205\n\n Jamieson, Mrs., 223\n\n Jealousy, 137, 138, 203, 218\u2013228, 239\n\n Jews, The, 134\n\n Joli, Henri, 122\n\n Josephus, 300\n\n Justice, 188\u2013196, 230, 233, 250, 282, 291, 296, 305, 328, 338\n\n\n K\n\n Kandyans, The, 132\n\n Karma, 291, 294, 299, 303\n\n\n L\n\n Labourers, 25, 31, 34, 36, 40\u201343, 72\n\n \u201cLaissez-faire,\u201d 81, 82, 98, 166\n\n Lange, 125\n\n Landlords, 24, 33\u201344, 54, 209\n\n Land Problem, 33\u201344, 329, 342\n\n Laveleye, Emil de, 11\n\n Law of Causation, 291\n\n Leadbeater, C. W., 299\n\n Lecky, W. E. H., 111, 138, 202\n\n Legge, 293\n\n Legislation, 61\u201365, 339\n\n Lepchas, The, 205\n\n Lessing, 308\n\n Letourneau, Charles, 33\n\n Levy, J. H., 200\n\n Lewes, G. H., 102\n\n Liszt, Von, 122\n\n Lodge, Sir Oliver, 9, 287\n\n Lofft, Capel, 248\n\n Logos, The, 290, 312\n\n Luxury, 7\n\n\n M\n\n Machinery, 26, 55, 240, 272, 275\n\n Maeterlinck, M., 103\n\n Mahan, Captain, 230\n\n Mallet, Lucas, 282\n\n Malthus, 79, 83, 93, 96, 127\n\n Manicheans, 299, 300\n\n Marriage, 126\u2013128, 131\u2013148, 219, 283, 331, 341\n\n Marriage-rate, 86\u201390, 126\n\n Martineau, Harriet, 110, 268, 270\n\n Massart, Jean, 274\n\n Massingham, H. W., 262, 265\n\n Mathews, Justice, 164, 165\n\n Maudsley, Dr. Henry, 117, 123, 237\n\n Mead, G. R. S., 301\n\n Meredith, George, 196\n\n Militancy, 206\u2013210, 222, 229, 231, 329\n\n Mill, John Stuart, 30, 41\n\n Milton, John, 140\n\n Mischler, Dr., 122\n\n Morrison, W. D., 121, 123\n\n Municipalism, 66, 72, 273\n\n Mysticism, 298\u2013303, 318, 323\n\n\n N\n\n Nairs, The, 132, 137\n\n Natural Selection, 81, 83, 130, 159\n\n Nirvana, 295\n\n Nordau, Max, 185\n\n Noyes, J. H., 279\n\n\n O\n\n Obermair, 180\n\n Ogle, Dr. Wm., 86, 88\n\n Oneida Community, 108, 278\u2013280\n\n Origen, 298, 299\n\n Owen, Robert, 28\u201332\n\n Owen, R. Dale, 26\u201329\n\n Ozanam, A. F., 300\n\n\n P\n\n Paget, Sir James, 119\n\n Parasitism, 274\n\n Parentage, 149\u2013160, 237, 269, 333, 341\n\n Parsis, The, 292, 301\n\n Paths of the Soul, 309\u2013311\n\n Patriotism, 228\u2013233\n\n Patronage, 7, 242, 332, 340\n\n Pauperism, 42, 90, 271\n\n Peace, 210, 230, 326\n\n Pelasgians, 299\n\n Pharisees, 300\n\n Philanthropy, 58, 82, 160\n\n Plato, 299\n\n Pleasure, 2, 14\n\n Podhalians, The, 197, 211\n\n Political Economy, 53, 54, 82\n\n Population, 56, 83\u201396, 109, 128, 265, 269\n\n Positivism, 9\u201312\n\n Poverty, 24\u201332, 41, 81, 90, 95, 108, 116, 150, 158, 169, 213, 240\n\n Priesthood, 38\n\n Profits, 24, 37, 54\u201356\n\n Property, Private, 24, 39, 55, 210\u2013217, 242, 342\n\n Prostitution, 111, 112, 135, 136, 142, 145\n\n Protestantism, 302\n\n Psychic phenomena, 303, 318, 326\n\n Punishment, 163\u2013168, 176\u2013178, 246\n\n Puritanism, 110\n\n Pythagoras, 299\n\n\n R\n\n Rapacity, 207\u2013210\n\n Reade, Chas., 260\n\n Reclus, Elisee, 133\n\n Redskins, The, 134\n\n Re-incarnation, 291, 294, 296, 299, 301\u2013308\n\n Religion, 10, 285\u2013323, 330\n\n Rent, 54\u201357\n\n Responsibility, 291\n\n Richardson, Dr. W. B., 114, 118\n\n Rights, Individual, 185\u2013194\n\n Ritchie, David G., 183\n\n Robertson, John M., 17, 124, 126, 231\n\n Robertson, F. W., 309\n\n Robe of Righteousness, 316\n\n Rogers, Thorold, 271\n\n Rowntree, 31\n\n Ruskin, John, 8, 12, 175\n\n\n S\n\n Sacrifice, 312\u2013315\n\n Santals, The, 205\n\n Schooling, J. Holt, 109\n\n Science, 9\n\n \u201cScientific Meliorism\u201d\u2014Preface, 101, 114\n\n Servant problem, 274\u2013277\n\n Sexual instinct, 95, 97\u2013113, 144, 332, 333\n\n Shakespeare, 221\n\n Shareholders, 24, 55\n\n Sinnett, A. P., 308, 313\n\n Slater, J. E., 289\n\n Slavery, 36, 219\n\n Sloan, J. McGavin, 217\n\n Smith, Goldwin, 32\n\n Socialism, 30, 52\u201360, 82, 199, 259, 265, 320, 323, 329, 330, 340\n\n Social justice, 44, 52, 59, 185\u2013200, 334\n\n Somerville, Mary, 270\n\n Spencer, Herbert, 14, 84, 93, 95, 96, 99, 125, 132, 136, 140\u20131, 152,\n 158, 175, 181, 185, 206, 211, 290\n\n Stephenson, R. L., 193\n\n Stirpiculture, 114\u2013130, 196, 283, 330\u2013334, 340\n\n Swan, Howard, 243\n\n Sympathetic Selection, 83, 125, 159, 283, 333\n\n Sympathy, 82, 102, 125, 188, 191, 194, 199, 205, 224, 264, 266, 313,\n 322, 329, 334\n\n Syphilis, 119\n\n\n T\n\n Taoism, 292\n\n Taylor, Isaac, 281, 282\n\n Telepathy, 9\n\n Tennyson, Alfred, 161, 213, 257, 267\n\n Tertullian, 302\n\n Thompson, D\u2019Arcy W., 246\n\n Thompson, A. M., 218\n\n Thomson, J. B., 169\n\n Thoreau, 104\n\n Tibetans, The, 132\n\n Tolstoi, Leo, 138\n\n Trinity, The, 290, 297\n\n Trollope, Anthony, 257, 262\n\n Trusts, 47, 70\n\n Tyranny, 207, 210, 334\n\n\n U\n\n Unitary Homes, 276\u2013283\n\n Unknowable, The, 290\n\n\n V\n\n Vedas, The, 289\n\n Vedas, The, 132\n\n Venereal disease, 119\n\n\n W\n\n Wade, 26\n\n Wages, 24, 26, 42, 45, 56, 68, 70\n\n Ward, Lester F., 49, 108, 321\n\n Watt, James, 26\n\n Wealth, 7, 41, 44, 57, 81, 123, 208, 212\u2013216, 242, 273, 274, 319, 337\n\n Webb, Sidney, 41, 45, 56\n\n Wells, D. A., 122\n\n Wells, H. G., 325\n\n Whitman, Walt, 105\n\n Wines, Howard, 122\n\n Woman, 219\u2013227, 248, 259, 265, 269, 340\n\n Wordsworth, William, 198\n\n Worship, 288, 293\n\n\n Z\n\n Zola, Emile, 97, 114, 327\n\n Zoroastrianism, 292, 301\n\n\n Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES\n\n\n 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in\n spelling.\n 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.\n 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.","title":"A Vision of the Future, Based on the Application of Ethical Principles","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":77762}