{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_75874/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_75874","id":"gutenberg_75874","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75874","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Gender & Sexuality Studies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Civil rights -- Great Britain"],"text":"Transcriber\u2019s Note\n  Italic text displayed as: _italic_\n  Bold text displayed as: =bold=\n\n\n\n\n  PERSONAL RIGHTS:\n\n  A PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS\n\n  Delivered to the\n\n  FORTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING\n\n  of the\n\n  PERSONAL RIGHTS ASSOCIATION,\n\n  ON 6th JUNE, 1913,\n\n  by\n\n  MRS. MONA CAIRD.\n\n\n  LONDON:\n  THE PERSONAL RIGHTS ASSOCIATION,\n  11, ABBEVILLE ROAD, LONDON, S.W.\n\n\n  Price: ONE PENNY.\n\n\n\n\n  PRINTED FOR THE PERSONAL RIGHTS ASSOCIATION,\n  BY THE TOKIO PRINTING CO., READING & LONDON\n\n\n\n\nMRS. MONA CAIRD\n\nON\n\nPERSONAL RIGHTS.\n\n\nLADIES AND GENTLEMEN:\u2014I used to feel some impatience with public\nspeakers who spent half their speech in explaining how it was they had\ncommitted the indiscretion of making it, and how much more suitable for\nthe post somebody else would have been.\n\nThose gentlemen now have my profoundest sympathy!\n\nI feel that I ought to spend not half, but my whole speech, in\nexplaining why I have the temerity to address you tonight on this\nfamiliar subject, seeing that I never do speak in public, and that my\nfeelings about taking the chair are very much like they would be about\ntaking a cold plunge in the Atlantic in early spring.\n\nHowever, I can\u2019t get rid of my deficiencies by enumerating them, so I\nmust just throw myself on your mercy, asking you to regard this venture\nas a tribute of admiration and gratitude to our President and his\nsupporters who have made so magnificent a defence of the Cause for so\nmany thankless years. Also I have felt moved to accept the honour on\naccount of the scarcity of wholehearted champions, especially\u2014I regret\nto hear\u2014among the sex which has always been deprived of personal rights.\n\nPerhaps that is just why they _are_ lacking in respect for them! And\nwhat a warning this is! The spirit of liberty, it would appear, can\nbe starved to death. Society, having done its foolish best to destroy\nthat spirit in half its members, expects the other half to retain it\nunimpaired\u2014an obvious impossibility. For interaction of influence is\nincessant and universal between the two sexes.\n\nThe career of women having depended not on right but on favour, they\nhave learnt to care little for an abstract idea which has no bearing\non their lives. Only the exceptional mind cares for that. But similar\nconditions would assuredly produce the same result in men. And\u2014we are\non our rapid way to similar conditions.\n\nNow, in a vast subject like this, which really touches the heart of\neverything that is vital and valuable in life, it is impossible, in\ntwenty-five minutes to deal with it in any detail; and I propose\ntonight simply to dwell upon the perils with which we are all\nthreatened, in consequence of the present trend of sentiment. For we\nhave to try and make these perils obvious to the hearts as well as to\nthe minds of our contemporaries, if there is to be any hope of checking\nthe present downward tendencies.\n\nIt is of little use merely _stating_ that it is perilous to try\nto purchase social benefits at the expense of individuals. To the\nmajority, that seems the safest thing in the world; and, strange to\nsay, the most just. The ancient idea of vicarious sacrifice is as\nrampant today as it was when the groves of ancient temples echoed with\nthe cries of human victims, burnt on the altars, for the appeasement of\nthe gods and the good of the community.\n\nThe idea of _numbers_ enters largely into the popular idea of right and\nwrong\u2014what I call arithmetical morality. Because 100 is ten times more\nthan 10, it is assumed that ten _persons_ may justly be sacrificed for\nthe sake of the 100. But that is to confuse mere nonsentient signs with\nliving conscious beings; surely a strangely stupid proceeding. It is\nthis deeply-rooted idea which we have to combat.\n\nFirst of all then, it must be noted, that, as a rule, the less liberty\npeople enjoy, the less they value or respect it. The preoccupation\nwill be not with liberty but with the best means of getting on without\nit. And the best way of doing that will be\u2014or will seem to be\u2014to force\nyour own views as much as possible upon your neighbours\u2014otherwise\nthey will force theirs upon _you_. Mutually lacking in respect for\nliberty, there will be as many good reasons for attacking it in others\nas you have theories to enforce. And the same for them. The situation\nmust obviously end in a stupendous tyranny of some kind: whether of\nking or oligarchy or State: and that of the State, being practically\ninvulnerable, is the worst of all.\n\nI am far from thinking that the motive for aggression would always be\nself-interest. It would be less dangerous if it were. We all know the\ndeadly tyranny of the thoroughly well-meaning person: the highly-moral\nperson, for instance, who calls out for medi\u00e6val forms of punishment\nfor especially reprobated crimes. As some philosopher said: \u201cHe must\nbe an extraordinarily good man before he can safely be guided by his\nconscience.\u201d I go farther, and say: \u201cThe extraordinarily good man must\nbe trained for a lifetime by the Personal Rights Association before he\ncan trust his conscience\u2014and even then he had better not!\u201d\n\nOf all human attributes, conscience, when backed by power over others,\nseems to be the most dangerous. Think what martyr-fires it has lighted,\nwhat torture-chambers it has furnished and kept busy! If we had only\nself-interest to deal with, we should not be troubled with the present\nardent desire of increasing numbers of people, to further the interests\nof Society\u2014of morals, medicine, science\u2014even what are called the true\ninterests of the individual himself, by progressive outrage against\nhim. It is this eternal \u201cgood motive\u201d that makes our reformers as\nirresistible as a swarm of locusts, and as destructive! The bravest of\nus flinch before Virtue on the war-path.\n\nBefore they have done, our philanthropic locusts will have eaten off\nevery green blade and leaf of human initiative, and will leave the\nSociety which they so yearn to serve barren and blight-stricken,\nperhaps for centuries to come. Of what value to any one is such a\nSociety? What in fact, _exists_, but individuals?\n\nAnd mark: there is no retracing our steps if we go too far in this\ndirection. We are always assured that there would be a reaction against\na too great restriction of the human spirit. But that is true only so\nlong as the restriction is more or less a novelty and is _not_ too\ngreat. Directly it becomes really extreme, there is no reaction. We can\nsee this in the innumerable nations of antiquity and of today which\nhave remained stagnant for hundreds and hundreds of years. Lack of\nhuman rights tends progressively to stifle the spirit that would demand\nor respect them. Even in England, whose history is that of the struggle\nfor liberty, we have seen how, in women, that spirit has been weakened.\nHow then are we to hope\u2014after a too deep descent to Avernus\u2014for a\nreturn towards the light and inspiration of freedom? It is expecting a\nresult without a cause\u2014or rather in the teeth of one.\n\nLike Xerxes, stupidly confident, we burn our boats behind us. Or, more\naccurately, Nature burns them for us. She seems to say: \u201cVery well;\nif you don\u2019t want to give scope to original minds, you have only to\nmake your social conditions accordingly\u2014subordinate your individual\nruthlessly to what you call \u2018the common good\u2019\u2014and original minds will\nnever trouble you again. Not only will your organization suppress them,\nbut it will gradually destroy your power even to produce them. That\nwill save _them_ an immensity of trouble, and prevent all hitches in\nyour boring routine. If that\u2019s what you want, it is easily yours.\u201d\n\nBut our reformers _don\u2019t_ exactly want that. They like to have it\nboth ways. They want a subservient, State-ridden community of highly\nindividualized human beings, who\u2014like the inmates of Barry\u2019s Home for\nGeniuses\u2014would initiate punctually and spontaneously to order\u2014in the\napproved direction, of course. No fantastic unexpected nonsense would\nbe tolerated for a moment!\n\nThe old pathetic story of Midas, whose wish\u2014granted by the gods\u2014that\neverything he touched should turn to gold, seems vaguely symbolic\nof this eager desire to turn living, initiating individuals into\nsubservient parts of a social Whole. It is possible to have a prayer\ntoo completely answered, as poor Midas found, when his best cook\u2019s\nmasterpieces became hard yellow metal under his teeth, till he starved\namidst fabulous riches; while his heart was finally broken when his\nlittle daughter, running in to bid him good morning, was changed into a\npriceless golden statue. Like Midas, our reformers are short-sighted.\nTheir eyes are so fixed on the Golden Age that they want to bring about\nfor humanity, that they forget that they may be killing humanity in the\nprocess\u2014the very spring and life-essence of the human material which\nthey\u2014meddling little amateur deities\u2014are trying so hard to make after\ntheir own image.\n\nOur philanthropists will find when too late, that they have turned\nall that is living into hard, precious, valueless gold\u2014the gold of a\nmechanical social order\u2014if the gods are cruel enough to grant their\nfoolish prayers!\n\nI do not say that the day of awakening would never come. To China\nand Japan for instance, it _has_ at last come\u2014through _outside_ not\ninternal causes, be it noted. But think of the spell-bound, horrible\nages of night-mare-ridden sleep that went before!\n\nOnce upon a time in old Japan, a man was not allowed to give his\ngrandchild a doll measuring more than certain carefully prescribed\ndimensions. The paternal Powers deemed moderation in dolls to be\ndesirable, and so curbed undue enthusiasm in grandparents by solemn\nlegislative measures. It is claimed by its admirers that the system\n(whose nature we can gauge from this instance) worked admirably.\nProbably it did. So does a regularly-wound clock.\n\nAs a matter of fact, the better the preposterous system worked, the\nmore fatally it would strangle its victims. Now it is this fact which\nwe all have to try to make clear to our opponents. Humanity growing\nfat and prosperous on banquets of immolated individuals would be about\nas disastrous a condition as one could well imagine. As a matter of\nfact \u201cHumanity\u201d\u2014a mere abstract term used for convenience of speech\u2014has\nbeen endowed by careless thinkers with a sort of divine self-existence;\nand, like most divine beings, this new deity demands sacrifices. For\ninstance, the recent medical proposal to dissect criminals alive in the\ninterests of the Community\u2014another collective-term fetish\u2014reveals, in\ntypical form, the line of sentiment (I can scarcely call it thought)\nagainst which we have to contend. I do not say that the majority would\nnot still be shocked at this proposal; but that is simply because it\nhas not yet become familiar. Once it does become familiar, the horror\nwill die away (think of the everyday atrocities which _have_ the public\nsanction) and then\u2014as there is no principle of personal rights to stand\nbetween the proposed victim and the eager experimenter\u2014the latter will\nbe allowed to take his long-coveted prize. He is already permitted to\ntake innocent, sentient creatures, on the plea of the public good; and\nit is only carrying out the theory to its logical conclusion, to take\nguilty ones for the same purpose. And on the same plea\u2014like the lie,\n\u201can ever present help in time of trouble\u201d\u2014the ordinary citizen will\nprobably follow, in due course. It is a question of time and sentiment,\nnot of principle.\n\nNow is it quite impossible to awaken the public to the awful and\ninnumerable dangers which confront us all, as soon as the protection\nof personal rights is withdrawn? Will not even this threat of human\nvivisection reveal our utter defencelessness?\n\nCan we not persuade our contemporaries to ask themselves if, for\ninstance, the apostles of eugenics have shrunk from _any_ measure,\nhowever outrageous, which they thought promised the desired results?\nProvided the end is gained, the individual must pay the price. It seems\nto be thought unworthy of him to object. Thus he is placed at the\nmercy of every wind and tide of popular opinion, or, what is worse,\nat the mercy of the views of experts who naturally tend to think all\nthings lawful which benefit their particular branch of knowledge. If\nvaccination is approved of, vaccinated the individual must be. If\nScience demands human vivisection, he must submit even to that outrage.\nOn what principle, except that of personal rights, can the demand be\nrefused? The outrage _might_ result in valuable knowledge. Again, if\nSociety is obsessed by a crude and unproved theory of heredity, how\nare we to resist interference with our marriages, or being treated as\nhysterical, or feeble-minded, or degenerate, or insane? Genius and\noriginality generally seem pathological to the majority; and what the\nend will be of this sort of old-Japanese system, considering its very\nvigorous beginning, is not cheering to prophesy.\n\nUnless its very absurdity causes a reaction before it is too late, we\nshall find ourselves in the current of an evolution backwards to the\nsavage state, in which the individual is very like that foolish and\nmuch overrated insect, the bee, hopelessly submerged in the social hive.\n\nAs originality is usually lodged in a peculiarly sensitive organism,\ndelicately responsive to conditions, it would tend to atrophy, as\nplants do whose leaves and buds are persistently nipped off. No living\nthing can stand the process long. It is one of the shallowest of\npopular fallacies that genius always overcomes obstacles. It depends\non the obstacles and the kind of genius; or, more accurately, on the\nordinary qualities with which the genius happens to be accompanied. In\nitself, genius is a handicap, not an aid, to outward success.\n\nNow in the degenerating society which we are considering, its path\nof descent is easy to trace. Observe the increasing tragedy of the\nsituation. As the strata of what I call Hive-heredity accumulate,\nthere is always a deeper and deeper soil of Hive-instinct out of which\neach new generation has to spring. Is it not progressively unlikely,\ntherefore, that \u201csports\u201d would appear? And if they did appear, at\nlengthening intervals, would they not be handicapped by a strong\nHerd-instinct, impregnably seated in that reservoir of inborn impulse\nthat we now call the \u201csubconscious\u201d?\n\nThe more one dwells on this principle of ours, the more its essential\ntruth and beauty and sanity is revealed. It is so gloriously universal\nin its scope! Just in so far as man or animal can enjoy rights or\nsuffer wrongs, just so far we demand for him protection. We deem it\nabsurd and irrelevant to ask questions as to his faith or his morals,\nor his \u201cimportance\u201d; as to the number of his legs, or the nature of his\ncovering. It is obviously enough that he can _feel_.\n\nWe do not say: \u201cHe has no friends; let us make him suffer for our\ngood.\u201d We say: \u201cHe is in our hands; therefore we are his guardians to a\nman ... and woman!\u201d\n\nAnd as a result of this loyalty to the least of our brethren, we should\nfind\u2014if we could but make it universal\u2014that we had made impregnable our\none line of defence against innumerable dangers and evils\u2014our Chatalga\nlines, we might call them, of inalienable Personal Rights.\n\nAnd in strengthening these for the protection of the humblest as well\nas the greatest of our brethren, we render increasingly possible all\nthat makes life interesting, dramatic, and truly worth the living:\nall adventures of the human spirit. A vista of possibilities is thus\nopened which promises an enrichment in all the relations of life, an\nenlargement of the range of consciousness, and therefore of progress,\nto which we can actually set no limits.\n\nCompare this with the unspeakable boredom of the hurdy-gurdy existence\nof a State-dominated community!\n\nThose who have been used all their lives to the atmosphere of\ncivilization, often do not realize how easily it can be destroyed. The\ncurious change that comes over educated persons who have lived long\nin the backwoods, gives a hint of my meaning. As a rule, the man\u2014or\nwoman\u2014has in some way dwindled. The consciousness and comprehension\nhave narrowed, the perceptions are poorer, slower, less human. The\ncompanioning element has almost gone, and one feels that the common\nmeeting-ground of civilized humanity has shrivelled almost to nothing.\nAnd so one can but realize that a certain fine flower of the human\nspirit\u2014which might be still further glorified and developed\u2014can, on\nthe other hand, be swiftly annihilated. Humanity, so to speak, loses\nits level, like a traveller who has mistaken his way, and walks down\nhill only to have to come up again, or else to resign himself to\nremaining on the plains\u2014he who had set out for the mountains!\n\nNow, what if this be the reason that civilizations blossom only to\ndecay? I utterly disbelieve in the facile and misleading analogy of the\n\u201csocial _organism_.\u201d\n\nSocieties do indeed change, but they do _not_ go through an\nexactly-repeated series of stages after the fashion of \u201corganisms.\u201d\nIt is quite unproved that there is any inherent \u201cprinciple of decay.\u201d\nWhat, in fact, _is_ a principle of decay?\n\nNow, it seems probable that one cause of decay is just this perpetual\nlosing of level. Like Penelope, humanity has always kept on undoing\nits own work, and beginning all over again. And so our civilizations\nnaturally wither! And is this not, mainly, because we have never yet\nlearnt a true love of Liberty? Suppose for a moment, a universal\nrespect for it such as I have just been imagining: a society wherein\nthere was a real passion for protecting and liberating and giving\nscope to the individual impulse and inspiration. Is it not almost\ncertain that this incessant loss of level\u2014this destruction of previous\nachievement would be avoided? And if it were\u2014what is to prevent our\nTraveller reaching the Mountains he set out for?\n\n\n\n\nTHE PERSONAL RIGHTS ASSOCIATION.\n\nFOUNDED 14th MARCH, 1871.\n\n_OFFICES: 11, ABBEVILLE ROAD, LONDON, S.W._\n\n\n=President:=\n\nMr. FRANKLIN THOMASSON, J.P., Ex-M.P.\n\n=Hon. Sec. and Treasurer=: Mr. J. H. LEVY.\n\n=Assistant Secretary=: Mrs. LORENZA GARREAU.\n\n=Bankers=: PARR\u2019S BANK (CHARING CROSS BRANCH), LIMITED.\n\n\n=OBJECT OF THE ASSOCIATION.=\n\nThe object of the Association is to uphold the principle of the perfect\nequality of all persons before the law in the exercise and enjoyment of\ntheir Individual Liberty within the widest practicable limits. It would\nmaintain government just so far as, but no farther than, is necessary\nfor the maintenance of the largest freedom; and, in applying this,\nwould have equal regard to the liberty of all citizens.\n\n\n =If you wish to join in this work, send a subscription to the Treasurer\n of the Association, at the above address; and the _Individualist_ and\n a copy of each of the pamphlets and leaflets issued by the Association\n will be sent to you, as issued, by post. Do not miss the opportunity\n of cooperating in this work\u2014the breaking of the chains of oppression\n and the liberation of all the forces which work for happiness and\n human dignity.=\n\n =Cheques and Postal Orders should be crossed Parr\u2019s Bank, Charing Cross\n Branch.=\n\n =Further information with regard to the Association may be obtained\n from=\n\n  =(Mrs.) LORENZA GARREAU,\n  _Assistant Secretary_.=\n\n\n\n\n  Transcriber\u2019s Notes\n\n  pg 6 Changed: The old pathethic story of Midas\n            to: The old pathetic story of Midas","title":"Personal rights : $b A presidential address delivered to the forty-first annual meeting of the Personal Rights Association on 6th June 1913","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":3238}