{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_76859/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_76859","id":"gutenberg_76859","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76859","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Democracy","Great Britain -- Social conditions","Social problems"],"text":"THE\n                            FALSE ASSUMPTIONS\n                             OF \u201cDEMOCRACY.\u201d\n\n\n                                   By\n                           ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI\n\n              (Author of \u201cA Defence of Aristocracy,\u201d \u201cMan\u2019s\n                   Descent from the Gods,\u201d etc., etc.)\n\n                    _With an INTRODUCTORY LETTER from\n                the Right Hon. Lord Willoughby de Broke._\n\n\n                          HEATH CRANTON, LTD.,\n                       Fleet Lane, London, E.C. 4.\n\n\n           _Printed in Great Britain by Love & Malcomson Ltd.,\n                          London and Redhill._\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                               PAGE\n\n  INTRODUCTORY LETTER FROM LORD WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE            vii.\n\n  PREFACE                                                       ix.\n\n  INTRODUCTION   THE CONFUSION OF LANGUAGE\n                   AND ITS RELATION TO REVOLUTION               11\n\n  CHAPTER I.     THE PRINCIPLE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY              27\n\n  CHAPTER II.    JUSTICE                                        44\n\n  CHAPTER III.   EQUALITY                                       61\n\n  CHAPTER IV.    FREEDOM                                        77\n\n  CHAPTER V.     SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM                        95\n\n  CHAPTER VI.    EDUCATION                                     126\n\n  CHAPTER VII.   SOCIAL REFORM                                 153\n\n  CHAPTER VIII.  THE PHYSIOLOGY OF SOCIAL UNREST               179\n\n  CHAPTER IX.    THE GREAT ALTERNATIVE TO SOCIAL REFORM        199\n\n  INDEX                                                        217\n\n\n\n\n               [p. vii] INTRODUCTORY LETTER FROM THE RIGHT\n                      HON. LORD WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE\n\n\n                                           _12, Wilton Crescent,\n                                               London, S.W. 1.\n                                                   May 1st, 1921._\n\nDear Mr. Ludovici,--\n\nThank you very much for letting me see the proofs of your book. It\nseems to me to be written at a very opportune moment, and to suggest a\nline of thought which could be followed with great advantage.\n\nIn these days of \u201cpropaganda,\u201d when our fine old language is being\nwrested every hour of the day in speeches, pamphlets and leaflets,\nto illustrate the views of political parties, it is more than ever\nimportant that we should have a clear understanding of the true meaning\nof words.\n\nNor is the vague use of phrases confined to the pioneer of political\ncauses. Our very war memorials are utilised to inform us that the brave\nfellows whose honour they commemorate died for \u201cfreedom.\u201d If that were\ntrue, they indeed died in vain. Nothing can be further from even the\nmost elementary conception of freedom than the present condition of\nsociety in these islands. But the pious and devout people who wrote\nthose inscriptions are possibly not to blame.\n\nLong before the war the nation had been so content to be governed by\nphrases that [p. viii] we were actually asked to enlist for such phrases\nas \u201cThe rights of small nations,\u201d \u201cSelf-determination,\u201d and the like,\nwhereas in very truth we were forced to fight to save our own skins.\n\nYour suggestions open up so many considerations that I cannot explore\nthem all. But your proposition that the quality of our institutions\nmay, after all, be sounder than the quality of the men who have failed\nto work them, seems especially worthy of notice. If your book serves\nto direct attention to the wisdom of our ancestors, it will be a great\nbenefit to the public.\n\n                                          Yours very truly,\n                                              Willoughby de Broke.\n\n\n\n\n                              [p. ix] PREFACE.\n\n\nThe Great War has left the world, and particularly poor old battered\nEurope, with many a high ideal shattered and many a respected principle\ndestroyed. Not only the beliefs of our grandfathers, but also the\nconvictions of our fathers, seem now old-fashioned and no longer\nseaworthy. Certainly an old era is dead; but has a new era been born?\nA new era suggests new ideals, new leading principles; it suggests a\nbreastful of new and stout convictions. Have we of this dawning era any\nnew ideals or principles? Have we any new and stout convictions?\n\nIt seems as if we had been plunged into this new world unclothed. True\nenough, millions have doffed their khaki; but the citizen clothing they\nhave donned in exchange--is it all make-believe, all eye-wash? Are we\nreally naked?\n\nAt all events, before we can possibly tell where we are, or how we\nstand, the most necessary preliminary step would seem to be a general\nstock-taking of our ideals, principles and convictions--a re-definition\nof the big words that once led us, and of the great phrases with\nwhich we were once inspired. Only then, only when this re-definition\nshall have been accomplished, does it seem possible that we shall be\nable to [p. x] clothe ourselves in the ideology of our new and brightly\nilluminated age.\n\nThis book is a modest attempt at this spade work of re-definition. It\ndoes not pretend to be either exhaustive or expert. It takes up just a\nfew of the old words and phrases, and by re-examining them in the new\nlight, hopes rather to point the way than to cover the whole distance\nto the destination.\n\nAlarming sounds fill the air. There are wars and rumours of wars\nwherever you turn. Indeed, there are rumours abroad and at home of\nthe worst kind of war, the cruellest and most devastating kind of\nwar--civil war. Can it be possible that a good deal of this threat of\ncivil war arises from the very need which this book undertakes however\nimperfectly to supply? Can it be possible that revolution and even\nBolshevism may arise out of this need for a re-definition of terms?\n\nAt all events, even if this need is only a small contributory cause,\nit is serious enough and cannot be lightly passed over. It is for fear\nlest this need may be something more serious than a small contributory\ncause, that the author has suggested the remedy of re-definition\noutlined both in precept and example in this book. If his pioneer\neffort, however limited in range, may lead others to produce more\nthorough examples of his method, he will consider that his pains have\nbeen more than adequately repaid.\n\n                                              Anthony M. Ludovici.\n                                           _London, August, 1921._\n\n\n\n\n              [p. 11] THE FALSE ASSUMPTIONS OF \u201cDEMOCRACY.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                              INTRODUCTION.\n\n        THE CONFUSION OF LANGUAGE AND ITS RELATION TO REVOLUTION.\n\n  \u201cBabble, babble; our old England may go down in babble at last.\u201d\n  Tennyson (_Locksley Hall--Sixty Years After_).\n\n\nNothing on earth leads more certainly to disunion than a division of\ntongues. When it became necessary to disperse the iniquitous builders\nof the Tower of Babel, we know the expedient to which the Lord\nresorted, and how effective it proved to be. But whereas unity is a\ndesirable condition, and a common tongue is one of the most potent\nmeans of realising it, people not infrequently forget that a common\ntongue presupposes a common uniform culture. It depends upon a common\nview of human life and the world. This common culture provides the\nframe, so to speak, to the design of life, in which every word of a\nlanguage fits like a piece of mosaic. Remove the frame, disturb the\narrangement, and the odd pieces of mosaic fall all about you and lose\ntheir significance and their necessary association. They can be used\nonly as--missiles. [p12]\n\nWhatever weight the usual arguments against the Middle Ages may\npossess, at least this is plain, that in medi\u00e6val times a common\nculture prevailed among the leading nations of Europe. Indeed, if we\nwished to sum up the effect of the Middle Ages in one sentence, we\ncould not express ourselves more clearly than by saying, that in those\ndays the leaders of men attempted to convert Europe into a single\nnation. This effort, though only partially successful, at least led to\nthe magnificent result that most men, of what nation soever, understood\none another--understood one another particularly in their use of\nabstract or general terms. For that is the test. In the end the names\nof things remain. The words representing common objects are usually as\npermanent as those objects themselves. Fashion may destroy the object\nand thus render the word obsolete; but for hundreds of years none will\ndispute the proper connotation of the word \u201cchair,\u201d \u201ctable,\u201d \u201cbasket,\u201d\nfor instance; while in the realm of abstract and general terms such\nsevere fluctuations may have taken place as to make the same word mean\nsomething different to each generation.\n\nNow the supreme importance of abstract or general terms lies in the\nfact that they are the words with which we guide our lives, mark out\nour goals and direct our effort. It is therefore urgently necessary\nthat they should stand for very precise ideas, and that as the current\ncoinage of speech they should mean the same things to all men of the\nsame group, body, or nation. [p13]\n\nAs opposed to the effort of the Middle Ages, however, the effort of\nthis Age, or the Muddle Age, seems to be directed towards turning\nevery nation into a Europe--into a unit, that is to say, without\nunity. And this lack of unity is nowhere more acute and more apparent\nthan in the realm of abstract or general terms. People of the same\nnation, nowadays, no longer speak the same language. They no longer\nmean the same things, or convey the same ideas, when they speak of\nHappiness, Beauty, Order, Right, Freedom, Liberty, Justice, etc. The\nframe has gone. The common culture has been replaced by a congeries\nof pseudo-cultures, all in active conflict. The consequence is that\nthe all-important words of this class have fallen out of place in the\ndesign of life; they have no unifying whole in which they can find a\nstable position, they are at a loose end, so to speak, and they can be\nused not as intelligent missives, but only as missiles between isolated\ngroups and parties that are doomed to eternal conflict.\n\nA word at a loose end, however, is a word devoid of definite\nassociations and therefore of meaning. Can a word devoid of meaning be\nused as a missile? Certainly it can, provided that it be given, despite\nits loss of an intellectual appeal, sufficient motive power to provoke\nan emotion. But of this anon.\n\nThere can be no doubt that we have reached a condition in modern\nEurope, in which each nation is, as it were, a complex of nations--a\ncomplex in which the majority of the most important words (the\nabstract [p14] and general terms) not only mean different things to\ndifferent groups and coteries, but also convey no precise meaning\nwhatsoever to anybody. This, however, constitutes a state of complete\nconfusion, and therefore a very grave danger. Just as one cannot help\nappearing stupid when one is trying and failing to understand a foreign\ntongue, one really is stupid when one cannot understand one\u2019s own\ntongue.\n\nIf stupidity seems to be increasing--and there surely cannot be\nmuch doubt concerning at least this form of \u201cProgress,\u201d--it is due\nchiefly to men\u2019s growing incapacity to understand their mother tongue.\nAbstract and general terms are no longer comprehensible even to the\nmost literate; to the illiterate they are simply fireworks, flags or\nflagstones.\n\nNow this would be all very well if it ended in stupidity. But that is\nnot the final bourne of the present confusion of language. The final\nbourne is something much more serious, much more disastrous. It is\nrevolution.\n\nAll those who may be tempted to regard this conclusion as extreme,\nwould do well to pause a moment here, in order to dwell upon the\npossible consequences of a confusion of language.\n\nIs it not clear that at all times and in all climes where a confusion\nof language has existed, man has been doomed not only to be misleading\nand misled, but also to be incapable of leading? That is the worst\ndanger. A lack of precision amounting almost to incomprehensibility is\nsure in any case to mislead; but what if it makes it no longer possible\nto lead? [p15]\n\nThere will always be thousands of men prepared to mislead their\nfellows. Even in the heydey of every culture this has been so. Even\nwith language at its brightest and best in precision and adequacy\nthis is always so. But how about those who are prepared to lead their\nfellows, and who are admirably equipped for so doing? What are they to\ndo if the only medium which lies to hand is so corrupt, so devoid of\nmeaning, that they cannot use it without the tragic certainty of being\nmisunderstood?\n\nAnd yet who would undertake to stand up and speak to-day, even before\nan educated audience, without feeling certain beforehand that he\nwould be misunderstood if he used the words Liberty, Freedom, Right,\nDemocracy, Patriotism, etc.?\n\nThat is the danger. While there is a harvest prepared for those who\nwould mislead in days like the present; for the rare individual who\nwould lead, who is sufficiently gifted to lead, and whose leadership is\nneeded, there can be but disappointment and barrenness.\n\nThis is the pass to which our present confusion of language has brought\nus. It makes revolution possible, because it makes the pursuit of false\nideals inevitable, and conflict and misunderstanding a certainty.\n\nThe causes of our present condition are to be sought, first and\nchiefly, in the decline of a common and uniform culture, secondly in\nthe cheap literature that has come into being since the Education Act\nof 1870, and thirdly in modern journalism.\n\nIn modern journalism the distortion and abuse of terms, the crippling\nof words has [p16] become almost a habit. Catachresis, or the forcing\nand straining of words, is the rule; nowhere is the sacred duty of\nprecision less observed than in the very quarter where its sway should\nbe most uncontested. The journalist, intent only on sensation, is the\nfirst to debase words into missiles or empty symbols. He it is who\nsets the example to the crowd, by picking up these unfortunate fallen\npieces of mosaic, in order to fling them about with the wantonness of\na schoolboy. He it is who shakes the shoddy frame of modern culture\nin the hope of making even more of these sparkling fragments fall out\nof the design of life, until ultimately when some one does arise who\nwould choose to construct rather than to destroy, he finds nothing to\nhand but shapeless and irrecognisable monstrosities, chipped into mere\nstones by the mad fury with which they have been hurled about.\n\nMatters would not be so bad if it were possible to point to one class,\none stratum of society in England, in which language was treated with\nmore respect. Unfortunately this is no longer possible. Even among\nspeakers of good education this misuse of language is all too common.\nThe present writer once heard the Bishop of London address a cultivated\naudience on the subject of Reconstruction, and was compelled to take\nexception at least a dozen times to that dignitary\u2019s illegitimate use\nof the word \u201cDemocracy.\u201d[1]\n\nThe reality of the danger, its imminence, will perhaps strike the most\nincredulous when it is pointed out to them that the [p17] French\nRevolution itself was the outcome of a confusion of language; nor can\nthere be any doubt that the Russian Revolution had a similar origin.\n\nThe French Revolution can be traced, and has been traced, even by\nwriters quite friendly to \u201cdemocracy,\u201d to the radical misunderstanding\nof three words--Nature, Freedom, and Man--by Jean Jacques Rousseau.\nThis writer, as is well known, after having formed a totally fantastic\nand false concept of Nature, began to speculate upon the unhappy\ncontrast that human civilisation presented in comparison with this\nfairylike figment of his mind. He compared man in the state of\nNature--Rousseau\u2019s \u201cNature\u201d--with civilised man in the 18th century,\nand then proceeded to show how impure, immoral and corrupt, was the\nsecond kind of man as compared with the former. The fact that the whole\ncomparison was vitiated by the absurd impossibility of this so-called\n\u201cthinker\u2019s\u201d arbitrary definition of Nature, was only discovered\nscores of years later, when the untold damage to which his insane\nmisunderstanding led, had long been past repair.\n\nFor the \u201cNature\u201d of Rousseau was the Nature of our most successful\nVictorian poets--all smiling meadows, babbling brooks, nodding flowers\nand innocence. He had neither the profundity nor the honesty to see\nNature as she really is--immoral, hard, merciless and tasteless.[2]\nLike our Victorian poets when Rousseau gazed upon a rustic scene, he\nthought neither of the stoat in the hedge quietly devouring its field\nmouse, nor of the starling in the coppice solemnly and methodically\nhammering a snail to a pulp before swallowing it. He gave no thought\neither to the pitiless and eternal conflict of all the vegetation at\nhis feet, or to the struggle probably going on in the adjoining village\nbetween a beautiful child and the microbe of tuberculosis. He dwelt\nonly on that something which was not Man and proceeded to endow that\nsomething, which was not Man, with all the qualities that his feverish\nimagination regarded as desirable.\n\nWhen, therefore, he proceeded to plant his \u201cnatural man\u201d down in this\nutterly fanciful scenario of Rousseau-esque \u201cNature,\u201d he perforce drew\na picture even more distorted of humanity than he had already drawn of\nNature, and thus proceeded to his ultimate fatuous conclusion that \u201cMan\nwas born free and everywhere he is in chains.\u201d\n\nAbsurd and meaningless as this phrase was, it succeeded, as Lord Morley\nhas pointed out, in thrilling the generation to which it was uttered\nin two continents; and it was not until a hundred years later that\nsomeone appeared who demonstrated that Rousseau was not only a liar\nbut a pernicious liar. Meanwhile, Napoleon had proved to the French\npeople, in deeds if not in words, how ludicrously fantastic were the\nravings of this Genevan firebrand; but the philosophic demonstration\nof his radical misunderstanding of the three words, \u201cFreedom,\u201d [p19]\n\u201cNature,\u201d and \u201cMan,\u201d had to be left to a later generation.\n\nThe fact that the French Revolution was the outcome of this radical\nmisunderstanding is now no longer contested by any serious thinker.\n\nA searching and forcible re-definition of \u201cNature,\u201d \u201cFreedom,\u201d and\n\u201cMan,\u201d in the light of history, biology, psychology, and a sound\noutlook on life and humanity, if it had been rapidly prepared and\nwidely circulated in Rousseau\u2019s lifetime, might have defeated the\nefforts of this Arch-charlatan to poison his own country and the world;\nbut, in those days, who dreamt that the misunderstanding, or the\ndeliberate misinterpretation, of three such simple words as Freedom,\nNature, and Man, could lead to so much horror and bloodshed?\n\nThe world at that time was only faintly aware of the far-reaching\npractical effect even of sound ideas; how could it justly estimate the\nconsequences of false or unsound ideas?\n\nNow, however, we know. There is no longer any excuse for us; our\nlesson is before us. And, alas! to-day, we are confronted not by the\nmere misunderstanding of three simple words, we are confronted by the\nvery much more formidable fact that there is scarcely one general\nor abstract term in the whole of our language that has any definite\nmeaning. We are confronted by the imminent menace of no longer having\nany language at all with which to appeal either to the reason or the\nunreason of man.\n\nAll the words by which our life, our [p20] aspirations and our energy\ncan be directed, have long ago become so meaningless, as the result of\nrepeated falsification, mutilation and counterfeiting, that we may soon\nbe reduced to the expedients of animals and savages, in order to make\nourselves clear, and drown our voices in the clash of arms.\n\nAnd yet it can be shown that these abstract and general terms, which\nno longer have any definite meaning, or which have acquired an utterly\nmisleading meaning, do provoke emotions and feelings which are none the\nless harmful for being indefinite and vague.\n\nHow is this possible? If it is claimed that a word has ceased to make\nany intellectual or rational appeal, owing to repeated catachresis\nor misunderstanding, how can it still provoke dangerous feelings\nand emotions? If it fails, owing to the variety of ways in which it\nis understood, from meeting with uniform interpretation, how can it\nprovoke uniform action?\n\nA word may have ceased from making any intellectual appeal, and yet be\nforcibly associated by word-counterfeiters and other agitators with\ncertain vague desiderata which defy analysis. For instance, suppose a\ncertain adult A. repeat again and again to a child B. that one day, if\nit is obedient and amenable, it will be taken to \u201cChekko\u2019s.\u201d The child\nmay press for a description of \u201cChekko\u2019s\u201d; but all A. does is to nod\nhis head, smile with prophetical good humour, and say: \u201cAh, you\u2019ll see.\nIt\u2019s wonderful! It\u2019s magic!\u201d\n\nHere we have a case of a child to whom the word \u201cChekko\u2019s\u201d means\nliterally nothing. It is, however, associated vaguely [p21] with\nsomething mysteriously desirable. \u201cChekko\u2019s\u201d may have no real\nexistence, but certain emotions are nevertheless suscitated in the\nchild by the sound of the word, because it has been led to believe that\nsomething dimly pleasant is associated with the name. Ultimately even a\nflag inscribed with the word \u201cChekko\u2019s\u201d will make the child shout with\njoy; a signpost with the direction: \u201cTo Chekko\u2019s\u201d will make it leap\nwith excitement, and a mere passing reference to the \u201cChecko-Slovaks\u201d\nwill lead it to suspect that these people must be a very pleasant and\nhappy nation.\n\nA correct definition of \u201cChekko\u2019s\u201d given by someone whom the child\ntrusts, would suffice either to dispel the emotion provoked by the\nsound, or else to confirm it, according to whether it had or had not\na real existence, and that existence corresponded with the child\u2019s\nfostered mental image of it. But in any case the process of dissuasion\nwould take time, and the re-definition would have to be inculcated upon\nthe child as assiduously as the false and hazy original association had\nbeen.\n\nIt is possible, therefore, to provoke dynamic emotions by means of an\nabsolutely meaningless sound, even when the intellect of the listener\nreceives no appeal whatsoever.\n\nIn view of this elementary fact in psychology, the extreme danger of\nhaving a very large number of both meaningless and inflammable words in\nour current speech will perhaps begin to be obvious.\n\nThe fact that the word \u201cFreedom\u201d has now become practically\nmeaningless--even more meaningless than Rousseau made it, [p22]\nbecause now it has not even a fictitious meaning--does not render it\na whit less potent in provoking cheers and wild enthusiasm when it is\nshouted from the mystic eminence of a public platform.\n\nPresumably when Rousseau spoke of \u201cFreedom\u201d he meant a certain lack\nof compulsion regarding actions which are peculiar to civilisation,\na certain absence of constraint in regard to conventions that do not\nharass the savage. The savage does not require to wear clean linen,\nhe does not require to wear a hat, he may if he choose eat with his\nfingers, or come to breakfast unshaven; he may have three or four\nwives, he may eat human flesh, he may live in the open and shoot down\nhis prey without considering whether it belongs to the squire or to\nthe lord of the manor. Rousseau cannot have meant anything but this\nby \u201cFreedom.\u201d If Rousseau had been told that while it was true that\nthe savage does not require to perform much that the civilised man has\nto perform, the civilised man, on the other hand, is \u201cfree\u201d from many\na duty that is incumbent on the savage, he would have perceived that\nto drop the constraints of civilisation for those of barbarism merely\namounted to exchanging one form of bondage for another. For instance,\nthe savage of certain climes has to tattoo his flesh, sometimes with\ngreat pain; he has to observe certain rigid taboos, he has to hunt for\nhis food, he has to fight every day of his life against wild animals\nand the hostile tribe of his neighbourhood into the bargain; he has to\nwork hard during boyhood and early [p23] manhood to acquire efficiency\nin the arts of the chase and of war; he is obliged to recognise a\nchieftain, etc. In fact, it could be shown that Man in a \u201cstate of\nnature\u201d is perhaps even more constrained by conventions and laws than\ncivilised man. Only by deliberately falsifying the evidence--that is\nto say, by giving a thoroughly distorted notion of Nature, would it be\npossible to contend that man \u201cin a state of nature\u201d is more \u201cfree\u201d than\ncivilised man. Rousseau, as we have seen, however, did not hesitate to\nfalsify the evidence. Hence he was able to say: \u201cMan is born free and\neverywhere he is in chains.\u201d\n\nBut if we turn to the modern idea of Freedom, we shall find that it\nis even more difficult to understand than Rousseau\u2019s. For at least\nRousseau\u2019s \u201cFreedom\u201d can be traced to a romantic distortion of the true\nattributes of \u201cNature\u201d; the modern idea of \u201cFreedom\u201d can be traced to\nnothing.\n\nIn its two forms, the alleged desideratum of modernity. Freedom and\nLiberty, means literally nothing.\n\nIf we put the questions--freedom and liberty from what? and freedom\nand liberty for what?--it will be seen immediately that there is no\ndefinite idea whatsoever behind the words. Freedom or liberty as an\naim, presupposes emancipation from a yoke. What is the yoke from which\nmodern man wishes to be free? Is it work? Is it timed work?\n\nFreedom or liberty as an aim presupposes emancipation from a yoke for\na definite purpose. What is this purpose? Is it a higher or a lower?\nIs it more entertainment [p24] or more usefulness? Is it desirable or\nundesirable?\n\nTo none of these questions is there any answer, because the modern\nwords Freedom and Liberty connote nothing. And the same applies to such\nwords as Equality, Right, Justice. These mere sounds have ceased to\nbe words. But they all imply some mysterious desideratum which it may\nbe worth while fighting for. They are missiles, fireworks, unmusical\nchords--anything! All they have retained of their original nature, is\nthe power of directing energy. They no longer call up any definite or\nexpressible idea.\n\nNow when the most hortatory and inspiriting words of a language have\nceased to have any definite meaning, the nation using that language is\nin imminent danger of internal discord and rupture, and the beneficent\ninfluence of indolence and inertia alone can avert a catastrophe. The\nonly question is, have we sufficient native indolence and inertia to\ntide over this crisis in our language?\n\nEven if we have, the Continent has not, and ultimately by infection or\ncontagion, our inertia and indolence, too, will be overcome.\n\nWhat is the remedy? What is the corrective? What is the best means of\nresisting the influence of the Continent and of the corrosive elements\nat home without relying too confidently upon our negative qualities\nalone?\n\nStrange as it may sound, the present writer suggests, as one of the\nmost direct roads to a recovery of political and national [p25]\nhealth, in the first place, that the disease of language should be\ncured. Everywhere, in the whole of the civilised world, disease of\nlanguage is rampant. That country alone will resist and survive the\nrevolutionary epidemic, which first cures its disease of language.\n\nBut how is this to be done?\n\nThe grand method, the best method, would of course consist in\nre-creating a common and uniform culture, in which the spiritual words\nand phrases of the national language would find a new and definite\nplace, a fresh and unmistakable association.\n\nThis, however, is perhaps a counsel of perfection. For where are\nthe men to-day who would be prepared to embark on this gigantic\nundertaking, even if they were equipped for it? It is possible, and\nthe material for its accomplishment lies close at hand. But where are\nthe free spirits who have the courage, and who are capable of the\nsolidarity, that would be required for such a task?\n\nThe second best method, and the one more compatible with the power of\nour best men of to-day, would consist in rescuing the meaningless terms\nof our language--and there are thousands of them--from their pointless,\nunattached and almost disreputable existence. It would consist in\nre-defining them in the realistic light of history, biology and\npsychology, and in the light of a sane and sound outlook on humanity\nand the world. It would consist, further, in creating a convention as\nrigorous as the existing convention regarding all reference to sexual\nquestions and organs, according to which [p26] it would be regarded\nas an act of gross immorality and indecency to commit the sin of\ncatachresis or abuse against any of the words thus re-defined, and it\nshould be incumbent upon the ordinary citizen to report to the nearest\npolice station any such breach of decency which he might happen to\ndiscover while reading his daily paper, or a novel, or any treatise\nprinted after the promulgation of the law.\n\nHow many false ideals, false aspirations, and pernicious creeds and\ndoctrines would then be dispersed? How many agitators, tub-thumpers,\nself-seeking bell-wethers, would then be put to flight! How many\npoliticians would then starve! But how fresh and crisp the air of every\ndebating chamber would then become!\n\nThis is a possible and highly practical method of dealing with our\npresent situation. There is no excuse for its not being adopted. When\nonce it had achieved all it could achieve, the masses should be made to\nbenefit from the results of the undertaking. Indeed, it would be more\nor less futile if they were not made to benefit in this way. They would\nthen become the alert and merciless critics of people who now sway them\nas easily as if they were corn in the wind; and seven-eighths of our\npresent-day literature would cease from being published.\n\nIt is the surest, the speediest, and the most fruitful method of\nsaving what still remains of Order and Culture. But it is a stupendous\nundertaking and one that will exact a heavy toll from all those who\nembark upon it.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 1: He used the word in the sense of the \u201cproletariat\u201d or the\n\u201cmasses.\u201d]\n\n[Footnote 2: Perhaps Tennyson should be honourably excepted here (see\n_In Memoriam_ LVI., line 15); but while the realistic estimate of\nNature is certainly hinted at in the lines referred to, it could not be\nclaimed that Tennyson consistently upheld this attitude.]\n\n\n\n\n                             [p27] CHAPTER I\n\n                    THE PRINCIPLE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY\n\n  \u201cThere is nothing wrong either in great wealth or in extensive\n  property, provided that it be wisely administered.\u201d--William Cobbett\n  (_Rural Rides_).\n\n\nBehind most of the modern hostility towards established and traditional\ninstitutions, it is not only a matter of mere caution, but also\nessentially scientific to suspect a certain amount of physical as well\nas psychical exhaustion. Modern mankind is tired, both bodily and\nspiritually. The pale fireless eyes of our urban adults alone ought\nto make us suspect the truth about this matter. Two thousand years of\nthe increasing complication of Life, during which man\u2019s attention has\nhad ever more and more detail to occupy it, together with a feeling\nof very genuine disillusionment on the part of the most enlightened\nregarding the highest ideals of the past; two thousand years, moreover,\nof progressive debilitation, during which the resisting powers of\nexuberant health have gradually and steadily been worn down--must have\nhad their effect upon recent generations, and materially impaired\ntheir ability to face the institutions of their forefathers with their\nforefathers\u2019 spirit, health and understanding.\n\nIt cannot be repeated too often that it would be gravely unscientific,\nnay imprudent, to proceed to an examination of the modern hostility to\ntraditional ideas and principles without taking into account [p28] the\nattitude of mind, the tone of mind, and the degree of health, of those\nwho represent this hostility. The fact that modern books on political\nquestions usually take as their data the very conclusions to which this\nhostility has led, without previously determining the validity of the\nwhole standpoint, or discovering the kind of minds that are responsible\nfor it, need not deter us from departing from the customary method. Nor\ncan our superior caution in this respect be fairly interpreted as bias.\n\nIt must surely be clear to most of us that, not only we ourselves, but\nall our contemporaries as well, are radically and incurably weary. Our\nphysical resistance against disease is as seriously in peril as is our\nspiritual resistance against error, or against those ideals and desires\nthat can appeal only to invalids.\n\nWhere life is ebbing, however, her most fundamental principles, her\nmost inexorable demands, must be losing the force of their appeal. An\near is therefore lent ever more willingly and eagerly to doctrines and\nprecepts which are non-vital, which already have about them the bitter\neffluvia of death; and it becomes ever more and more difficult to\nwithstand the fascination of this new persuasiveness.\n\nBut because Man has reached a degree of lassitude that induces him to\nlisten more patiently and submissively than of yore, to doctrines and\nprecepts of decline and decay, it does not follow that these doctrines\nare irresistible either in their rational or emotional appeal. It does\nnot even follow that their _rational_ dressing is any more [p29] above\nsuspicion than they are themselves. The attempt intellectually to\njustify and bolster up a sickly tenet may be as unhealthy as that tenet\nitself.\n\nIt is suspicion, above all, that is needed wherever we turn in our\nmodern storehouse of ideals and panaceas--suspicion coupled with the\nconviction that man is desperately weary in body and soul.\n\nNow there is a state of weariness and apathy in which things that\nhave become out of gear are no longer readjusted or repaired, but\ndeliberately and ruthlessly destroyed. Each of us can picture in our\nmind\u2019s eye, the behaviour of the nervous invalid who, too exhausted\nto repair a persistently clanging bell, tears down the whole fitting,\nwires and all, so that the disturbing sound may cease for ever. Such\nan act is typical of exhaustion. It amounts to a deep-seated surrender\nof the power of repair. Brain and body tissues that are not themselves\nregularly repaired or recreated can hardly be expected to devise the\nmeans of repairing or recreating other things.\n\nThus we should expect the modern and exhausted mind to proceed in its\ncorrective lust, not by means of readjustment, but by amputation,\nnot by therapeutic art, but by extirpation. There are thousands of\nbells clanging discordantly in the house of civilisation to-day. The\ntemptation of the modern man is therefore to tear them down, wires and\nall.\n\nWhenever anything goes wrong--and things cannot always work smoothly\nin society, particularly in vast and complex communities like those\nof Western Europe--it is [p30] natural for a certain large element\nin the population to proceed by means of suppression and amputation,\nby lopping off some creation of the past, and advancing the most\nconvincing arguments for so doing.\n\nIf the Lords fail us, the simplest method is to do away with them. If\nindividual enterprise falls short of its promise, a clamour is raised\nfor its abolition. Family life goes wrong, married life goes wrong,\nand the remedy suggested is to make the dissolution of the marriage\ntie easier. It does not matter whether you are destroying a portion of\nyour organism and therefore impoverishing yourself thereby, for you\nare simplifying your task, and this for an invalid is an achievement\nof maximum importance. Everything thus falls into a process of general\ndisintegration, all troublesome appendages are sloughed off, and the\nbody of civilisation is gradually truncated or dissolved. Meanwhile,\nhowever, since every step in this process of decomposition receives\nthe most convincing intellectual support, no one suspects that there\nare other and better methods of setting to work. It never occurs to\nthe typical modern mind that if institutions are to be abolished as\nfast as degenerate people show themselves unable to uphold them,\nthen an immediate and far more speedy way of refuting and abolishing\nall civilisation would be to fill all its leading positions, and to\ninvest all its institutions, with raw savages from the Cannibal Isles.\nEvery institution and tradition would then break down, and presumably\nthe modern mind would be satisfied that the only remedy [p31] would\nconsist in the abolition of all institutions and traditions.\n\nLong ago the present writer pointed out that to set a buffoon on the\nthrone is not to confute monarchy, and yet this is the principle we\nwork upon in all our reforms. We never once question whether it may not\nbe modern man himself who is wrong or decadent. This at least might\nlead us to look in the proper direction for improvement. We merely\nassail with savage fury every institution that modern man can no longer\nrun to his and our own satisfaction.\n\nThus the instinctive and morbid indolence of sickness, to which\namputation and suppression are naturally the most tempting corrective\nmethods, becomes the standard of judgment for all ills; and where\nignorant minds are added to sick minds, the natural bankruptcy of\nignorance joins hands with the destructive lust of the sick, and the\ntwo together, hatchet in hand, set out to \u201creform\u201d the world.\n\nCan anyone doubt that this is indeed what we are witnessing on all\nsides? And does not the very specious seductiveness of the Socialist\nand Bolshevist propaganda lead us to suspect that here, at least, we\nare invalids listening to invalids?\n\nThe principle of Private Property is being assailed on all sides. It is\nnow the fashion to talk glibly of the evanescence of private property,\njust as it is the fashion to be suffering from pyorrh\u0153a or caries.\nPrivate property is another of the features of ancient societies which\nin this Muddle Age has got out of order; and the consequence is, as we\nshould expect, that it is beginning [p32] to be suggested--nay, it has\nalready been loudly proclaimed--that private property, as the root of\nall evils, should be abolished.\n\nNow in this new project of vandalism, we have not only one symptom\nof disease, but two. For, while we have our old friend, the morbid\nindolence of the sick, which cannot recreate or repair, but must\nsuppress, we also have a frontal attack on Life itself, pressed by the\nforces of decay and disintegration disguised as Utopians. For private\nproperty is a principle of Life.\n\nThe fact that this is everywhere apparent, does not, of course,\nprevent the myopic from overlooking it; it should, however, prevent\nthe multitude from being deceived, and we believe the multitude are\nstill not deceived. For it is obviously the multitude, the vast mass of\nmankind, who have the least of this world\u2019s goods, who should be the\nfirst to be duped about this matter; and yet how long it is taking to\nconvince them! How tenacious they seem of the old principle! How deeply\nmust they believe in private property in order, with their handful of\nhousehold sticks and baubles, to resist the morbid lie which is being\nreiterated by a thousand moribund voices all round them, that private\nproperty is wrong.\n\nIt has been said that private property is a principle of Life. What,\nthen, is its biological value?\n\nIts biological value is the same as the biological value of the best\nlife itself.\n\nTo be quite plain, Life as a whole does not represent a general\nmovement upwards, from the standpoint of quality. On the contrary.\nThe great majority of Life\u2019s activities [p33] have a gravitating or\ndescending tendency--that is to say, in a large number of organisms,\nacquired embellishments or acquired faculties and qualities more\nfrequently have to be dropped than retained in the course of\ngenerations. Spencer has shown conclusively that by far the greater\nnumber of existing organisms are the degenerate descendants of\nhigher species (see _Collected Essays_, Vol. I., p. 379). The laws\nof evolution, therefore, cover millions of cases of _retrograde\nmetamorphosis_, or change consisting of the loss of complex qualities\nor members for the purpose of survival. And in all these cases of\nretrograde metamorphosis, instead of the identity of the individual\nbecoming extended, it is actually diminished or reduced.\n\nDevelopment is, therefore, really the exception rather than the\nrule. It covers only those cases in which a cumulative or forward\nmetamorphosis has taken place. It is characteristic only of those\nspecies in which identity has been extended. Indeed, development might\nbe called the law of higher life, or of that life which advances by\ngradual steps from the homogeneous to the heterogenous, which, in fact,\n_unfolds itself_ only to reveal and to perpetuate ever fresh and new\nattributes and activities.\n\nDevelopment is a name which, though not descriptive of all organic\nevolution,[3] certainly describes the changes of a species _that has\ngrown_ through its thousands of generations--grown, that is to say,\nin the sense of having become more and more--more and more capable of\nmultifarious activities and adaptations.\n\nDevelopment in this correct and restricted sense of \u201cgrowth,\u201d thus\nimplies \u201cbecoming more,\u201d \u201cextending identity.\u201d Becoming more,\ntherefore, is a principle of higher life.\n\nNow what does this conclusion necessarily involve in the terms of\nhumanity? It means that the _ascending_ line of life in the genus Homo\nSapiens, at least, has not only become more and more, but must also\nhave been characterised by the spiritual counterpart of this physical\nstriving, which consists in desiring to become more and more--that is\nto say, to extend identity.\n\nAny slackening, any reversal, any paralysis of this desire to become\nmore and more, may thus be regarded as the beginning of the other\nmovement--the movement of retrograde development, of decline.\n\nIn each healthy individual of a truly _developing_ species, we should\ntherefore expect to find the _conscious_ counterpart of the principle\nof higher life, which will be the desire to become more and more, to\nextend identity.\n\nTo assail this desire to become more and more is therefore tantamount\nto a conspiracy against life, it is tantamount to a denial of\nthe healthiest instinct of the species. It is the hand of death\noutstretched across the _ascending road_ of the animal man.\n\nCall this adverse criticism or hostility [p35] what you\nwill--Socialism, Communism, or Bolshevism, it is all one. It is the\ncry of those who have lost ascending or developing life\u2019s strongest\ninstinct against those who still possess it. Or else it is the cry of\nthe envious in life\u2019s battle, who pretend to have lost life\u2019s strongest\ninstinct, in order to acquire power over those who have not.\n\nI shall hardly be called upon to draw the obvious conclusion. How\ndoes, how can, the individual of a species that falls naturally under\nthe head of Development manifest this incessant striving to become\nmore, which is the conscious counterpart of the physical evolution\nof the race, except by means of private property? How can he achieve\nthis becoming more which, as we have seen, constitutes an extension of\nhis identity, without private property? I do not refer here to those\nexceptional individuals who are content with a non-material expression\nof this \u201cbecoming more,\u201d but to the mass of mankind, in which\nindividual extension _must_ take a material form. Private property is\nthe only means, and this private property is so closely identified with\nindividual extension that, as we know, in certain Ages and climes,\nwives and children have been included in the category.\n\nIt constitutes the gratification, nay the very necessity, of one of\nthe deepest instincts of man. It is indistinguishable, inseparable,\nfrom the law of growth; hence the obstinate attachment even the poorest\nstill reveal in regard to it; hence the uphill work which the preachers\nof Death and Decay, still find their propaganda to be.\n\nThe very morality of development says [p36] \u201cYea\u201d to this desire to be\nand to become more. The very morality of development identifies growth,\nin the individual sense, with the general growth of the species, and\ntherefore sanctifies and hallows the instinct of self-extension which\nis the instinct of private property. Only the sincere and whole-hearted\npessimist can logically assail the principle of private property, for\nhe alone can honestly desire to cripple his fellows, paralyse their\nlife instinct, and curtail their existence on the globe.\n\nIt is hardly necessary here to refer to the dawn of the sense of\nprivate property in the lower animals. This has been done often enough.\nSuffice it to point out, however, that in them also it is most apparent\nwhere the variety of activities and adaptations is most complex--among\nthe bees, the ants, the dogs and the cats. True, the private property\nin question is only food, or matter which will one day be used as food.\nBut is this not true of all property? Has not the revolution in Russia\nshown that all property is merely so much frozen food, so much wealth\nthat can ultimately be bartered for nourishment? And does not this\nagain point to its deep relationship to the highest law of growth?\n\nThe important outcome of this inquiry into the ultimate relation of\nprivate property to biology and to the highest laws of life, however,\nis that it enables one to recognise the Socialist, the Bolshevist, and\nthe Communist (where they are most sincere and fervent) in their true\nguise--that is to say, as the convinced and determined opponents, not\nonly of a particular class, but of Life [p37] itself; as pessimists\nand bitter misanthropists, who do not scruple to conceal their\nhostility to an important life-principle beneath the most engaging and\nmost unctuous of altruistic poses.\n\nBut then is all well with the principle of private property to-day? And\nare the Socialists, Bolshevists and Communists all wrong?\n\nAll is certainly not well with the principle of private property as\nit is allowed to work in our societies at the present day. Hence the\ncolourable warrant that is given to the attacks of the Socialists and\nCommunists upon it. Hence, too, the plausibility of their claims. For\nit is the simplest of feats to confuse an issue, and in societies where\nthe right of private property is abused, it is easy to convince the\nthoughtless that the thing abused, and not the abuse itself, is the\nreal curse.\n\nIt is, therefore, readily admitted that there is a good deal that is\nwrong about private property as a principle practised by modern man;\nthe wrong, however, is no more inherent in the principle itself, than\ncruelty to children, because it happens to occupy the attention of a\nlarge and wealthy society in England, is inherent in the principle of\nparenthood. And it is because the present evils of the distribution of\nwealth are not inherent in the principle of private property, that it\nis ridiculous--not only ridiculous, but also highly suspicious--to wish\nto sweep away the institution itself in order to remedy the evils that\nnow unquestionably account for its disrepute.\n\nIt has been shown why this desire to [p38] sweep away the institution\nis doubly suspicious:--\n\n(_a_) Because it is the natural resort of sick and exhausted people,\nwho are incapable of repairing or recreating anything.\n\n(_b_) Because it is the action of people who are hostile not merely\nto private property, but to Life in general. (The fact that they are\nusually completely unconscious of this hostility only renders them all\nthe more dangerous.)\n\nThe recognition of the right of private property is probably the oldest\nof all human principles. It is seen in all great civilisations. Every\ngreat culture has been built upon it. All societies, however, have not\ncreated the evils of modern Western civilisation. This alone ought to\nhave provided a hint in the right direction. It ought to have been seen\nthat the evils attending the distribution of wealth to-day, are evils\nmore or less peculiar to the kind of culture we have evolved.\n\nWhat are these evils?\n\n(1) The chief evil of all is that by our present method of wealth\ndistribution, the best people are not infrequently the most sorely\noppressed, the most severely chastised by poverty and lack of power.\nThe correlative evil to this is that those who are powerful to-day\nthrough wealth, are frequently so hopelessly unfitted to hold their\nposition that the system which elevates such people to their present\neminence seems as if it must be bad to the root.\n\n(2) The next in importance is that life at present is organised in such\nwise that poverty does not mean merely humbleness [p39] of station;\nfor which of us would object to that? It means being compelled to\nperform some of the most heart-rending, most unhealthy, most besotting\nand characterless work that the economy of the community has to offer.\nSociety should be organised in such a way that either filthy and\nbesotting labours should not be necessary or else that where they are\nnecessary, they should entail compensating advantages.\n\n(3) The next in importance is that, as society is organised at present,\npoverty, which might be readily and cheerfully accepted by thousands\nof us, aye, actually preferred in some cases--now almost necessarily\nsignifies bad air, ugly surroundings, poor food, and consequently an\nunsecured bill of health. Accessibility to conditions in which good air\nand beauty are, as it were, happily wedded, is becoming ever more and\nmore the restricted privilege of the wealthy.\n\n(4) Owing to a misunderstanding of the true nature of social unity,\nwealth, or extensive private property, now gives certain classes the\npower of trespassing upon the life-needs of their fellows, without,\nhowever, being amenable to law--cornering markets, levying undue\nprofits, destroying beautiful sites, supporting a host of societies\nwhich are simply parasitic pests on the nation\u2019s back, unwise disposal\nof fortunes, etc.\n\n(5) Owing to the educational advantages associated with wealth--an\nassociation which is quite unessential and arbitrary--modern society\nimposes a certain measure of benightedness and ignorance as an\ninevitable inheritance upon poverty, which is not in the least\nessential to poverty _per se_. [p40]\n\nAfter this brief enumeration of some of the leading evils of our\npresent system of wealth distribution, is it not, however, more than\never clear that none of these evils is inherent in the principle of\nprivate property itself? Who would venture to prove that any one of the\nwrongs enumerated was (_a_) either inherent in the principle of private\nproperty, or (_b_) irremediable without the sacrifice of that principle?\n\nIf we consider the first and chief wrong which consists in the fact\nthat private property at the present day frequently elevates to power\npeople who are totally unfitted to wield any power at all, while it as\nfrequently condemns to impotence, obscurity and ignominy, people who\nwould be eminently fitted to wield power, we realise at once that the\nfault does not lie in the amount of property held by these people, but\nupon the significance which current opinion and the prevailing estimate\nof wealth attaches to the accident of great or small possessions in\neither case.\n\nIt is well known, everybody indeed has heard of it, that in certain\ncultures that have existed and still exist, the significance of great\npossessions has not been the same as that which Western civilisation\nhas chosen to attach to them. The Brahmin of India, for instance,\nalthough he is doomed to poverty in the most literal sense, is the\nmost highly respected among rich and poor alike. He rules and directs\nopinion, neither because he is rich, nor because he is poor, but\nbecause he is profoundly wise, and because power does not happen\nto be connected, in the enlightened Hindu mind, [p41] with great\npossessions. It can be shown, and has been shown often enough, that the\nfamous mendicant monks of the Middle Ages did not increase their power,\nbut actually forfeited it, when they acquired riches and became as the\nother holy orders.\n\nEvidently, then, the equation Wealth = Importance = Power, is not an\ninevitable one. It does not depend upon mathematical necessity. It is\na perfectly arbitrary association of ideas, which is the result of a\nsingular and quite gratuitous valuation.\n\nThe fact that it is deeply seated in the prejudices and prepossessions\nof all Western peoples, appears to give it the sanction almost of a\nsocial law. It would, however, constitute the acme of imprudence and\nsuperficiality to allow oneself to be led by this apparent unanimity\ninto the belief that it either denotes or implies an ordinance of Fate.\n\nThe unanimity with which reverence is now felt for wealth alone, is\nonly one of the many instances which it would be possible to give, of\nthe stubborn and determined manner in which an arbitrary valuation\nstrikes root in the heart of whole nations, when once it has been\nsystematically and painstakingly inculcated upon them. It is one of\nthose cases which inspire with hope all those who may be confronted\nwith the apparently thankless task of altering the prejudices and\nprepossessions of a people. For, if it has been possible erroneously to\nraise wealth to the highest among our valuations, without a trace of\nsocial law to help us, it is clear that it must be possible to alter\nthat valuation, to \u201ctransvalue\u201d it, [p42] as the technical phrase has\nit, and to bring mankind back to a more rational understanding of the\nproper equipment of power, which consists chiefly of wisdom, virtue,\ncharacter and resolution.\n\nNobody denies, of course, that when once wisdom, virtue, character and\nresolution, happen to combine in the same individual, the addition of\nwealth may make that individual exceptionally precious; but wealth,\nas we frequently see it to-day, endowing with power people who are\nneither wise, virtuous, characterful nor resolute, is little less than\na national curse.\n\nFor what does wealth mean? It means simply that the owner of it has\na purchasing power over the services of his fellows. It by no means\nsignifies that this purchasing power will of necessity be wisely,\nvirtuously or profitably exercised. Wherever it is not wisely,\nvirtuously and profitably exercised, therefore, it becomes a scourge.\nThe power itself becomes _violence_; and it is incumbent upon the\nlaws of all well-regulated communities to suppress at least man-made\nviolence. The besetting vice of all Western societies, whether\nMonarchies, Aristocracies, Republics, or \u201cDemocracies,\u201d has been and\nis still that they have never taken adequate steps to suppress this\nparticular kind of violence.\n\nBut the remedy for such violence would not consist in abolishing the\nprinciple of private property. You might just as well abolish knives\nbecause they are frequently used by homicidal maniacs. The remedy\nconsists in so modifying the life of the nation, and the prejudices and\nprepossessions of the [p43] nation, that wealth may not necessarily\nmean power, and that poverty may not necessarily mean ignominy,\nignorance and ill-health[4]; also that it should be difficult for\nmaterial success to be achieved by people who are frequently the most\ncontemptible members of the community both in spiritual and physical\ngifts.\n\nAll those who question the possibility of such an achievement in the\nrecasting of values, are invited to dwell upon the genesis and growth\nof the prevalent ruling equation, Wealth = Importance = Power. They are\ninvited, furthermore, to discover the moment in history when another\nvaluation showed signs of becoming prevalent, and to ascertain by what\nmeans, foul or otherwise, it was made to fail. Then only, in the light\nof what they found, will they be able to decide whether a new equation\nand a new valuation have not even now a chance of being initiated,\naccepted, and universally believed.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 3: An enormous amount of confusion has been caused by the\nloose application of the term \u201cDevelopment,\u201d to all processes of\nchange in life. Strictly speaking, development means unfolding. But\nthe process by which the tape-worm has degenerated from the higher\nspecies to which it once belonged is not a process of unfolding or\ndevelopment, but one of loss and reduction, one of gradual truncation\nand limitation.]\n\n[Footnote 4: It should be remembered, however, that in a society in\nwhich success really did depend upon the possession of the highest\nmoral and bodily qualities that the community could display,--which is\nby no means the case at present,--poverty or failure would undoubtedly\nhave a certain inexpungeable stigma upon it; and quite rightly too.\nThat which removes the stigma from poverty or failure to-day, in the\neyes of the enlightened, is the fact that riches and success are\nfrequently achieved by people who could not possibly lay claim to any\nhigh moral and bodily qualities,--not to mention the highest.]\n\n\n\n\n                            [p44] CHAPTER II\n\n                                 JUSTICE\n\n  \u201cSi nos coeurs battent, c\u2019est dans ce but ... c\u2019est pour que nous\n  puissions compter sur l\u2019avenir et savoir s\u2019il y a dans les choses\n  d\u2019ici bas une justice immanente qui vient \u00e0 son jour et \u00e0 son\n  heure[5].\u201d--L. Gambetta (Cherbourg speech. August 9th, 1880).\n\n\nA discussion of the idea of justice almost necessarily precedes the\nsubject of the next chapter, for the kind of justice which is the\nobject of public clamour outside the law and police-courts, and beyond\nthe dealings of man with man, provides one of the principal arguments\nto those who believe in human equality.\n\nIn this essay, then, it is clear that we shall not be concerned either\nwith the justice which includes the administration of the law, and\nthe incidence of the law of any country, or with the justice which\nrelates to the unwritten rules of conduct governing the commerce of\nmen and women; but rather with that idea of equity which, while it\nenjoys a fast hold upon the imagination of all Western peoples, is\nsupposed to have an existence apart from statutes, codes, regulations\nand by-laws, and human conventions. It is an abstraction, somewhat\nlike the idea of equality; but it is not a mathematician\u2019s abstraction,\nit is the abstraction of a moralist. It arises out of the idea of a\nmoral order--that is to say, of a supposed universal tendency to arrive\nat a perfect equilibrium between deserts and rewards, and it assumes\nthat the moment this perfect balance is disturbed, a violation of this\nabstract justice--Gambetta\u2019s \u201c_justice immanente_,\u201d--is supposed to\nhave occurred.\n\nTo take an instance which illustrates this notion of justice, it is\npopularly supposed that for a child, who can have committed no crime\nsufficiently great to deserve severe punishment, to be born in a\nsordid home, in a still more sordid city-quarter, of drunken parents,\nsome disturbance of the balance of justice must have occurred--a\ndisturbance which, if it is to be corrected, must require some kind of\ncompensation. If the compensation cannot be conceived as forthcoming in\nthis life, another life is postulated, in which the proper equilibrium\nbetween deserts and rewards;[sic] will be restored. It is not enough\nto say that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children unto\nthe third and fourth generation. Although the ancient Jewish view of\nuniversal justice doubtless required some such explanation, and found\nit satisfactory, the modern view of \u201cimmanent justice\u201d is not satisfied\nby this method of settling the question. Indeed, the very idea that\nchildren should expiate their parents\u2019 sins is abhorrent to the modern\nmind, steeped as it is in this notion of justice. It only consents\nto it as a fact in the face of overwhelming [p46] physiological and\nbiological evidence, and, even then, takes refuge from the apparent\nharshness of the law, in the settled conviction that somewhere,\nsomewhen, compensation will be provided for the expiatory suffering.\n\nIt is the suffering that can be traced to no particular _transgression_\non the part of the individual, that chiefly outrages the modern man;\nthat is why it seems fair to conclude that this notion of immanent\njustice has a moral foundation.[6]\n\nAs a matter of fact, there is nothing more unjust than this notion of\njustice, but its injustice is by no means obvious.\n\nThere is no outcry when a murderer is hanged, although psychology,\nheredity and even sociology, may be called to witness that his act was\nas inevitable as is the crippledom of the child born of tainted blood.\nThere is no outcry when a vicious reprobate dies in poverty and pain.\nThere is no outcry when an habitual criminal ends his days on the\ntreadmill. Morality here receives its tribute. Chemistry, physiology,\nbiology, and the laws of heredity that derive from them are superseded\nby the moral bias, and there appears to be no violation of that\n\u201cimmanent\u201d justice when one of Nature\u2019s born ne\u2019er-do-wells comes to a\nsad end in a prison quadrangle.\n\nIn cases of suffering which are less easily traced to an apparently\ndeliberate transgression of moral laws, however, a miscarriage of\nuniversal justice is supposed to have occurred, and the sympathy of\nall, and even the indignation of some, are immediately aroused.\n\nIt is true that attempts have been made to withhold even this sympathy,\nas in the case of the second commandment already referred to above;\nbut the best instance is that of David\u2019s famous observation in the\n37th Psalm: \u201cI have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen\nthe righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread.\u201d This, however, is\nso obviously a desperate endeavour to square a moral reading of the\nuniverse, or the conception of an eternal justice behind all phenomena,\nwith the spectacle of misery and indigence, that its transparency\noffends the dullest vision. It is not unlike the attitude of some\nEugenists who would argue that the poorly remunerated of to-day\nshould be prevented from multiplying because they are not only the\n_unfit_, but the _undesirable_. To call them unfit is biologically\ncorrect; for it merely amounts to saying that they are unadapted to\ntheir environment. The idea of undesirability is, however, smuggled in\ngratuitously, only in order to try to account for what would otherwise\nappear an injustice. If the poor be made to appear as lying under a\nstigma, [p48] the difficulty presented by the apparent injustice of\ntheir position is easily removed.[7]\n\nIn the same way the necessity of condoling with an invalid is\nunconsciously resented by most of us when we endeavour, particularly\nto the invalid\u2019s face, to ascribe his or her trouble to some glaring\nimprudence or violation of rational living, through which we infer that\nthe illness or indisposition has been brought about. We thus reduce it\nto a pain or penalty that the sufferer has _deserved_, and in this way\nwe release our minds from the constant preoccupation concerning justice\nand injustice.\n\nWomen, who are very much less social in their instincts, and,\ntherefore, much harder than men, repeatedly behave in this way, even\nwith their own children; and before they make a movement to relieve\nsuffering, their lips will have pronounced innumerable reasons why the\nparticular indisposition or pain confronting them is the sufferer\u2019s own\nfault.\n\nWhy did David say that he had never seen the righteous forsaken nor\nhis seed begging bread? Why do certain Eugenists try their hardest\nto attach some stigma to poverty, or to what they call the poorly\nremunerated? And why do people suddenly heap all kinds of blame upon\nthe head of an unfortunate man, woman or child, who has suddenly\ncontracted an illness?\n\nIt is suggested that the reason is because the acceptance of the view\nthat there is a moral order to the universe, implies two conditions:\n(_a_) That nothing occurs that is not just; (_b_) that, therefore,\nthere is no suffering that is not in some way retribution or penalty.\n\nWhen confronted with any form of suffering, therefore, the first\nimpulse of everybody trained in this school of thought is an attempt,\nat once, to square the particular example of unhappiness before them\nwith this notion of universal justice; and if it will not square,\nwithout supposing some ultimate compensation that will balance it, or\nsome pain or crime that is sufficient to account for it, some such\nultimate compensation or some such transgression is quickly imagined,\nwhich seems to satisfy the requirements of \u201cimmanent justice.\u201d\n\nIf it is quite impossible to discover a sin or a crime in the\nindividual that will account for the individual\u2019s suffering--as, for\ninstance, when a child is born of diseased or drunken parents--when,\nmoreover, doubts are beginning to be felt, as they are to-day, in a\nlarge number of minds, regarding the possibility of compensation in\nanother world for undeserved miseries in this world--then a gross\ninjustice is supposed to have occurred, and everybody who looks at the\nuniverse through moral glasses, feels acutely uncomfortable.\n\n\u201cWhy should Tommy Jones,\u201d they say, \u201cbe born of diseased or drunken\nparents, when Thomas Vere de Vere was born of healthy or sober parents!\nIt is unjust!\u201d\n\nThey are indignant, and they look indignant, and those among them\nwho cannot believe in an after-life in which this apparently [p50]\nmonstrous miscarriage of \u201cimmanent justice\u201d will be rectified, become\nsocial reformers who are prepared to fight, and lead others to fight\nfor--justice!\n\nThose people, on the other hand, who are persuaded that their religion\ncan explain anything, and who enjoy the most determined optimism where\nthe suffering of others is concerned, have yet another loophole of\nescape from the disagreeable certainty that a miscarriage of universal\njustice has occurred. Nodding their heads gravely and wisely, they say:\n\u201cWho can tell? Providence moveth in mysterious ways. May not these\nsufferers be the most sorely tried because they are the most loved? For\nwhom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.\u201d[8]\n\nEverything is done, every expedient is tried in order to escape from\nthe maddening certainty that suffering is possible without a sin or a\ncrime having been committed. When finally it is discovered that such\nthings as pain and misery do co-exist with innocence, or at least with\na lack of guilt, then the feeling arises that an injustice has been\nperpetrated which must at all costs be corrected. And since eternal, or\nuniversal, or immanent justice cannot be held responsible, man himself\nand his civilisation are frequently accused of having been guilty of an\ninjustice of which neither is in any way capable.\n\nWhat is it that has forced this conviction upon mankind? Failing the\ncomforting assurances of religion, which postulates a heaven in which\nthe uneven balance of pain and pleasure is adjusted, and a deity who\nchastens those whom he most loves, why is it that at the sight of\nunearned misery and pain the average man has a feeling of revolt, as if\na primary law of the universe had been wantonly outraged?\n\nI have suggested that the average man reads morality into phenomena,\nthat he imagines that the world is a moral world, and that consequently\npain and pleasure alike must have a moral explanation or cause. It is\nthis that creates the idea of an \u201cimmanent\u201d justice.\n\nBut, if we contemplate the world as a whole, what justification have\nwe for postulating a moral order of phenomena? Why should we expect\nsomething so essentially peculiar to human society to pervade the\ndesign of things in general?\n\nAs a matter of fact, from the standpoint of civilised human society,\nNature is utterly immoral, Life is hopelessly unjust. It is not only\nthe sinful young rabbit that provides the fox with his meal. It is\nnot only the guilty mouse that dies an agonising death in the cat\u2019s\njaws. It is not only the dissipated sparrow that is torn to fragments\nby the young of the sparrow-hawk. Neither is it only the vicious worm\nthat gets rationed out piecemeal to the young of the mole. And what\nof the antelopes that fall victims to lions and tigers, the sheep and\ncattle that fall victims to man, the pheasants that fall victims to our\nsportsmen, the fish that fall victims to their larger fellows? Wherever\nwe look, we see suffering--undeserved suffering--aye, undeserved agony.\nThe world and Life are therefore essentially unmoral, they [p52] are\nnot concerned with justice. The rain falls both on the just and on\nthe unjust. The hurricane kills the just and the unjust alike. The\nlightning burns the house of the just or unjust indifferently. Microbes\nfeed on the pure and undefiled virgin just as ravenously as upon the\npolluted jade. Tuberculosis does not pick and choose; it kills where it\ncan. Virtue is no safeguard against it, neither is genius.\n\nWherever we look, either in the jungle or the prairie, we see the\nblood-red fangs and the carmine claws of the bully rampant! Fair play?\nWhere is the fair play between the cat and the mouse? Where is the fair\nplay between the stoat and the shrew? Where is the fair play between\nthe wolf and the lamb? Justice? What is justice, where is justice in\nLife and Nature? In the vegetable world, which is said to be inanimate,\nthe fierce uneven struggle is not even mitigated by the \u201csporting\nchance\u201d of escape.\n\nTruth to tell, the word justice--whether immanent or otherwise--is\nmeaningless when applied to the universe. Nobody has ever dreamed of\nthinking out the billions and billions of post-mortem compensations\nwhich would be necessary to adjust the balance of only one year\u2019s\nrapine and slaughter in the world of nature. Nobody has ever dreamt\nthat such a calculation would even be possible. Injustice, if it have\nany meaning at all in this respect, is therefore written large all over\nthe face of Life and Nature.\n\nSentimentalists, like Wordsworth and Rousseau, by wilfully turning\ntheir backs upon [p53] the cruel sufferings of animals and insects in\nNature, have been able to present a picture of Life to the world as\nattractive as it is false. But although pleasant lies of this sort are\nbound ultimately to do a good deal of damage, and have actually done a\ngood deal of damage, they are also bound ultimately to be found out,\nand it is to be hoped that there is then an end to them, once and for\nall.\n\nIt is not accurate, therefore, to read a moral order into the Universe.\nLife and Nature are essentially amoral. They are not concerned even\nwith the A.B.C. of morality. All life outside human society, therefore,\nknows nothing of justice. On the contrary, \u201cLife is appropriation,\ninjury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity,\nobtrusion of its own forms, incorporation, and, at the very least,\nexploitation.\u201d\n\nThere is no such thing as a natural balance of virtue and reward,\ncrime and punishment--even in the realm of social justice this balance\nis difficult enough to achieve. Misery is frequently encountered\nin Nature--in fact, universally so, divorced from sin. To perceive\nanything else in Nature is to contemplate her through rather smoky\nhuman spectacles--anthropomorphically.\n\nIf, then, this notion of justice exists at all, it is only in the fancy\nof the morally prejudiced. Morality arises only in human society;\ntherefore justice is exclusively a social phenomenon, a social\nexpedient. It is not a universal law, but a concept of the social\nhuman being. It is not a principle transcending social life; it is the\ncreation [p54] of social life, and means nothing outside it; it is\nman-made, man-maintained.\n\nIn the light of this conclusion, what is meant, therefore, when Mrs.\nJelleby-Jones, of Hampstead, who is a welfare worker, exclaims over her\ndinner to her husband that it seems so \u201cunjust\u201d that the poor little\ndiseased babies she has been inspecting that afternoon should have been\nborn with such a heavy handicap?\n\nWhose injustice, what injustice does she mean? Does she know what she\nmeans, and does she mean anything?\n\nWe have seen that if her statement is to have any meaning at all, it\nmust signify that mankind is unjust, that human society is unjust,\nand that, therefore, her particular form of human society is unjust;\nconsequently that she and her husband, as forming part of that society,\nare unjust.\n\nTruth to tell, she will mean nothing half as intelligible as that; but\nsince this is the only meaning her remark can have, let us examine it\ncalmly.\n\nShe supposes an injustice to have been perpetrated because--say--three\nbabies she has seen were born diseased. This happens in every class,\nirrespective of banking account, and the poor are not more unhealthy\nthan the rich. She says the babies will be handicapped. Their disease\nis an obstacle in their road; therefore it is unjust. She is perfectly\nright, in a sense, when she says that disease is an obstacle. But it\nmight be pointed out to her that to be born of stupid or criminally\ndisposed parents would also constitute an obstacle. Psychologists now\ntell us that even to be born of parents [p55] who disagree constitutes\na grave obstacle in life. It might be argued that to be born of people\nwho can afford to keep cars also constitutes an initial obstacle,\nbecause great comfort and luxury reduces moral fibre, paralyses energy,\nand destroys eagerness for the fray. It might be pointed out to her\nthat to be born the son of the King of England is an obstacle in life,\nbecause it limits freedom; a man cannot aspire to becoming Bishop of\nBristol if he is destined to become his Britannic Majesty. If being\nborn of sick or stupid parents is an injustice, all these cases are\ninjustices also.\n\nMrs. Jelleby-Jones might reply that illness or disease is at least an\nobstacle that could be avoided, whereas to have as father the King of\nEngland, is not a fate that could so easily be circumvented. Agreed!\nBut only flagrant cases of illness or disease are even noticeable.\nWhat about those more subtle gradations of health or ill-health which\nthough they are frequently sufficiently virulent to convert a potential\ngenius into a merely talented man, or a potentially talented man into\na fool, are nevertheless not sufficiently glaring to be observed or\nguarded against? Would Mrs. Jelleby-Jones argue that to be born of ugly\nparents, for instance, is an injustice? To be ugly is certainly a great\ndisadvantage, particularly to the women of any tasteful country. Is it\nalso an injustice?\n\nLook at it how we will, injustice, or inequality of endowment and of\nchances of survival, is rooted in the very heart of Nature. Society\nendeavours to mitigate Nature\u2019s harsh rule by means of preventing\n[p56] or assuaging unnecessary suffering, succouring indigence, and\ntrying to make ugly and botched people forget their ugliness; but\nsociety cannot divorce herself completely from Nature. She is bound\nto act with Nature and allow natural laws to operate with comparative\nfreedom in her midst. Particularly is this so with regard to the act\nof pro-creation. Here is a natural process, and a natural passion, on\nwhich society can only impose a certain modicum of order; she cannot do\naway with it. Now, as we have seen, the sort of injustice that we are\nexamining in this chapter, is rooted in the very act of procreation,\nwhich is essentially a natural act. Two people, male and female,\ndecide to procreate a third creature (more frequently they do not\ngive the third creature a thought)--a child, who can have no voice in\ndeciding whether it should be born or not, whether it should be born of\nprecisely those parents or not, or whether it should be their daughter\nor their son, their legitimate or illegitimate offspring. It cannot\neven choose which parent it will resemble. What could be more unjust?\nIt is obviously one of those manifestations of Nature, of Life, which\nlike all those we have been examining, is completely and hopelessly\nunjust. It is the amoral character of Nature and Life persisting in\nspite of moral or social conditions. This amount of Nature\u2019s, or\nLife\u2019s, inevitable injustice must be accepted, or included with the\nbargain which is life.\n\nWhat, then, do these people really mean who rail against this so-called\ninjustice--this necessary survival of natural and vital [p57]\namorality within a moral society? They are, of course, extravagantly\nstupid. They read their own back-parlour ethics into Nature\u2019s scheme,\nconclude erroneously that she is just, and then wherever this kind\nof injustice appears, they throw the responsibility of it on to man\ninstead of on to Nature. They rightly assume that \u201cinjustice\u201d can be\nonly man-made, and imagine that in railing against this \u201cinjustice\u201d\nof their fancy, they are really opposing something substantial, some\ngrievance that could, or ought to be, redressed, if society or the\ngovernment were more moral.\n\nThis \u201cinjustice\u201d of their fancy, however, as we have seen, is built up\nupon an idea of universal and eternal Justice which is a pure myth.\nJustice exists nowhere outside civilised man\u2019s own institutions, and\nleast of all in Nature. Whenever and wherever, therefore, Nature, pure\nand undefiled, peeps out even in our civilised societies, as it does in\nprocreation, there also appears, and cannot fail to appear, what these\npeople call \u201cinjustice.\u201d\n\nCivilised man has done his utmost to mitigate Life\u2019s natural\n\u201cinjustices\u201d--to use these people\u2019s language--but since in order to\nsurvive he is bound to allow Nature a certain modicum of free-play\nwithin his societies, a certain modicum of so-called \u201cinjustice\u201d cannot\nbe removed from even the most ideal and perfect community.[9]\n\nThus, far from this \u201cinjustice\u201d of the stupid sentimentalists _\u00e0 la_\nGambetta, etc., etc., being man-made, or man-contrived, it is man who\nhas done, and still does, his utmost to mitigate its asperities. But\nbecause he cannot sweep it away without also sweeping away Life itself,\nor without tampering with a very sacred function of his fellows, it is\npreposterous to hold him responsible for it.\n\nApart from the creation and administration of law in an organised\nsociety, therefore, and the accepted rules which control the treatment\nof one man by another, or of a child by its parents, or _vice vers\u00e2_,\njustice has no genuine existence at all. To complain about the absence\nof a purely fantastic conception, therefore, is an absurdity. As well\nmight you complain that your son is born without wings, or that you\nyourself do not possess seven-league boots.\n\nIn its essence, however, this act of setting up an impossible ideal,\nwhich is supposed to belong to the very scheme of the universe,\namounts to an attitude of hostility to life, because it is tantamount\nto a refusal to accept life as she is--that is to say, amoral. It is\nequivalent to setting up a false scale of measurement, in order to\ndepreciate human society and its value.\n\nWhen once these people are convinced that the \u201cinjustices\u201d about which\nthey complain really are rooted in Life and Nature, they cry out\ndesperately: Look how dreadful Life is, she is unjust! But it is only\nin their benighted brains that the ideal of justice was ever conceived\nas inherent in phenomena, as a possible attribute of life Life is\namoral; therefore she is essentially beyond or beneath justice. You\ncan only [p59] love her or loathe her as she is. And it is a proof of\ndegeneracy to loathe her as she is. Hence degenerates invariably clothe\nher with false attributes, and talk about a \u201c_justice immanente_\u201d; they\nare not brave enough, or proud enough, to love her without trying to\npaint her in the light of their back-parlour morality.\n\nAll Life\u2019s light and shade, all her excitement, all her incitement to\nman to compete with energy and spirit in her game, depends for more\nthan half its charm precisely on the fact that she is amoral--that is\nto say, that she produces inequalities, contrasts and divergent types,\nindifferently, lavishly, without taking thought, without mercy. Her\ncall is to the brave, to the stout of heart, and to the adventurous\nand spirited. Those who in the midst of this great adventure cry out\n\u201cInjustice!\u201d either misunderstand, or wilfully misrepresent the whole\nscheme.\n\nThe alleged \u201cinjustices\u201d of Life, can never be put right by man. They\nare beyond his power to remedy, however just his laws may be. All he\ncan do is to mitigate the asperity of life for those of Nature\u2019s less\nfortunately endowed offspring, who cannot aspire to the highest ridge;\nbut even in doing this, he must be careful not to make it too easy for\nNature\u2019s failures to multiply over abundantly, otherwise the race most\ncertainly deteriorates.\n\nThe modern tendency, therefore, which consists in deliberately\nconfounding the issue, by pointing to a number of Nature\u2019s own\n\u201cinjustices\u201d as if they were the outcome of man-made law, man-made\nconditions, [p60] and clamouring for them to be redressed, is wholly\nvicious. It deceives the multitude, maddens them into a false sense of\ntheir grievances, and frequently leads to disturbances which, though\nthey prove sadly destructive of life and treasure, _must_ leave things\nmore or less as they were, because the grievances chiefly complained\nof, are frequently rooted in Life itself.\n\nThis does not mean that there are not man-made injustices in the\ncreation and administration of law. Unfortunately they are too often as\nplentiful as those of Life itself. But by far the grossest so-called\ninjustices are those of Nature and Life, which cannot by any means be\nremoved, and least of all can they be even mitigated in a country whose\npopulation distinguishes so imperfectly between grievances which can be\nrightly brought home to man, and those that are inherent in the natural\norder of existence, that while they blindly clamour for the removal of\nthe latter, the former, which might be corrected and are within man\u2019s\npower to correct, are generally left studiously alone.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 5: \u201cIf our hearts beat, it is with this object ... it is\nin order that we may rely on the future and know whether there is an\nall-pervading justice in the things of this world, which ultimately has\nits day and comes to light at its appointed time.\u201d]\n\n[Footnote 6: The present writer has even heard women declare that\nthe lot of the female human being, with all its disabilities and\nphysical burdens, constitutes an \u201cunjust\u201d apportionment of pain and\npleasure when compared with the lot of the male. It is difficult to\ndiscover what injustice is meant here, unless we conclude that women\nwho speak in this way have acquired from their stupid men-folk ideas\nabout a certain justice behind phenomena or in Nature, which in their\nparticular existence appears to be transgressed. In any case we are\nquite safe in assuming that it cannot be an infringement of man\u2019s\njustice that is meant here. It must, therefore, be the imaginary\njustice which is the subject of this essay, and which moral people read\ninto the universe.]\n\n[Footnote 7: It would only be correct to say that the poor are the\n_undesirable_ as well as being the _biologically unfit_, if successful\nadaptation to modern conditions demanded the highest virtues and\nabilities of which the community is capable.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Paul\u2019s Epistle to the Hebrews. Chapter xii. 6.]\n\n[Footnote 9: So long, that is to say, as free mating is not made a\ncriminal offence, and even then the harshness of the natural law will\nonly be partially mitigated.]\n\n\n\n\n                            [p61] CHAPTER III\n\n                                EQUALITY\n\n  \u201cWe hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men were created\n  equal; that they were endowed by their Creator with inalienable\n  rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of\n  happiness.\u201d--Thomas Jefferson ([10]Declaration by the Representatives\n  of the United States).\n\n\nFrom whichever quarter the principle of human equality is approached,\nit appears to recede into ever deeper dimness and obscurity the more\nhotly it is pursued. What does this elusiveness signify? Has the\nprinciple any reality at all? That is to say, is it something that\ncan be realised? Or is it the most unscrupulous lie that has ever\nbeen sewn as a device upon the banner of a faction? In any case it\nseems to provoke very real emotions. Thump your fist hard enough, and\nshout from a public platform: \u201cLadies and gentlemen, what we want more\nthan anything else to-day, that which our birth, our common origin,\nour common shape and stature--aye, even our common spark of Divine\nSpirit--most surely guarantees us, is Equality, ladies and gentlemen,\nthe blessed condition of Equality!\u201d\n\nPronounce the words emphatically enough, as your exordium, and your\nwhole audience will cheer and applaud as with one voice.\n\nNot one of the assembled crowd will protest indignantly that you have\nbeen talking nonsense. Everybody will really believe that your words\nhave some meaning, and a beautiful meaning.\n\nWe have already seen, however, that a word does not require to have\nany precise meaning, or any definite association whatever, in order\nto excite pleasurable feelings in those who hear it pronounced, or in\norder to provoke these people to energetic action. Is Equality perhaps\none of these empty, inflammatory words?\n\nIt is originally a term borrowed from mathematics. The mathematician\nsays:--\u201cTwo and two are equal; this triangle and that are equal; this\nlength and that length are equal; this weight and that weight are\nequal.\u201d\n\nHe is dealing with mere ciphers, symbols or abstractions, and\nconsequently the mathematician has everything his own way, and so long\nas he abides by ciphers, symbols and abstractions we have no wish\nto interfere. He can carry his egalitarian principle right through\nthe English weights and measures, _vi\u00e2_ the decimal system, into\ngeometry. He is speaking of pure abstractions, arbitrarily supposed\nto be identical, and if it amuses him to postulate equality as their\ncharacteristic, nobody cares. They are his abstractions, his ciphers,\nhe can postulate what he likes about them. We have the feeling that it\ndoes not matter. It is only when the mathematician, who, as a rule, is\na hopeless psychologist, begins to apply [p63] the lifeless notions\nhe has learnt in his study, to the world of activity and reality;\nit is only when he begins to speak of things that are not his own\nabstractions--things that really have an existence known to us--that we\nimmediately begin to feel that he is taking liberties with reality.\n\nFor instance, if he say that a certain 2,000 pear leaves are equal to\nanother 2,000 pear leaves, we who know that no two leaves have ever\nbeen known to be exactly the same, straightway call him to order and\nsay: \u201cNo, sir, abide by your abstractions! That statement of yours is\nnot true.\u201d Likewise, if he say that a certain 2,000 cows are equal\nto another 2,000 cows, we feel that he is either taking too much\nfor granted, or else that he should try to enlist our confidence by\nspecifying the precise weight and individual qualities of each cow in\neach set, before inviting us to acquiesce in his assertion. And even if\nthe two sets of 2,000 cows weighed exactly the same amount and were of\nthe same race, we should still feel that there were differences in the\nquality and supply of milk in each set, as also in the vitality of the\nrespective cows in each set, etc., which ought to be taken into account\nand which it would hardly be possible to estimate with perfect accuracy.\n\nBut let us think of things which have less individual divergence\nfrom the common type. Let us think of screws, bolts, plates, chain\nlinks, etc. After these have been made with the utmost care by means\nof machines capable of almost mathematical precision, and when once\nthey have been accurately weighed and found equal both [p64] as\nregards size and ponderability, you would think that you had groups of\nthings or individual things as between which you would be justified\nin postulating the attribute equality. But if you should ask anyone\naccustomed to dealing with such things, he would tell you that one bolt\nin ten or in twenty usually splits, that one screw in a hundred or in\na thousand usually strips, and that one plate in fifty usually cracks.\nThus here and there, even when enormous pains have been taken to attain\nuniformity, marked differences become apparent. What about those\ndifferences that are not sufficiently marked to be noticeable until\nsome considerable time has elapsed?\n\nCan equality be postulated of no two objects on earth then?\n\nProvided that the mathematical abstracts, or arbitrary identities,\nsize, weight, bulk and number, alone, are in question, equality can be\npostulated; but the moment mathematical abstractions are departed from,\nit is not only unsafe, it is positively dishonest to speak of equality.\n\nFor instance, you can say that these hundred rails are equal to\nthose hundred rails in number, in weight, or in length. You could\nnot say that these hundred rails are equal to those hundred rails\nin durability, resilience, or frangibility. You might say they are\napproximately equal in these attributes, or as nearly as possible\nequal; but apart from the arbitrary identities or abstractions of the\nmathematicians, you could not postulate perfect equality.\n\nDoes the term \u201cEquality\u201d mean anything at all apart from these\nmathematical [p65] abstractions then?----Absolutely nothing!\n\nWhat, then, are those people who earnestly and warmly claim and\nadvocate equality among men--_men_ who are so different in their\nancestry, size, shape, endowments, beauty, desires, appetites, and\nspirit, whose very features proclaim their inequality as they approach\nus?\n\nAre such clamourers for equality all liars?\n\nThey are certainly liars, but the majority of them are probably\nperfectly unconscious liars. From childhood onwards they may have heard\nthe word \u201cEquality\u201d pronounced as if it implied a very certain reality,\na very much coveted desideratum. Deep emotions over which they have\nno control, and concerning which they have even less understanding,\nare therefore stirred every time they hear the word, or see it written\nor printed; and thus they live and die earnestly believing that this\nmeaningless principle \u201cEquality,\u201d if it could be realised, would be an\nunqualified boon.\n\nHow the equality is to be achieved, whether by bleeding the too\nsanguine, truncating the too tall, deliberately debilitating the too\nhealthy, delicately injuring the brains of the too intelligent, or\nsystematically fattening the too thin, nobody troubles definitely to\nspecify. Egalitarians have a vague notion concerning a still more\nvague desideratum, and this, coupled with the word \u201cEquality,\u201d that is\nutterly meaningless outside the abstractions of the mathematicians,\ncompletes the content of their hallucination.\n\nBut, it may be objected, the world is surely not so foolish. What men\nmean [p66] when they demand equality, is equality before the law--that\nis to say, that the law-officers should regard them, for the purposes\nof law-administration as equal to one another in their chances of being\nright.\n\nThis may be true of a few cases in which the cry \u201cEquality\u201d is set up;\nbut is it true of all? Do all egalitarians court equality because at\nsome time or another they may have to confront the officers of the law?\n\nNo, says the objector, but the law is not merely felt when two\nlitigants face each other, or when a criminal is apprehended; it is\nfelt in the home of the just as well as in that of the unjust; it is\nfelt in the life of the city, in the village and in the factory.\n\nBut it is precisely in such circumstances that the law would be most\nharsh, if it assumed equality. It is compelled to assume inequality in\nlegislating for large communities, otherwise it could not be just at\nall.\n\nThe very symbol of justice--a blindfold female with a pair of scales in\none hand--is a mathematical symbol, which can have no relation to human\naffairs, but only to the mathematical abstraction, weight.\n\n\u201cA good law should be good for all men,\u201d said Condorcet, \u201ceven as a\nproposition is true for all men.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe capital error of the whole French Revolution,\u201d says Louis Madelin,\n\u201clies in the dogma thus proclaimed by Condorcet.\u201d[11]\n\nYes, but Condorcet was not a political thinker, he was one of the\nforemost mathematicians of his time! And Thomas Jefferson, whose words\nhead this chapter, was his disciple.\n\nThe danger to which the mathematician, like the engineer exposes us,\nbegins when he pretends to apply his principles to human affairs.\n\nBut, continues the objector, although it is admitted that initial\nequality, as between human beings, or any living things for that\nmatter, is an impossibility, seeing that nature\u2019s products are all\ndiverse and unequal; and although subsequent equality is hard to\nachieve without behaving unjustly and barbarously to all those who\ndepart from a certain norm or standard--that is to say, without\nbleeding, debilitating, truncating, or otherwise injuring all those who\nvary from an arbitrarily selected pattern--there surely can be such a\nthing as Equality of Opportunity.\n\nAt this point in the discussion it is only fair to say that most\nopponents of Egalitarianism promptly capitulate, and eagerly concede\nthat equality of opportunity is a genuine desideratum capable of\npractical realisation.\n\nAt the risk of appearing captious and sophistical, however, it can\nno more be admitted here that Equality of Opportunity has any actual\npossibilities of realisation than has the principle of equality itself.\nIt is, in fact, an illusion rather more complex and more serious than\nthe latter. For it presupposes, not only equality among men, but\nequality of opportunity--two equalities instead of one--and among a\nclass [p68] of things which can be made equal only by a miracle.\n\nIn the first place, it may be assumed, without any further discussion,\nthat a moment\u2019s calm reflection is enough to dispel even from the\nmeanest intelligence, the illusion that men can ever be equal.\n\nOn this score, alone, then, opportunities cannot be equal, because,\nhowever accurately their equality may be established, in regard to a\nsupposed standard man, the moment they are placed in relation to the\nmultitude of unequal men, they, too, become unequal. For an opportunity\nis not a thing in itself; it only becomes something in relation to the\ncreature who seizes it. Given an equal means of access to a particular\nridge or hill-top, the opportunity to reach that hill-top or ridge, is\nthe equal means of access _plus_ the kind of creature to whom it is\nafforded. The introduction of an unequal element on the one hand--the\nmen--makes the other element, the means of access, not unequal as means\nof access in the abstract, but unequal as opportunity in the concrete.\n\nSuppose as much inequality between three men as exists between a hen, a\nhare, and a hippopotamus--and as regards fleetness and swimming power\nsuch inequality is not unusual between men--how could you devise equal\nopportunities which would enable all three men to reach a certain\nobjective at the same moment of time, if a strip of water, a high wall,\nand a ravine stood between the starting point and the objective?\n\nYou might do it by first holding a rehearsal, in which you would\naccurately time [p69] each man and note his abilities, and then\nhandicap the fleetest accordingly.\n\nBut unfortunately life cannot be rehearsed, a life-handicap cannot be\ncalculated. Besides, it is to the advantage of society not to handicap\nher fleetest and her best. As Lord Morley very rightly says: \u201cThe\nwell-being of the community demands the allotment of high function in\nproportion to high faculty.\u201d[12]\n\nBut suppose our objector replies: Very well, but that is all we ask. We\ndo not demand a handicap; we simply demand an equal means of access to\na particular objective, no matter whether ultimately those means prove\nunequal or not, owing to the inequality of the men to whom they are\nopen.\n\nIt may then be asked whether even this equality in means of access\nis not in itself utterly fanciful and fantastic. Given the radical\ninequality of men at birth, together with the highly complex\narrangement of modern society, with its enormous variety of prizes,\nit may reasonably be questioned whether it be even possible, not to\nmention practicable.\n\nA large number of people cannot all travel along the same narrow path.\nSeveral narrow paths all exactly alike would have to be constructed.\nThe accidents, vicissitudes, fatalities that would attend some of the\nearly travellers along the roads--faintness, loss of luggage, sprains,\ndeaths, etc.--would either impede or facilitate the way of the later\ntravellers. Thus, in life, the means of access themselves, however\nequal at the start, would quickly acquire unforeseen inequalities.\n\nLet us select an example from life in England.\n\nTwo boys, A and B, one living at Whitstable, the other in London,\nare quite unequal in gifts, ancestral tradition, build and tastes.\nNevertheless, it is desired to give them an equal opportunity, say, of\nearning \u00a31,000 a year when they are forty. The father of A wishes A to\nhave the same opportunities as B, and B\u2019s father holds the same view\nabout B in his relation to A.\n\nVery well, A, having learnt the art of oyster fishing, which is the\nprincipal industry of Whitstable, is sent to London to learn to be a\nclerk, and B is sent from London to Whitstable, after training as a\nclerk, in order to have an opportunity of being an oyster fisherman.\nMeanwhile, A\u2019s father has heard that B is also studying agriculture\nat a school of agriculture somewhere near Whitstable. A, after having\ntrained as a clerk, is therefore recalled to Whitstable and made to\nundergo a course of agriculture, and B having acquired a knowledge of\noyster-fishing and agriculture, is sent back to London to learn French,\nwhich A acquired there. Ultimately, however, A\u2019s father, remembering\nthat a brother of his did extremely well as an engineer, prevails upon\nB\u2019s father to consent to the plan of sending both boys A and B to\nArmstrong & Whitworth\u2019s or to Vickers.\n\nWe can imagine both A\u2019s father and B\u2019s father dying long before A and\nB had had every opportunity that society now offers [p71] to the\naspirant for success; we can also picture A and B themselves becoming\ngrey-haired octogenarians before they finally settled down.\n\nNo, says the objector. That is not what opportunity egalitarians mean.\nThey mean not that everybody should have an equal chance of succeeding\nin all the careers that lie open, but that they should have an\nopportunity of succeeding in life.\n\nBut what is meant by success here? Does it consist in becoming Prime\nMinister of England, or Commander-in-Chief in India, or Lord Mayor,\nor Editor of _John Bull_? In any case opportunities for becoming any\none of these four cannot be made equal. Perhaps success consists in\nbecoming a millionaire? But who is going to determine the equality of\nopportunity for this achievement? Pullitzer, one of the most powerful\nAmerican millionaires of the first decade of this century, crawled\nashore in America as a penniless fugitive, after having swum from the\nship that had conveyed him as an emigrant from Europe!\n\nMoreover, supposing that a boy\u2019s opportunity-egalitarianism extends\nbeyond the shores of his native land, and he says: I wish to have the\nsame opportunity as the Frenchman, or the Canadian, or the Chinaman.\nWhat then? Is there any valid reason why opportunity-egalitarianism\nshould be confined to a single country, or even to a single continent?\n\nWhat, then, is left of this cry for equality of opportunity? Simply\nthe sting of resentment which gives rise to it; and this we shall now\nproceed to examine. [p72]\n\nWhat kind of person is it who clamours for this meaningless\ndesideratum, equality? Certainly not the beautiful person, because to\nhim equality, if it could be achieved, would result in bringing him\ndown to the common level. Neither can it be the person specially gifted\nin any of the arts and sciences; for, again, equality, if it could by\nsome miracle be wrought, would amount to wiping out the advantage of\nsuch special gifts. The self-reliant, the strong, the skilful, the able\nand the desirable, in all walks of life, are never stirred by this cry\nfor equality; because they look down from their eminence, and cannot\ntherefore conceive that levelling could possibly prove an advantage.\n\nIt must therefore be the undesirable, the unskilful, the incompetent,\nthe ugly, the ungifted, in all walks of life, the incapable of all\nclasses, who want equality. And they want it because, looking up from\ntheir position of chafing mediocrity and ungainliness, and beholding\ntheir more gifted brethren, they realise that equality must redound\nto their benefit. A moment\u2019s reflection would tell them that it is an\nimpossible ideal; their mortified vanity, however, is stronger than\ntheir reason, and urges them to believe in it, ridiculous as it may be.\n\n    \u201cEnvy wears the mask of Love, and, laughing sober fact to scorn,\n    Cries to weakest, as to strongest, \u2018Ye are equals, equal-born.\u2019\u201d[13]\n\n\u201cWhat made the Revolution? Vanity! Liberty was nothing but a pretext!\u201d\nThus spoke Napoleon, the greatest and probably the deepest man since\nC\u00e6sar.[14]\n\nBut, however fantastic the cry for equality may seem, it is a dangerous\ncry, because it is still capable of stimulating and directing energy.\nIt is, therefore, still a weapon in the hands of the unscrupulous\nagitator and demagogue.\n\nIt means nothing. We have seen that it has only a mathematical value.\nBut until the ignorant, the arrogant, and the revengeful among Nature\u2019s\n(not society\u2019s)[15] failures are brave and honest enough to realise\nthat the apparent injustice of the radical inequality of man, is\nirremediable and inevitable, until they realise that it cannot be\ncorrected without resorting to the most savage extreme of Procrustean\nbarbarity, the lie Equality, as a high explosive, as a generator of\nsocial perturbations and upheavals, as a weapon and a war-cry, will\ncontinue to give rise to meaningless hopes, and to suggest utterly\nfalse claims to the overweening ambition of all discontented humanity.\n\nThere is, however, another factor in this clamour for the impracticable\nideal of equality, and that is our old friend the natural indolence\nof the weary and the exhausted. If all were equal--no matter how this\nequality is to be achieved--it is felt that things would be easier.\nNot only would the shame of the ugly and the repulsive in the presence\nof the beautiful and the gifted be spared, but the uphill race of the\npoor runners beside the fleet and enduring runners, would also be\nrendered less strenuous. The ineffective brain-cracking of the fools\nbeside the swift and efficient thought of the intelligent would be less\nheart-rending, and so on.\n\nFinally, the notion of Justice, of \u201cimmanent\u201d Justice, constrains\nthose who hold it, to assume a scheme of life, according to which all\nhuman beings are at least equal at birth. Such people very easily\nargue as follows: If all human beings were not equal at birth, it\nwould not be just, \u201cimmanent\u201d Justice would be caught red-handed in\nan act of flagrant injustice at the very portals of life. But this\nis inconceivable, therefore all must be born equal. We have seen,\nhowever, that this notion of justice is quite as mythical as the idea\nof equality itself.\n\nGenerated in this way, by innumerable powerful wishes, the idea of\nequality begins to take shape and assume the appearance of a realisable\nobject in the minds of the weary and the exhausted; and without\ntroubling to ask themselves what the merits or possibilities of their\nidea may be, they are prepared to advocate it, applaud it--aye [p75]\nand even fight for it, at the cost of all the rest of the world--so\nlong as they continue to be assured by unscrupulous people that it will\neffect all they want it to effect.\n\nSo far, then, it has been impossible to trace any substantial\nmeasure of reality behind this notion and this cry of equality. Is\nit conceivable that a word should give rise to such intense feeling\nand yet bear no relation whatever to practical life? Was President\nJefferson raving when he, following the lead of almost thirty millions\nof French people, also spoke of equality as a desideratum that could\nbe gravely and confidently placed on a political programme? For it\nseems only fair to presume that he could not have been serious when he\nmaintained that all men were created equal.\n\nIt is possible that at the end of the 18th century equality as a cry\nhad a very definite meaning. It probably meant in its best and most\nrational interpretation, that every citizen had an equal right to\nhave his interests safeguarded by the laws of his society, that is\nto say, by the government of his country. This was not recognised as\na principle by the rulers of France before the Revolution, and it is\nat least conceivable that the substantial reality behind this cry for\nequality was precisely the demand on the part of all that each man\u2019s\ninterests should be protected with equal vigour and conscientiousness\nby the state.\n\nBut in this sense has the cry for equality any meaning?\n\nIn so far as certain sections of the community may still believe that\ntheir interest is not so perfectly safeguarded as that of [p76] other\nsections, the cry for equality of treatment has as much meaning to-day\nas it had in the last years of the 18th century, but beyond this one\nclaim, it is difficult to discover any meaning in it whatsoever.\n\nUnfortunately, however, this very necessary and incontrovertible\nlimitation of the idea of equality, is not likely to deter those whose\nbase purpose may best be served by extending the significance of the\nword beyond its proper bounds, when appealing to the least desirable\nelements in every nation; and unless in the mass of the people of all\ncountries there is that understanding of the term which alone bears\nany resemblance to reality, mankind will continue at intervals to be\nincited to energetic though fruitless violence in the pursuit of a\nphantom which can have no practical or effective existence outside the\ncalculations of a mathematician\u2019s brain.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 10: Perhaps it is only fair to remind the reader that\nJefferson was the United States minister plenipotentiary in Paris in\n1785, and that he had, therefore, imbibed deeply much of the nonsense\nthat was current in France at the time.]\n\n[Footnote 11: See _The French Revolution_, by Louis Madelin, p. 15. The\nauthor continues: \u201cHe [Condorcet] and his co-religionists, who knew\nnothing of true sociology, which has its foundations in psychology,\nhere prove themselves still more ignorant of history.\u201d]\n\n[Footnote 12: Rousseau. Vol. I., p. 181.]\n\n[Footnote 13: See Tennyson, _Locksley Hall, Sixty Years After_.]\n\n[Footnote 14: See also H. de Balzac. _Le Cabinet des Antiques_: \u201cEn\nFrance, ce qu\u2019il y a de plus national, est la vanit\u00e9. La masse des\nvanit\u00e9s bless\u00e9es y a donn\u00e9 soif d\u2019\u00e9galit\u00e9.\u201d]\n\n[Footnote 15: Nature\u2019s failures and society\u2019s failures are not\nidentical. Nature\u2019s failure is frequently a creature below par, he\nis frequently botched and undesirable. Society\u2019s failure may be an\nextremely desirable person, to whom modern conditions are so loathsome\nthat he cannot adapt himself to them and become successful. That\nis why the Eugenists, who are prone to class the unsuccessful of\nthe age with the undesirable, still have a good deal to learn. The\nunsuccessful now-a-days are certainly the biologically \u201cunfit\u201d; but\nthe question that must be decided before you conclude that they are\nalso \u201cundesirable\u201d is whether present conditions demand desirable or\nundesirable qualities in those who become successfully adapted to\nthem,--in those, that is to say, who are \u201cfit.\u201d]\n\n\n\n\n                            [p77] CHAPTER IV\n\n                                 FREEDOM\n\n  \u201cFreedom such as God hath given\n   Unto all beneath His heaven,\n   With their breath, and from their birth,\n   Though guilt would sweep it from the earth.\u201d\n          --Byron (_Poems on Napoleon_).\n\n\n\u201cMan was born free, and everywhere he is in chains.\u201d--This meaningless,\nbut highly inflammatory statement of Rousseau\u2019s is probably at the root\nof most of the misunderstanding that prevails to-day in regard to the\nsubject of liberty. Just as people eagerly accept, without a moment\u2019s\nthought, the lie that men are born equal, so they are only too ready to\nembrace a doctrine according to which they may lay claim to a sort of\nprimitive, or natural freedom, which has been stolen from them by their\nrulers, their civilisation, or by invading hordes.\n\nOn examination, of course, the proposition \u201cmen are born free\u201d proves\nto be wholly and wildly fantastic.\n\nFreedom implies, one would suppose, the right, the capacity, and the\nopportunity to choose one course from another, one kind of life from\nanother. But how much can a man really choose?\n\nAt birth, for instance, all kinds of conditions are imposed upon the\nfuture adult--conditions which are bound to determine the whole of the\nprincipal events of his or her [p78] career,--over which there is no\npossibility of control whatsoever.\n\nIt may be assumed, for instance, that a baby might like to choose its\nnationality and the language that it will speak in later life. Can it\ndo so? It may reasonably be taken for granted that a baby might like to\nchoose its parents, its brothers and sisters, and its other relatives.\nCan it do so? Its very constitution and health are dependent upon the\nkind of mother and father it has; its very happiness and success as an\nadult may depend upon the way in which it is treated as an infant. Has\nit any choice, any freedom, in regard to any of these matters?\n\nIt is not fanciful to suspect that the baby might like to choose\nits particular form and features, its ultimate height as an adult,\netc., etc. The most vital and important issues will hang upon this\nquestion of its face and form when it is grown up. But it has no power\nwhatsoever to determine any one of these most vital and important\nconditions.\n\nAn imaginative baby, realising the inexorable fate which hangs over\ncertain gifts, certain endowments, and a particular sex, might regard\nit as all important to be able to select these freely.\n\nBut the rigidity of natural law, the impossibility of controlling any\nof these matters, ordain that at birth a baby has all its important\nultimate characteristics, and therefore all its proclivities, tastes,\nvices, virtues, and even aspirations settled for it. Its nationality,\nits language, its parents, its other relatives, its constitution, its\ndegree of beauty, its stature, its physical and mental endowments, its\nsex,--all these things, upon which the [p79] figure it will ultimately\ncut in the world most surely depend,--are fixed by an iron necessity\nwhich allows of no choice, no preference,--aye, and scarcely any\nmodification either.\n\nIf this is freedom, then what does constraint, what does oppression\nmean?\n\nIt may be objected that this is not what Rousseau meant; that Rousseau\nmaintained that man was born free, because in a savage state he\nwould really be free from the conventions, laws, and constraints of\ncivilisation.\n\nThis appears convincing enough. The savage is certainly free from the\nlaws and constraints of civilisation, but the savage race has yet to be\nfound that is free from all conventions, laws and constraints, nor is\nit by any means certain that these obstacles to freedom are the more\npleasant for being barbarous instead of civilised.\n\nBut even if we suppose that Rousseau\u2019s alleged freedom of babies is a\nreality, at what point, it may be asked, is it exchanged for bondage?\n\nMost people would reply: when the child goes to school. It is at school\nthat the shackles of civilisation are first fastened on the free\ninfant\u2019s wrists. It is the work that civilisation ultimately holds in\nstore for the child that necessitates his being trained and \u201ceducated.\u201d\n\nTo this the naturalist and anthropologist might reply: is there now,\nor has there ever been, a race of men or animals that did not have to\nundergo some process of training in childhood in order to learn to be\nefficient adults? [p80]\n\nOf course there neither is, nor ever was any such race.\n\nIron necessity again precludes the possibility of this alleged freedom\neven in childhood.\n\nIn manhood, again, freedom is purely a will-o\u2019-the-wisp. No man\nwho wishes to continue living is free. He is bound to procure food\nand clothing for himself even in the cannibal islands. If he have\npassions, he is bound to find some means of gratifying them. This\nmeans shouldering responsibilities; for no community, even of animals,\nundertakes to rear the fruits of other people\u2019s passions. He cannot\neven select his calling, for his calling will depend upon his special\naptitudes. In fact, the more gifted he is, and the more marked his\ncapabilities, the less will he be able to choose how to earn a living.\nOnly a man of mediocre and insignificant gifts is really free to choose\nhis calling, because he feels no irresistible impulse in a given\ndirection. But these mediocre people who are free to choose their\ncalling, don\u2019t really choose a \u201ccalling\u201d at all--the very idea of\nchoosing something to which one is called is absurd--what they choose\nis a more or less characterless and humdrum means of earning a living,\nwhich requires neither very special gifts nor any marked proclivities.\nTo be free to choose what one will be, is always a sign of hopelessly\nhumble tastes and endowments.\n\nPutting it at its lowest, however, we might concede the point that\n_as far as choosing a means of livelihood is concerned_, there are a\ncertain number of very mediocre men whose gifts are so indistinct and\nfeeble, and whose [p81] tastes are so wavering and undefined, that\nthey are \u201cfree.\u201d[16]\n\nApart from these unhappy individuals, then, if Rousseauesque freedom\nexist at all, it exists only between the hour of birth and the hour\nwhen the child first goes to school. We have seen that even this is\nuntrue. But has it even a semblance of truth as a conclusion?\n\nSurely nothing could be clearer than the fact that even in those years\nfreedom is as remote as ever; for quite apart from the reasons already\nadduced above, it will easily be seen that the infant is as much the\nvictim of convention and form as any adult could possibly be. It has a\nhome, its life is subjected to rules, to a time-table, it cannot eat\nor do what it likes, except within very well-defined limits severely\nimposed.\n\n\u201cIt can think what it likes,\u201d somebody may object.\n\nBut even this is not strictly true. Its thoughts are as much\nnecessitated by its environment and its constitution as is its food.\n\nIf it is born in England or France, for instance, it will be brought\nup to believe in \u201cimmanent justice,\u201d in \u201cequality,\u201d in \u201cfreedom.\u201d It\ncannot escape these imbecilities. They are its fate. It will be taught\nthe inanity that \u201cevery man has a right to his own opinion,\u201d and that\n\u201cBritons never never never shall be slaves,\u201d--whatever that means, if\nit means anything at all. Later in life it may claim the idea that\n\u201cevery man has a right to his own opinion\u201d as its own. It will have\nforgotten how it could not help holding this idea, any more than it\ncould help learning the English language.\n\nRousseau then was talking nonsense when he said that men were born\nfree; but both his reading and his education were so pool that it is\ndoubtful whether he knew that he was talking nonsense.\n\nApart from Rousseauesque freedom, however, has the word no meaning?\n\nIt will be seen that, in the end, it has very little.\n\nVoluntary actions, or actions that are performed as the result of a\nfree choice between two or more alternatives, are not known. They never\noccur. Even when they appear to occur, they are generally, if not\nalways, associated with a weak or useless personality.\n\nStrong natures have no choice; they have no alternative; they have\ntherefore no freedom. They are driven to their deeds by an iron\nnecessity. If they speak or write, it is out of the fulness of their\nhearts. It is a phenomenon akin to the mechanical overflow of a\nflooded basin. If they go in search of big undertakings and of vast\nresponsibilities, in order to shoulder them, it is because they have a\nstore of accumulated energy which must discharge itself over a large\narea, over a large mass of material.\n\nWhen Napoleon took leave of his comrades in Egypt, before embarking on\nthat gigantic enterprise, the reconstitution of anarchical bleeding and\ndevastated France, he said: \u201cI am going to drive out the lawyers.\u201d\n\nHis strength demanded a gigantic task, just [p83] as the nasal horn of\nthe rhinoceros drives the animal who possesses it to uproot the soil.\nHe could not help himself. Martin Luther likewise had no choice. Before\nthe famous Diet of Worms, he openly avowed this lack of freedom. He\nsaid: \u201cHere I stand. I cannot act otherwise. God help me.\u201d\n\nIndeed the character of all strength is precisely that it gives those\nwho possess it no choice, no \u201cfreedom.\u201d The moment choice enters\ninto the domain of action, the moment there is apparent freedom or\nself-determination, weakness, or a lack of native impetus may be\nsuspected.\n\nThomas de Quincey, that profound psychologist of the artist\u2019s soul,\nexplained the matter very well in his Autobiography. Discussing the\nnature of true poetry, he said: \u201cBy far the larger proportion of what\nis received in every age for poetry, and for a season usurps that\nconsecrated name, is not the spontaneous overflow of real unaffected\npassion, deep, and at the same time original, and also forced into\npublic manifestation of itself from the necessity which cleaves to all\npassion.\u201d[17]\n\nIt will be seen that de Quincey here speaks of a \u201cspontaneous overflow\u201d\nwhich is \u201cforced into public manifestation of itself from the necessity\nwhich cleaves to all passion.\u201d There is no freedom about it, no choice.\nIt flows from an impetuous and imperious abundance.\n\nIn the light which this throws on all human greatness or strength, what\ndoes the value of freedom appear to be?\n\nDoes it not seem as if freedom and the apparent liberty to choose\nbelong essentially to a lack of strength, to an absence of necessity in\nthe characteristic action of man? To be able to weigh and select either\none of two alternatives,--say action or inaction,--implies that no\noverwhelming native impetus forces a man to the one and blinds him to\nthe other. Is it possible then that the very cry of \u201cfreedom\u201d belongs\nessentially to weakness? to feebleness of character?\n\nLet another example be taken. A young man A. has just reached the age\nof one and twenty without having had a serious affair of the heart. His\nfriends regard him as free to pursue any pastime, any sport. When once\nhe has discharged the duties by means of which he earns his livelihood,\nhe is always free to join a tennis party, a cricket team, a bridge\nparty, or a debating circle. His mind can devote itself to the task of\nchoosing what he shall do,--is it to be tennis, cricket, bridge, or\nargument? He has no overpowering inclination for anything particular,\nconsequently he is free to choose.\n\nSuddenly, however, he meets a young lady B, who strains a certain fibre\nin his being almost to snapping point. The tension of this strain is\nso powerful that, like the main spring of a watch, it presses its host\nto constant activity in a certain direction. The direction in this\ncase is B\u2019s person. Now choice falls out of the question altogether.\nIt is no longer a matter of dwelling critically upon cricket, tennis,\nbridge or argument, and selecting that which seems for the moment the\nmost alluring pastime. The tension in A\u2019s being relaxes only at one\nsound, at one [p85] call. It is B B B --B recurring. When urged by his\nwhilom tennis companions to join them, these friends now encounter,\nnot hesitating freedom, but formidable resistance, immovable decision,\ndetermined refusal. When approached by his debating society, he\ndeclares that all his spare time is now taken up. He is in fact no\nlonger free. Something strong in him has been roused. He cannot help\nhimself. His actions are no longer voluntary.\n\nBut who would long for freedom in such circumstances? Who longs for\nfreedom when bondage is sweet?\n\nIt may be taken for granted, then, that strength and greatness know\nnothing of freedom. The strong man is not free; the great man is not\nfree;--nor for that matter, as history or the observation of our\nfellows can show, do they wish to be free. Only weakness is apparently\nfree, or is conscious of desiring freedom; because, having no strong\nnative impetus to drive it willy nilly in any given direction, it\nappears to be able to choose its own direction. Thus only weakness can\neven desire freedom.\n\nThe obvious inference would be that as fast as the mass of mankind\ndecline in strength and greatness, the louder would become the cry for\nfreedom. Is this conclusion valid?\n\nIt is only partially so; for there are cases when freedom is demanded\nnot from weakness, but from strength.\n\nLet us abide by the examples we have chosen.\n\nNapoleon, driven by the iron necessity of his native strength, leaves\nEgypt to make [p86] himself master of France. But suppose that he had\nbeen conquered and kept as a harem servant in Egypt, or restrained in\nsome other way from exerting his strength,--what then?\n\nIt is conceivable, in that case, that he would have longed for the\nfreedom which would have allowed him to fall into the bondage of his\nown overpowering impulses to rule and to direct the destiny of France.\n\nFor the first time the idea of \u201cfreedom\u201d begins to assume a definite\nshape. It begins to acquire the appearance of a genuine reality.\n\nJudging by Napoleon\u2019s case, therefore, we may say of the desire for\nfreedom, that although it never arises in normal conditions, it begins\nto make a definite appeal when it signifies a release from bondage that\nis incompatible and inharmonious with strong innate impulses, for a\nbondage that is compatible and harmonious with strong innate impulses.\n\nThe bondage consisting in being a harem servant is incompatible with\ninnate impulses of a stronger order; therefore, although the obedience\nto impulses of a stronger order also constitutes bondage, Napoleon,\nas a harem servant, would have longed for the freedom to fall into\nthe bondage of his stronger impulses, because it was there that his\n\u201ccalling\u201d lay.\n\nReverting to the case of the young man A who became enamoured of a\nyoung lady B, we are confronted by a case that is somewhat different;\nbecause, although A was apparently \u201cfree\u201d before meeting B, he\nnevertheless [p87] prefers the bondage of his attachment to B to his\nformer freedom. Why,--obviously because his former apparent freedom,\nwas freedom for nothing, a state of being constrained to nothing in\nparticular, a lack of bondage to anything, which was tantamount to a\nlack of everything.\n\nHe finds his strength on meeting B. He finds one of his powerful\nimpulses taking possession of him. He is therefore happy, because,\nthough he is in bondage, a vital impulse is directing his life, a\nnecessity of his being has found a pursuit for him. If his cricket\nclub now kidnap him and imprison him in the cricket field, in order to\nplay in a cricket match, he will make a determined attempt to escape.\nHe will endeavour to obtain freedom. Freedom for what?--Freedom from a\nbondage incompatible with the powerful impulses of his being, for the\npurpose of falling into a bondage compatible with the powerful impulses\nof his being.\n\nHas the \u201cliberty\u201d of our political agitators this meaning? Has it any\nmeaning?\n\nWe know that man can never be free. We have seen that from his very\nbirth conditions are imposed upon him which direct his subsequent\ncareer as inevitably as railway lines direct the course of a train.\nNothing that lives in finite conditions can be free. And no other\nconditions are known. Life even in the animal world means work, battle,\nstruggle, the observance of certain very strict habits. Human life\nmeans work, the observance of social conventions; even the necessity of\neating, drinking, breathing and performing the other bodily functions\nentails responsibility. [p88] Work may be altered, the particular\nsocial conventions of a nation may be changed; but it is merely a\nmatter of altering one kind into another kind, exchanging one rule for\nanother rule.\n\nWhat then does the political agitator mean when he offers \u201cLiberty\u201d to\nthose whom he would induce to support or follow him?\n\nIt has been seen that the only sense in which liberty as an idea bears\nany relation to reality, is when it signifies the opportunity that can\nbe given to a man to enable him to exchange a bondage incompatible with\nhis strongest impulses for a bondage that harmonises with them.\n\nIs this the meaning of the cry for freedom to-day? When the newspapers\ntold us that the Great War was fought by us in the cause of \u201cfreedom\u201d,\nis this the freedom they meant?\n\nHow many of those who believe they aspire to something definite and\nreal when they aspire to \u201cfreedom,\u201d fully understand the limitations\nof their ideal? How many of them really possess stronger impulses than\nthose that actually find expression in their daily work?\n\nSome people might reply, \u201cvery few.\u201d I reply that the number of men\nand women to-day, who yearn for freedom vaguely, fretfully, and\ninsistently, because they realise dimly that they seek a kind of\nbondage in which their stronger impulses would have more scope, is very\nmuch greater than is generally supposed.\n\nOne of the results of the industrial revolution, and of the vast\nincrease of mechanical [p89] appliances and machinery generally,\nhas been the creation of occupations by the hundred thousand, which\nare in every way besotting, heartrending, and depressing. Sometimes\nit is their asinine simplicity and their monotony, that destroy the\nheart of those employed in them, frequently it is their extreme\ndisagreeableness, noisiness or unhealthiness. The particular objection\nthat is common to almost all of them, however, is that the natural\nimpulses which most strongly animate a human being at his work, the\nimpulse to make \u201ca good job\u201d of the task he is occupied upon, the\nimpulse to excel his neighbour in his skill, care or foresight, the\nimpulse to earn the praise of those for whom he is producing the work,\nthe impulse to improve day by day in his own speciality and to derive\nfair profit from this improvement,--all these natural impulses scarcely\never get an opportunity of expressing themselves in the whole of the\nweek\u2019s round; and when the weekly wage is received, it is felt that\nit has been earned by a species of prostitution rather than by an\noccupation of which the wage-earner can justly feel proud.\n\nThis, as I understand it, is the fundamental meaning of the cry for\nfreedom to-day. In any case it is the only meaning it can have.\nFor freedom in the sense of non-relation, non-dependance, absence\nof duties, absence of work, and absence of responsibilities or\nconventions, is utterly impossible. Not only is it utterly impossible\nto-day, but it has always been impossible. Even animals in a state of\nnature cannot achieve that condition.\n\nIt behoves all those, therefore, who nowadays [p90] feel this craving\nfor liberty, and who are tempted to follow wherever and whenever it\nis upheld before them as a cause, thoroughly to understand what it is\nthey are invited to fight for. They must not allow themselves to be\nled astray by those who would promise them unconstrained freedom of\naction, for that is a physical impossibility, a lie, an illusion, and a\nmirage only of the ignorant. They must not be deceived by agitators who\nlead them to imagine that this \u201cfreedom\u201d for which they are invited to\nstrive, is a sort of paradise of fairies, from whom the natural cares\nand responsibilities of this world have been miraculously lifted. Nor\nmust they suppose that it has much to do with the kind of government\nwhich their country enjoys,--whether monarchical, aristocratic,\nplutocratic or Bolshevik.\n\nModern governments in their nature can do little for the spiritual\nrequirements of the working man. As far as that freedom is concerned\nwhich consists in finding expression in one\u2019s daily duties for the\nstrongest impulses of one\u2019s being, the masses of the working people\nin this country were infinitely more \u201cfree\u201d under the despotic Tudors\nthan they are at present under the benign rule of the people\u2019s elected\nrepresentatives.\n\nThus the only kind of freedom that the most honest politician can\ndefinitely promise, political freedom--is in itself one of the most\nwanton deceptions ever practised upon humanity. For what does this\npolitical freedom consist of?--It begins and ends with the vote. But in\nwhat manner does this constitute freedom? To what extent does [p91]\nthe voter at the poll secure or realise his own freedom by the vote he\nregisters? He gives his vote on a programme which frequently has only\na very remote relation to his private life or interests. What can his\nvote accomplish then in the cause of his own freedom? In registering\nhis vote he is bound to choose one out of two or three men who stand\nas candidates for his constituency. He may heartily dislike every one\nof them, and yet be driven to vote for A because A\u2019s programme is a\nlittle less pernicious than that of B or C. After having voted for A,\nif our voter is lucky, A may get into Parliament. Every time A votes\nin the House itself, however, he may be out-voted by other members,\nso the very reason for which our voter elected A may be frustrated\nwhen once A is an M.P. If, however, our voter does not succeed in\ngetting A into Parliament, he may be one of six or even ten thousand\nin his constituency who will not be represented in Parliament for four\nor five whole years. Every Parliament that sits in England fails in\nthis way to be representative of millions of voters. In what manner\nhave these millions of voters achieved their own freedom, or in what\nmanner are they safeguarding it? For even if we grant that it is\nright that millions of voters should not be represented in Parliament\nbecause they belong to the out-voted minority, can we reasonably speak\nof this vast minority as having secured their political freedom by\ntheir vote? But the case is in fact worse than this; for John Stuart\nMill, that whole-hearted believer in \u201cdemocracy,\u201d has shown, not only\nthat the minority in the land is bound to be unrepresented in every\nParliament, [p92] but that it is also possible for the majority in the\nland to be unrepresented.[18] How then the promise even of political\nfreedom, which is the only promise of freedom that an honest politician\nmay make, can even appear to possess any reality, so long as it is\ndependent entirely upon the vote, it is difficult to discover.\n\nThere is only one kind of freedom that bears any relation to reality,\nonly one kind of freedom therefore that can be striven after, that can\nbe realised; and that is the freedom to exchange a bondage incompatible\nwith our strongest impulses for a bondage that harmonises with them.\n\nNothing else has any meaning.\n\nThe very success with which voluntary recruiting proceeded directly\nafter the declaration of war against Germany in 1914 is one of the\nbest demonstrations of the truth of this conclusion. For it was the\nopportunity to exchange an occupation incompatible with the strongest\nimpulses of their being, for an occupation that harmonised with those\nstrongest impulses, that led the majority of those young men to embark\nfor the shambles in France. I mixed with them, so I ought to be able to\nspeak with some knowledge of the subject.\n\nNow the fight for this freedom, for the freedom that, as we have seen,\nhas some meaning, really is worth while. It is a noble fight, and\na decent fight. But it is a fight with which no modern Government,\nLiberal, Socialist, or Bolshevik, can possibly have any sympathy. For\nLiberal policy has always meant commercial and industrial expansion;\nSocialist policy must, if it is honest, include in its programme,\ncompulsory labour, whether compatible or incompatible with the\nstrongest impulses of our being; and Bolshevik policy, as we have\nalready seen, insists upon this kind of labour. It is, however,\nprecisely the Liberals, the Socialists, and the Bolsheviks who have\nbeen loudest in their cries for freedom. If, therefore, this humble\nattempt at investigating the meaning and limitations of the idea of\nfreedom has done nothing more than demonstrate the hollowness of this\nLiberal catchword, it cannot have been written or read in vain. [p94]\n\nThus, it is not merely a matter of caution, it is in the highest degree\nwise, to test every yearning and every demand for freedom, even in\none\u2019s own breast, with the practical question, \u201cWhat for?\u201d--\u201cWhat is\nthe strongest impulse that would find expression if the bondage of\nthe present task were exchanged for the bondage of a new occupation?\u201d\nOnly those who can answer that question satisfactorily, only those who\nfeel that they would increase the fullness of their lives, and thus\nadd to the sum of beauty and happiness in the world, have any right to\n\u201cfreedom,\u201d or have any understanding of the only sense in which the\nidea of freedom can have some meaning.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 16: But even this amount of freedom in the mediocre is\nlimited by the fact that the mediocre cannot choose a means of\nlivelihood in which super-mediocre endowments would be necessary.]\n\n[Footnote 17: Collected Writings. (London: A. C. Black). Vol. I., p.\n194.]\n\n[Footnote 18: See _Considerations on Representative Government_,\nChapter VII., par. 4:--\u201cThere is not equal suffrage when every single\nindividual does not count for as much as any other single individual\nin the community. But it is not only a minority who suffer. Democracy\nthus constituted does not even attain its ostensible object, that of\ngiving the powers of government in all cases to the numerical majority.\nIt does something very different; it gives them to a majority of the\nmajority, who may be, and often are, but a minority of the whole. All\nprinciples are most effectually tested by extreme cases. Suppose then\nthat in a country governed by equal and universal suffrage, there is a\ncontested election in every constituency, and every election is carried\nby a small majority. The Parliament thus brought together represents\nlittle more than a bare majority of the people. This Parliament\nproceeds to legislate and adopts important measures by a bare majority\nof itself. What guarantee is there that these measures accord with the\nwashes of the majority of the people? Nearly half the electors, having\nbeen out-voted at the hustings, have had no influence at all in the\ndecision; and the whole of these may be, a majority of them probably\nare, hostile to the measures, having voted against those by whom they\nhave been carried. Of the remaining electors nearly half have chosen\nrepresentatives who, by supposition, have voted against the measures.\nIt is possible therefore, and not at all improbable that the opinion\nwhich has prevailed was only agreeable to a minority of the nation,\nthrough a majority of that portion of it whom the institutions of the\ncountry have erected into a ruling class.\u201d]\n\n\n\n\n                             [p95] CHAPTER V\n\n                         SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM\n\n  \u201cThere is at the present day too great a tendency to believe that\n  it is impossible to resist the progress of a new idea.\u201d Disraeli\u2019s\n  speech on the Compensation for Disturbance Bill. (August, 1880).\n\n\nA certain fatalism seems to have overtaken the people of Europe, a mood\nunder the dominion of which they are prepared to regard even their\nown vagaries and whimsicalities as heretofore most men have regarded\nthe weather, that is, as something inevitable and fore-ordained which\nnothing can modify, resist or avert.\n\nIf a particular group manifest a disposition for war, then it is war\nto which they resign themselves; if it is female suffrage, then lo!\nVotes for Women come upon them with the certainty of the monsoon or\nthe mistral. Nobody moves, nobody holds up a hand to ward off the\napproaching scourge, because everybody is either too indolent to make\nan effort, or too thoroughly persuaded beforehand that nothing can\navail, to attempt to interfere with what he calls \u201cthe natural course\nof events.\u201d The scrub on a wind-swept moor offers more resistance to\nthe elements than does modern man to his fellows\u2019 restless tinkering at\nthe social structure; and as for the gentle fine rain which, falling\nathwart the fiercest blast, ultimately constrains it to abate its fury,\nand to die down, modern man has no knowledge of such tactics, and even\n[p96] if he had a knowledge of them he would not put it into practice.\n\nDespite the enormous amount of apparent hostility aroused by the\nimmense progress that Socialism and Communism have made since the\nwar, it must not be supposed that with regard to them modern men are\nfeeling any more actively indignant than they have felt towards any\nother impending change. The hostility, as we have pointed out, is only\napparent. For, in their heart of hearts the men of the present day are\njust as much prepared to resign themselves to Socialism as to civil\nwar, class war, or any other kind of social upheaval.\n\nThe factor in the threatening reform which makes certain sections\nof the public stand as if they really meant to offer resistance, is\nunfortunately not their intellectual conviction that Socialism or\nCommunism is so palpably wrong that it must be resisted at all costs;\nbut rather the negative quality of inertia, which in this case assumes\nthe appearance of positive resistance because, as it happens, Socialism\nand Communism propose to oust from positions of ease a great number of\npeople who have not only grown accustomed to ease, but to whom life\nwithout ease presents few if any attractions.\n\nOtherwise, Socialism, Communism, Bolshevism, Nihilism--who cares? They\nappear right because so many millions seem to believe in them. Any\n\u201cism\u201d seems to be right to modern man, provided a sufficient number of\npeople raise their hands in favour of it. In this sense, be he a Tory,\na Conservative, or a Monarchist, modern man is essentially democratic\nin spirit. [p97]\n\nIn the circumstances, with this very doubtful weight of inertia alone\non his side, that man may very easily be suspected of quixotic candour,\nwho at this late hour of the day pretends to stand up in face of the\napproaching wind, not only to resist it, but also to beat it down. And\nyet this is what the present writer proposes to do, provided only he\ncan demonstrate the validity of his standpoint in a sufficient number\nof convincing ways to emulate that fine gentle rain which ultimately\nbeats down any wind.\n\nMoreover, in order to do this, it will not be necessary to examine\nthe proposals of Socialism and Communism in detail, but simply to\nconcentrate upon their basic principles, and to show how entirely\nuntenable are the very first positions they take up. Stated in the\nfairest possible way, their position is as follows:--\n\nThe leading Socialist and Communist thinkers are men as a rule whose\nhearts have been moved by the spectacle of sorrow and hardship which\nis the lot of a large number of their fellow-creatures on earth; and\nthey are earnestly desirous so to modify the organisation of society as\nto render that burden of sorrow and hardship lighter for the mass of\nmankind.\n\nThey see all about them inequalities of the crudest kind, sharp\ncontrasts, and abysmal chasms, and they wish to achieve greater\nevenness among men.--Why?--Not because the spectacle of mankind thus\nevened up will necessarily be more picturesque or more harmonious to\nbehold; but because on the whole it will be less heartrending, less\nrevolting, less inequitable. [p98]\n\nThey detect in society, as it is at present constituted, an element\nwhich they maintain has no business to be there, an element which they\nhonestly believe is not human; and they feel confident of being able to\neliminate it if only they are allowed to effect certain readjustments\nand re-arrangements of the whole which will radically change the\nrelation of every member of the community to every other member.\n\nThis element, which the Socialist and Communist detect in modern\nsociety and which they wish to eliminate because it is not human, is\nViolence.\n\nAccording to the present writer\u2019s belief this is, in a few words, a\nfair statement, if not the fairest possible statement, of the Socialist\nand Communist\u2019s position.\n\nAssuming at all events that it is correct, it is now possible to\nexamine it and to call attention to the amount of error it contains.\nFor, let the Socialist and Communist say what they will, let them\nwish rather to substitute the word Predatoriness, or Oppression, or\nExploitation, or Slavery, for the word Violence, or for the particular\nquality in modern society which they would fain eliminate, it does not\nsignify much. All these words in their essence are reducible to the one\nnotion Violence, and Violence we shall therefore name the feature that\nSocialists and Communists propose to remove from human communities, and\nwhich we propose now to examine.\n\nViolence as a phenomenon is not presented to us chiefly in our own\nsocieties. Where we recognise its sway to be most general and most\nrigorous, is in Nature herself, and all [p99] life outside human\ncommunities. The life of the jungle, the life of the prairie, the\nlife of the ocean, in all these departments of life, Violence reigns\nsupreme. Indeed we are so familiar with its existence there that we\nshould be astonished if we failed to find it. We open the stomach of a\nshot leopard and we find in it the mangled remains of some other animal\nor bird. When we kill a bird and inspect its viscera, we discover the\nremains of insects, small quadrupeds, or smaller birds. Life outside\nhuman societies is little less than a process of preying and mutual\nsuppression and incorporation. Every species behaves as if it alone\nhad the right to prevail, and it endeavours by every means in its\npower--self-preservation, propagation, rapine and parisitism--to make\nits own kind predominate on earth.\n\nWe ourselves are guilty of violence towards the lower animals, and\nthere are few people who, upon dying a sudden death, would not betray\nthis violence by the contents of their stomachs or intestines.\n\nViolence, therefore, constitutes no novelty to the human being. He\nknows of it in Nature and he knows he is guilty of it towards those\nlower animals which he consumes as food. At a first glance then it\nwould appear that violence of a sort is an essential factor in all\nlife, even in human life.\n\nThe kind of violence, however, that the Socialist and Communist wish to\neliminate from human society is not the violence which men perpetrate\nagainst the lower animals; though there are certainly some Socialists\nwho would wish to eliminate that also; but chiefly the violence between\nman and man, [p100] man and woman, adult and child, or child and\nchild: violence by means of which some man, woman, or child is made\nthe instrument or the tool or the chattel of some other man, woman, or\nchild.\n\nThis you may protest is what all societies since Moses, and even before\nhim, have tried their utmost to suppress. To some extent this is true.\nMurder and assault have been prohibited by most moral codes. The kind\nof violence, however, that the Socialist and Communist wish to suppress\nis the violence that is at present tolerated by law, that receives its\nsanction from society at large, and that men now perpetrate with clean\nconsciences.\n\nHow does this violence chiefly arise?\n\n--By means of the inequalities of human advantages. One man A finds\nhimself by birth or by his own efforts (frequently the outcome of\nhis endowments at birth) in possession of something that somebody\nelse B very much requires; and before A relinquishes a particle of\nit, convention allows him to exact some service from B. According to\nthe urgency of B\u2019s needs and the quality of B\u2019s gifts that service\nis either very strenuous or comparatively light. For instance, if A\nhappens to be a man of rare genius, holding in his mind the secret\nof his country\u2019s salvation B, the country, may voluntarily offer him\nfabulous wealth from her own coffers to divulge his secret knowledge,\nand may even involve herself in a crushing debt in order to do so. Or\nA may be simply a producer of corn, and B an impecunious starving man\nbegging corn of A because he needs it as food. In the latter case,\nshort of an act of immorality [p101] or one involving the certainty\nof B\u2019s immediate injury or demise, there is scarcely anything the law\nforbids A from exacting from B. The service may involve B\u2019s gradual\ninjury. To this the law says nothing. The service may be debasing or\ndegrading from an intellectual or spiritual point of view; it may\ndeteriorate B\u2019s eyesight, impair his physique or his good spirits: to\nall these things the law says nothing.\n\nWhile the service is being performed and B is obtaining corn from A,\nB who cannot pay cash for the corn, may be asked to do pretty well\nanything, with the gloomy alternative before him of going without corn\naltogether. This I take it is the meaning of the word violence in the\nmouth of the Socialist and Communist: it is the power that one man can\nexercise over another, in determining his occupation and in exacting\nservice or else withholding food from him.\n\nThe Socialist would admit that service must be exacted from all at\nsome time or other, but he suggests that the State should exact it,\nso that the power may be exercised corporately, and the profit, if\nany, allotted, not to individuals, but to the whole body. The extent\nto which an element of violence adheres even to the proposition that\nthe State should exact service and not the individual, would be an\ninteresting speculation; for the fact that some violence still remains\nimplicit in the proposition everybody will see at a glance. But the\npresent writer hopes to point to other means by which violence must\ninevitably enter into the Socialistic State, just as forcibly as it\ndoes now into any well ordered capitalistic State. [p102]\n\nQuite apart then from the violence which is inherent in the proposition\nthat the State must exact service under the Socialistic r\u00e9gime, it\nis suggested that no one, who has been following the analysis of the\nSocialist and Communist\u2019s first principles given above, can up to the\npresent be satisfied that violence would be eliminated from society\nunder their r\u00e9gime any more than it can be under the present r\u00e9gime,\nand for the following reasons:\n\nSo far the Socialist\u2019s proposals appear to contain no measures for\nridding human stock of its pronounced inequalities. It is, however,\nfrom inequalities that apparent injustices and violence ultimately\narise.\n\nMen of great talent and men of the most miserable endowments, will\ncontinue to be born in any State, whether Socialistic or capitalistic.\nSo long as the individual right to procreate be admitted there will\ncontinue to be pressed into the community, not only the offspring of\nthe virtuous man, the sage, and the craftsman, but also the offspring\nof the knave, the mediocre and the fool. So long as the individual\u2019s\nright to parenthood is accepted as inviolable, society will therefore\ncontinue to be perturbed as it is now by an uninvited access of\none, two or even half a dozen to a dozen, new mouths, from certain\nindividuals, the low quality of whose accompanying bodies may be out of\nall proportion (in regard to the services they can render) to the high\nquantity of food and other supplies they can account for. New members\nwill be forced into the community by procreation which, according\nto the quality of [p103] their endowments will either considerably\nenhance its efficiency or considerably cripple it. If they are to\nenhance it, and it is in the interest of the community that they should\nenhance it, then they will require to be encouraged for so doing;\non the other hand, if they are going to cripple it, their crippling\ninfluence will recoil on each member of the social body, and each will\nsuffer from the presence of the new arrivals.\n\nFurther to elucidate this point, let two extreme examples be given:--\n\n(1). A man of singularly high gifts, C by name, presses upon the\ncommunity in his lifetime eight children all of which take more or\nless after him. Their endowments are so conspicuous that they plainly\novershadow all the other higher men of the community. It happens,\nmoreover, that the community has reached a crisis in its affairs when\nit urgently needs men of C\u2019s type. Obviously then C, by presenting\nthe community with eight singularly gifted replicas of himself, has\nprofoundly affected its life and its constitution. By elevating the\nstandard of the administrative work, some of the whilom administrators\nwill have been driven from office and forced to take up an inferior\nform of service. A perturbation will have occurred. In its ultimate\nanalysis it will have amounted to a coercive act, an act which though\ntolerated by the State (assumed in this case to admit the individual\u2019s\nright to procreate) thus turns out to be an act of violence. It was not\ndeliberate, or of a kind savouring of malice aforethought, but it is\nnevertheless an act which forces a change on the community at large,\nand a marked change of position on a [p104] certain number of the\ncommunity\u2019s members. It is therefore tantamount to an act of violence:\nit is in fact an act of violence.\n\n(2) Now suppose the case of a man who is the butt of everybody\u2019s\nridicule for his stubborn stupidity and intractable indolence. Suppose\nhis condition of utter unworthiness, from the intellectual and moral\npoint of view, to be moreover aggravated by poor health. This man, too,\nwe presume, claiming by law the right of parenthood, forces upon the\ncommunity half-a-dozen new members in the form of his offspring, who\nare so far like him that the competent authority can scarcely cover the\ncost of their clothes and food by the produce of their labours, and\nhas to encroach upon other resources of the State in order to provide\nfor them. Here again we have a profound perturbation, resulting from\nthe pressing of a new set of members upon the community by the act of\nprocreation. Nobody asked for them, nobody wanted them. But now they\nhave come, everybody has to work a little more or a little longer in\norder to provide for them. In its ultimate analysis this is once more a\ncoercive act, an act which, though tolerated by the State that admits\nthe individual\u2019s right to parenthood, thus turns out to be an act of\nviolence. It certainly was not deliberate, or designed particularly to\nharass the community; but it forces an extra burden on the social body,\nit is therefore tantamount to an act of violence: it is in fact an act\nof violence.\n\nNow here we have two extreme instances of violence entering a\nsocialistic society against which it would appear to be impossible\n[p105] to take any preventive measures.[19] And how did the violence\nenter?--In the same way as it enters all life, all Nature, all\nsocieties: through the act of procreation. Between the two extreme\ncases given the imaginative reader will easily be able to supply a vast\nnumber of intermediate cases, which though perhaps less powerful in the\nultimate violence of their effect on the community would nevertheless\npartake each in its way of the nature of violence.\n\nThe act of procreation is thus an act which in the long run amounts to\na means of pressing any number from one to a dozen (sometimes more) of\nnew members upon a community, which members may, in one way or another,\ncause a profound perturbation of the balance of that community.\n\nThe act of procreation is, therefore, an act of violence, of trespass,\nof invasion. The continuity of a species in Nature is secured by\nprocreation; but the balance of Nature is constantly made to fluctuate\naround a mean by the act, notwithstanding loss from predatory and other\ncauses.\n\nIn human society the continuity of the species is secured by\nprocreation; but since reciprocal destruction does not occur to\nnearly the same extent among human beings as it does among the lower\nanimals[20], in a healthy society, which is an increasing society, the\nbalance of the community, far from fluctuating around a mean, tends to\nbe thrown ever more seriously out with each successive generation.\n\nThus in a healthy society, which is an increasing society, procreation\nis not merely a transitory but a perpetual source of violence.\n\nThe present writer is not arguing that this is right or wrong; he\nis only trying to state a fact. Whether it be a pleasant fact, or a\ndesirable fact, is for the moment beside the point. It is at all events\na fundamental truth of life, and as such it would be idle to devise any\nnew scheme of society in which it is not allowed for.\n\nIt may be objected that the whole of a man\u2019s offspring in modern\nsociety may elude their destiny of impinging violently against that\nsociety by becoming emigrants.\n\nThis appears to be forcible enough. But is not emigration in itself\nmerely a means of postponing the act of violence by one stage?\nBesides, is not emigration--say to the colonies--possible to-day\nonly because we happen to be living at a period subsequent to an\nact of violence on a grand scale, by which the land constituting the\ncolonies, whether of France, England, Holland, or Italy, was wrested\nfrom other people? And even so, have we not seen recently, during a\ntime of serious unemployment in England, certain politicians object\nto Mr. Lloyd George\u2019s schemes of emigration on the ground that, to\nsend our unemployed to Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, where labour\nconditions were also unfavourable, would be an act of provocation to\nthose colonies?--Why an act of provocation?--Because to impose a number\nof extra mouths on a community unless there is a genuine industrial\ndemand in that community for the able bodies possessing those mouths,\nis an act of gratuitous violence.\n\nIt serves no purpose to revile life and the world because we happen\nto have lighted upon a fundamental fact that is unpleasant to our\ncultivated sensibilities. Life is as it is, and Nature is as it is,\nand no bewailing or reviling on our parts will alter them. The brave\nattitude, the healthy attitude, indeed the only dignified attitude, is\nto accept life and Nature as they are, and to endeavour to discover the\nmost desirable method of dealing with both of them.\n\nThis primary act of violence, which is procreation, cannot be cancelled\nout or annulled; it cannot be expunged from the essential character\nof existence. It must be accepted. This much, however, should be\nimmediately understood; _you cannot have at the very portals of life an\nact of violence, and hope to build upon it a form of society in which\nviolence in some form, however attenuated, [p108] will not appear_.\nTo make any promises to this effect is the plainest humbug. It may\nappear an alluring prospect; it may sound an attractive picture; it\nmay deceive and it may delude; but it is an impossible undertaking\nnotwithstanding; and those who declare that they are prepared to embark\nupon it are either too ill-informed to realise the true data of their\nproblem, too dishonest to admit that they know these true data, or too\ninept properly to deal with them.\n\nStarting out then with this original act of violence which is rooted in\nlife and in Nature and enters into every form of human society willy\nnilly, it is obvious that its reverberations must proceed rhythmically\nthroughout all the sections of any human community whatsoever, be its\norganisation what you will. Thus inequalities, apparent injustices\nand even bondage, appear only as the necessary ultimate repercussions\nof the original perturbing influence. And in every society hitherto,\nsuch regrettable repercussions of the original act of violence have\nalways been regarded as inevitable. As a rule the authorities have,\naccording to their lights, endeavoured to mitigate the asperity of\nthese perturbations; but to eliminate them completely they have always\nknown is an impossible achievement, _because they are not man-made, but\ncreated by the laws of life itself_.\n\nAll societies hitherto appear to have recognised with varying degrees\nof liberality the sacredness of man\u2019s right over his procreative\npowers. But what a large number of recent sociological thinkers\nappear to have forgotten is, that since procreation and its [p109]\nconsequences are part of the original elements of life and nature,\nwhich are allowed to persist in the more or less artificial arrangement\ncalled society, this artificial arrangement must partake of the\nharshness, the inequalities and the apparent injustices of life and\nnature, to the extent to which it allows these original elements of\nlife and nature to operate freely in its midst. To check procreation,\nor limit it by law, would involve the violation of the sanctity which\nhas hitherto been accepted as the one attribute shielding every man\u2019s\nright over his procreative powers.[21]\n\nAcquiescing in the inviolability of this right, then, the utmost\nsociety could do, was to mitigate the worst consequences of its free\noperation, by ordering as far as possible the union of couples, and\nby properly allocating the general burden of responsibility for the\nsupport of the offspring arising from these unions.\n\nAlbeit no amount of order introduced into the joining of couples,\ncould possibly place a check upon man\u2019s procreative powers when\nonce he had fulfilled all the formalities that the State demanded;\nconsequently, despite all its attempts to regulate the relations of\nthe sexes, society\u2019s ultimate control over the act of procreation\nand its results remain more or less ineffectual, and in so far as it\nattempts to establish any reasonable proportion between a man\u2019s powers\nof procreating and his powers of providing for the consequences of\nhis act--or for that matter his children\u2019s power of providing for\nthemselves in after life--the outcome of all society\u2019s efforts have\nbeen practically nil.\n\nEvidently mankind seems to have come to the conclusion fairly early in\nthe history of civilisation that if there is one kind of interference,\none kind of control or of constraint that his fellows can with\ndifficulty brook, it is that which would presume to meddle with their\nright over their procreative powers. But the consequences of this\nattitude in regard to so vital a function as procreation should not\nbe overlooked by shallow political thinkers and other romanticists.\nThis consequence, which cannot be repeated too often, is _that with\nthe free operation of the right to parenthood every society hitherto\nhas incorporated in its organisation a piece of life and nature, raw\nand unmitigated by any softening influence_. And, having done this,\nit cannot hope to eliminate from its organisation that modicum of\nviolence, harshness and inexorability which attaches to the free\noperation of all natural and vital laws.\n\nThe lack of candour and bravery in the Socialist\u2019s and Communist\u2019s\nposition, is that they do not refer to this basic natural element\nin all human societies, and furthermore that they propose a form of\nsociety in which this basic natural element is not even reckoned with.\n\nFor it must be clear that to hope on such a basis to build up a social\nstructure that will be all mutual help, mutual give and take, [p111]\nand mutual good will--quite apart from the known character of human\nbeings--is simply romantic reverie; and in refusing to recognise that\nmore than three-quarters of the apparent injustices, asperities and\ndisabilities of human society, are the inevitable repercussions upon\nindividuals of the incessant working of the primitive act of violence\nat the base of the social edifice, the proclaimer and preacher of a\nUtopia free from violence publishes broadcast either his own ineptitude\nor his own dishonesty.\n\nBut this is not the only form in which the dishonesty of Socialist and\nCommunist propaganda manifests itself. For the Socialist and Communist\nnot only refuse to recognise the violence inherent in the consequences\nof the free operation of the right to parenthood, they also lay to the\nscore of man\u2019s legislation the injustices and inequalities which are\nclearly the outcome of that right alone.\n\nIn all societies, however wisely controlled and directed, there are\ncertain to be thousands of malcontents. Those malcontents who owe their\nposition of failure, obscurity, or impotence to circumstances over\nwhich no organised community ever has had or ever can have control, are\nhowever easily won over to an attack upon society, if they can be shown\nby unscrupulous or incompetent thinkers that their position is due, not\nto an essential law of life or nature, but to the peculiar conventions\nor rules regulating the community of which they happen to form a\npart. Men who are congenitally inefficient, beneath even mediocre\nattainments in their intelligence, their physical strength or their\nhealth, very naturally find [p112] themselves relegated to inferior\nresponsibilities, subordinate places and menial tasks. In any community\nin which there is a high appreciation of quality, or a conscious effort\ntowards good qualitative results--and no other community is worth\nconsidering--this must be so.\n\nNow nothing is easier, nevertheless, than to convince this class of\nmalcontents that their subordinate positions and menial tasks are\nthe result of a social rather than of a natural injustice, and the\ndishonesty of Communistic propaganda, consists very largely in the\nfact that it will not scruple to delude this class of malcontents into\nbelieving that in a perfectly realisable ideal state of society their\ndisabilities would be removed. Nay, it goes further than that, it adds\nto the small list of remediable injustices which are really of man\u2019s\ncreating, the long list of gross injustices which are the work of life\nand nature, and flinging the whole sum of these injustices at the head\nof society, leads the ignorant and the thoughtless to believe that the\ngrand total of the account can legitimately be charged against man and\nhis institutions.\n\nAnd this brings us to the next step in the argument.\n\nSo far we have seen:--\n\n(_a_). That procreation acts as a perturbing force in society, and that\nin its consequences it is therefore an act of violence.\n\n(_b_). That tradition and recent investigation lead us to believe that\nit is not advisable to meddle with the individual\u2019s sacred right over\nhis procreative powers.\n\n(_c_). That therefore in any community where [p113] the individual\u2019s\nright to parenthood is regarded as inviolable, violence must\nreverberate throughout the whole social structure and in its\nrepercussions must impinge with more or less severity against\nindividuals.\n\nThe next step in the argument is the consequence of (_c_) and it is\nthat where there is violence, however slight or however carefully\nregulated, its results must redound with more or less severity to the\ndisadvantage of certain individuals, that is to say, _there must be\nsomeone or some group that suffers_. And this appears to be another\nof the fundamental social truths without allowing for which it seems\nhopeless to set forth to rebuild society.\n\nTo deny it may sound pleasant, kind, humane, charitable, and\nchivalrous; but it is not candid; and although to the ignorant, to the\nsentimental and the thoughtless, that which is pleasant frequently\nmakes the appeal of truth itself, in the end that man or party who is\nnot straightforward about these matters is bound to be discovered and\nreviled.\n\nThose therefore who wish to reform all future societies, and who wish\nto make it unnecessary for sufferers or suffering to exist in the\nworld, except at the will of the legislature, can do so only in one\nof two ways.[22] Either they must close the backdoor through which\nthe violence of nature and life enters the community--that backdoor\nbeing the free operation of the right to parenthood--or else they\nmust do what no society hitherto has ventured to do, _i.e._, they must\ndetermine by law beforehand who is and who is not to be sacrificed.\n\nThe suffering which in society is the necessary outcome of the act of\nviolence which is procreation, that suffering which is the only means\nof balancing this violence, does not necessarily fall on the heads of\nall. It selects its victims as it were with a certain caprice. And\nhitherto, while endeavouring to mitigate the severity of it as far as\npossible, society has been content to leave its incidence more or less\nto chance, to the blind forces which ultimately determine, as they do\nin nature, the fate of all individual beings.\n\nIt is only in war time, when the kind of person to be sacrificed for\nthe whole is definitely indicated, that society proceeds by legislation\nto select those who should suffer from those who should be spared. And\neven then, a certain element of chance remains over by means of which\nit is possible for large numbers of young men to escape the ultimate\nprice.\n\nIf, however, it is proposed to reform society so that it shall either\ncontain no violence, or that the effects of that violence shall be\nannulled for the majority by legislative means, then whatever the\nSocialist or Communist may have to say to the contrary, this can be\ndone only in one of two ways:\n\n(_a_) Either man\u2019s right to parenthood must be violated.\n\n(_b_) Or the section of society which is to be sacrificed to balance\nthe original act of violence must be deliberately decided upon by\nlegislative means. [p115]\n\nAnd since these are the only two alternatives, the Socialist, the\nCommunist, and the Bolshevist, are just as hopelessly committed to\nthem as any other advocate of a new social scheme, from which the\ninequalities and injustices inseparable from all human communities\nheretofore are to be absent.\n\n_The fact that they are impossible alternatives invalidates the whole\nof the Socialist and Communist\u2019s position._\n\nTo promise a Utopia from which inequalities and injustices will have\nbeen removed, without stating frankly that one or the other of the\nabove alternatives is necessary, is therefore the acme of dishonesty;\nand in this respect the present writer has reluctantly to admit that\nthe Socialist, Communist and Bolshevist, whether from ignorance,\nineptitude or design, appear to be radically dishonest.\n\nIt has been shown, however, that their dishonesty does not stop at\nthis. In addition they fasten the few remediable injustices which are\nof man\u2019s own creating, on to the grosser and more flagrant injustices\nin modern society which are only the inevitable repercussions from the\noriginal act of violence we have been examining, and then proceed to\ndeclare that the whole sum of injustices are of man\u2019s own making. This\nis their greatest perfidy, their most misleading and most dexterous\nfeat of _legerdemain_. The ignorant and the thoughtless are very\nnaturally deceived, and it is always too late when they discover how\nclumsily and how cruelly they have been deceived.\n\nIt has been pointed out that it is an indispensable portion of life and\nof nature which [p116] in all our societies introduces the element\nof violence and leads to inequalities and injustices; but this aspect\nof the matter is the darkest and most displeasing that could possibly\nhave been put forward, and in dealing with it first the present writer\nhas postponed to the end of the discussion the more grateful duty of\nconsidering it on its more valuable and deeply attractive side.\n\nTrue in its repercussions it leads to some of the chief asperities of\nhuman life; but is it not accountable for most of humanity\u2019s principal\njoys as well? On its shadow side it may appear harsh, but seriously\nwould we have it otherwise? And are not those who pretend that it can\nbe otherwise merely romanticists who want all life to be the perpetual\nwhite glare of a noonday sun without any shadow?\n\nConsider, to begin with, the sanctity of the individual\u2019s right over\nhis procreative powers. How many of humanity\u2019s finest emotions and\nmost treasured virtues arise out of it? This is not sentiment, but\npsychological fact. And what does society expect to become if it\nsucceeds in suppressing the source of these virtues and emotions? How\nmany sober-minded men, actually faced with one of the two alternatives\nstated above, as the essential first measure to the establishment of a\nUtopia without violence or accidental suffering, would give that Utopia\na second thought?\n\nThere is nothing the present writer deprecates more sincerely than\nan appeal to the emotions alone. He is aware that in the above\nparagraph he has made a frank appeal to the emotions. But surely in\nthis particular instance it is amply justified? Having made [p117]\nhis principal intellectual appeal, he now confronts his readers with\nthe \u00e6sthetic aspect of the alternatives proposed. For is not life and\nthe enjoyment of life largely a question of \u00e6sthetics? Is not our\nemotional nature competent therefore to decide upon a question of\ntaste or pleasure? Life offers many alternatives; human life presents\nhundreds of possibilities. In the end it is our emotional nature and\nour \u00e6sthetic sense that decide which road leads to the greatest amount\nof happiness, although the intellect may have directed us all along.\nCan we really suppose then, that a change that can cut at the root of\nso much virtue and so much traditional sentiment, can possibly be one\nthat is going to bring us happiness?\n\nAnd even in its inevitable repercussions--the inequalities and\ninjustices of which so much has been said above--has the free operation\nof the individual\u2019s right to parenthood not also immense advantages?\n\nIn nature it is the violence and inexorable character of the forces at\nplay that give life its manifold beauties and contrasts, the mountains\nand the valleys, the rivers and the lakes, the tableland and the gorge,\nthe forest and the open plain. In the animal world it is the difference\nbetween the tiger and the antelope, the vulture and the hare, the lion\nand the jackal, that lends to life that panoramic charm of variegated\nvirtue and adaptation to ends. While in the domain of plants it is the\ndivergences of the oak from the shrub, of the palm from the cactus, of\nthe poplar from the plum tree, that combine to produce that harmony and\ndissonance which the landscape painter converts into graphic music.\n[p118]\n\nIs it now contended that in human society we can dispense with\ninequalities and injustices without also sacrificing three-quarters\nof its beauties? Apart altogether from the fact that it is utterly\nimpossible to achieve this end, would it be desirable? How much of the\njoy of life does not spring from the thirst and thrill of adventure,\nfrom the consciousness of being an individual trying to establish one\u2019s\nright of citizenship among people who are sufficiently unlike one\n(_unequal to one_) to introduce an element of uncertainty, of sport if\nyou will, into the undertaking? How much of the charm of life does not\narise from the vast repertory of different powers and virtues which\ninequality alone makes possible? A beautiful medal has its reverse\nside. And is not so-called injustice merely the reverse side of the\nmedal of inequality? The multifariousness which lends social life\nits variety and its incidents, the pronounced divergences from life\nwhich give it its light and its shade: all these things have hitherto\nconstituted the essential conditions out of which the thing we know as\nhuman society has grown. Even if we could alter these conditions we\ncannot even picture the kind of result we should obtain. We know of no\nsociety wherein inequalities and their consequent injustices do not\nexist. We cannot imagine such a society.\n\nThis is not empty imagery and grandiloquent sentiment, it is the\nplainest truth. It is impossible to conceive of a society at all unless\nwe presuppose among its members the presence of those particularly\nhappy results of inequality which are higher men. Even the lowest\nforms of gregariousness--the wolf [p119] pack and the herd of\nantelopes--benefit from this kind of inequality by the function that\nit enables their leaders to perform. For a society implies cohesion,\nit implies unity of purpose and desire; it also implies a more or less\nuniform outlook on life. But how are these things possible without\nhigher men? When in the history of the world have these results been\nachieved without the help of superior beings? But the idea of something\nsuperior immediately suggests inequality, and inequality right down to\nthe lowest man; but with this inequality we must as we have seen accept\nso-called injustices and consequently suffering.\n\nTo inveigh against the necessary consequences of life is not to open a\n\u201cclass war,\u201d as the Socialist and Communist claim to have done, but to\nopen war against life itself; and this conclusion supplies me with the\nterms of my last charge against them.\n\nThe Socialist and Communist do not really know their true objective;\nthey do not really know against whom they are marching and levelling\ntheir attacks. In addition to being dishonest, therefore, they are\nutterly confused.\n\nIt is life itself that causes the chief among the grievances that they\npropose to redress, and thus their description of their campaign as a\nclass war is the outcome of a most complete misunderstanding.\n\nThey are the advocates of a principle of death, or putting it more\nmildly, at least of a movement hostile to life, and they do not know\nit and never have known it. Their banners are sewn with false and\nmeaningless devices calculated to delude only the ignorant [p120]\nand the thoughtless, and they are not even frank about the necessary\nlogical conclusions of their own first principles. If they really wish\nto put an end to violence in human society, they would sew on their\nforemost banner the device: \u201cDown with procreation.\u201d\n\nThis might prove unpopular, it might even sound less alluring than\n\u201cDown with the bourgeoisie!\u201d but at least it would be honest and might\nhelp them to achieve their real aim.\n\nThe present writer does not suggest that the mass of the people of\nEngland or France understand the real errors in the Socialist and\nCommunist\u2019s position. He does not even believe that when once these\nerrors have been made known to them they will be able to grasp or\nunderstand them; but certainly the capacity which very large numbers of\nthem are showing for resisting the seductive appeal of these so-called\n\u201cclass-war\u201d doctrines, points to a certain instinctive insight on their\npart which does them credit, and may possibly be a sign that they are\nmoved by a vague, but none the less powerful, suspicion that all is not\nas golden as it glitters in the Socialistic creed, and therefore that\nthere is still a chance for those who would win them back to a wisely\ncontrolled capitalism, and to a future in which reform rather than\nrevolution is the general programme.\n\n                 *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *\n\nIs the case against Socialism as strong as this? Is there really\nnothing to be said for the position that the Socialist and Communist\nassume?--Certainly there is nothing to be said for it. Then what gives\nit its seductive plausibility? What is it that makes three-quarters\n[p121] of those who have interested reasons for opposing it, suspect in\ntheir heart of hearts that Socialism and Communism may be right after\nall?\n\nThose among the possessing classes who, while opposing active Socialist\npropaganda, yet believe in their heart of hearts that Socialism is\nright, are usually as confused as the Socialists and Communists\nthemselves, and as incapable of tracing political propositions back to\nfirst principles. They make the same mistakes as the Socialists, and\nconfound life and nature\u2019s injustices with the remediable injustices\nwhich are the outcome of human legislation, and after adding the two\ntogether charge the whole sum to the account of society or civilisation.\n\nThey belong to the class of thoughtless people who are in the habit of\nsaying in the face of every impending reform good or bad, \u201cThe thing\nmust come\u201d; and their attitude of forestalled acquiescence offers so\nlittle opposition, that as a rule the thing to which they refer _does_\ncome.\n\nBut the reason why the claims and proposals of the Socialist and\nCommunist succeed in displaying a certain modicum of plausibility is\nnot because, on examination, they impel the inquirer to agreement;\nfor, as we have seen, the more thoroughly they are investigated, the\nmore impossible does it become to accept them; it is rather because in\nmodern European society certain unnecessarily gross evils which are\ntruly the creation of man and which seem to lend a colourable warrant\nto the revolutionist\u2019s position, are too glaring to be overlooked.\n\nWe have seen that where there is violence [p122] some one or some\ngroup must ultimately be victimised or sacrificed. This does not\nnecessarily involve death or annihilation, it may simply amount to\nfailure, failure to hold their own.\n\nNow it is the first duty of rulers, as we have seen, to watch\nvigilantly that the violence is not of man\u2019s making, for that can be\nhelped, but only of life\u2019s making, for that cannot be helped. The\nsecond duty of rulers, however, most certainly is to assuage as far\nas possible the asperities resulting from the violence that is life\u2019s\nmaking.\n\nCharles I. was an ideal monarch in this respect; not only did he\nsuppress fraud, profiteering, and the exploitation of the poorer\nclasses, all means by which violence of man\u2019s making breaks loose\nin society; but he also sheltered those whom natural disaster had\novertaken.[23]\n\nNow the gross evils of modern European society which lend a colourable\nwarrant to the otherwise absurd proposals of the Communist and\nSocialist, are the multifarious deeds of violence of man\u2019s making, that\nhave been allowed to break loose on the community.\n\nAmong those deeds of violence we may mention:\n\n(1) Sweating.\n\n(2) The act of inviting the proletariat to engage in unhealthy\noccupations, frequently resulting in permanent ill-health or premature\ndeath.\n\n(3) Profiteering and the turning of any form of temporary distress to\nadvantage.\n\n(4) Speculating in the first necessaries of life.\n\n(5) Unwise and wasteful disposal of property after death: as for\ninstance for the support of cranky and faddist societies, of useless\nand non-productive people in unnecessary affluence; the endowment of\ninstitutions that have a degenerating effect on the general standard of\nhealth of the nation.\n\n(6) Class cleavage and snobbery.\n\n(7) The encouragement by the legislature of the growth of large urban\ncentres, and the ill-health and general unwholesomeness of the poorer\nquarters of such centres.\n\n(8) The purveying of inferior food to the masses, and of food that is\nnot strictly life-supporting, such as vegetable margarine, dried fruit\nand vegetables, adulterated beer, tinned foods of all kinds (except\npossibly tinned tomatoes), dirty milk and adulterated bread.\n\n(9) The lack of protection afforded to the masses against: (_a_)\nusurious money lending (a penny a week per shilling is not uncommon),\n(_b_) pollution and demoralisation through inferior and pernicious\nliterature, (_c_) pollution and demoralisation through alien\nimmigration.\n\n(10) The failure to impart to the masses by means of education any\nthorough grasp of any branch of knowledge which might ennoble their\noutlook, add dignity to their characters, and lend support to their\nself-esteem.\n\nIn addition to all this, not a single item of which deals with any\nevil that is not susceptible of reform, it should be borne in mind\nthat modern western civilisation has in some way failed so miserably\nto mould her values [p124] so that the successful in life\u2019s struggle\nshould in all cases be the most virtuous, the most intelligent, and the\nmost desirable, in the minds of tasteful people, that a certain stigma\nnow attaches to the materially successful--particularly those who have\nattained material success in commerce and industry--which cannot be\nsaid to be altogether unmerited, and which the Communist and Socialist\nnaturally exploit to the utmost in their propaganda.\n\nThe greatest indictment of modern society is perhaps the frequency with\nwhich vulgarity and the meanest attainments in virtue and intellect\nachieve phenomenal material success; and since this is the outcome of\nvalues, and the laws governing commerce and industry, it is obvious\nthat in this direction reforms must be effected, if the Communist\nand Socialist are to be deprived of the small amount of validity\nwhich appears to attach to their sweeping condemnation of society and\ncivilisation.\n\nOn the other hand, while we have seen that the original act of violence\nat the base of all society, must lead to suffering somewhere and\nsomewhen, the characteristic about modern western civilisation which\nlends so much colour to the Socialist and Communist\u2019s schemes, is the\nfrequency with which this suffering seems to be borne by people who are\nby no means the unworthiest in the community.\n\nThe values of modern society have become so vulgar and mercenary that\nagain and again it happens that the section of the social body which\nthe chance play of forces selects for sacrifice, is superior to the\nsection which is [p125] spared, and which not infrequently wields the\nmost power in the community.\n\nThus it is not the suffering in modern society that lends support to\nthe so-called class-war doctrines; for as we have seen suffering of\nsome kind is inevitable where there is inequality and injustice; but\nit is the fact that the suffering in question often falls upon the\nmost desirable members of the community, or at least upon those who\nare capable of the greatest virtue and the greatest industry, and this\nis the outcome purely of the vulgarity and coarseness of our values\nwhich are quite as susceptible to modification and reform as any other\nman-made feature of our lives.\n\nThe fact that after all these reforms, however, there will still\nremain a residuum of violence in all civilisation, which it will be\nimpossible altogether to eliminate, so long as nations recognise the\nindividual\u2019s inviolable right to parenthood, should nevertheless be\ncarefully remembered and reckoned with; for, both as a check upon any\ntoo romantic schemes of our own, as well as a means with which to\ncriticise our enemies\u2019 proposals, the recollection of this unpleasant\nbut ineluctable principle is one of the most valuable measures of\ncaution by which it is possible for us to abide; and he who, by\nforgetting it, fancies he has discovered a royal road to his Utopia,\nwill find perhaps too late that life, nature and society are not easily\nmade the sport of false ideals and shallow fantasies, but are ruled by\ninexorable and frequently unpleasant laws the rigour of which it is\nsafer to acknowledge than to ignore.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 19: The present writer has purposely avoided reducing the\nviolence to an act of depredation in regard to food, air and space;\nalthough in a steadily increasing community, which is the only healthy\ncommunity, surrounded by other steadily increasing communities, this\naspect of the question would have to be taken into account. In such a\ncommunity every baby born may rightly be said to constitute a menace\nto every other baby\u2019s food, air and space. Nor has any mention been\nmade of the multiplication of people who become a burden to the rest\nof the community by the sheer inferiority of their physique. But again\nin their case provision would have to be made by the administrators of\na Socialistic State, just as it is made by capitalistic States; and\nthe parents of such physically inferior people would thus, by the act\nof procreation alone, have pressed a burden upon their fellow citizens\nwhich would virtually amount to an act of violence against them. Though\nthe parents of such physically inferior people might scruple to put\ntheir hands in their fellow members\u2019 pockets for food or money, by\nmeans of their offspring they thus indirectly perpetrate a predatory\nact against them.]\n\n[Footnote 20: There are reasons for believing that Socialists promise\nto make it cease altogether among human beings.]\n\n[Footnote 21: The wisdom of ancient societies in never checking or\nlimiting this right is now becoming more than ever apparent in the\nlight that psycho-analysis has thrown upon the disastrous effects of\ninterfering too drastically with this function in human beings.]\n\n[Footnote 22: Sufferers and suffering are to be understood here as of a\nkind which the inequalities of life and nature alone bring about--not\nthe sufferers and suffering resulting from ordinary human passions\nand the accidents of their manifestation: love, hate, indifference,\nchildlessness, spinsterhood, etc.; for it is presumed that no reformer\nhas ever been so foolish as to pretend that he could eliminate these.]\n\n[Footnote 23: This I have demonstrated with sufficient detail\nelsewhere. See my _Defence of Aristocracy_, Chapter IV.]\n\n\n\n\n                            [p126] CHAPTER VI\n\n                                EDUCATION\n\n  \u201cA city can be virtuous only when the citizens who have a share in\n  the government are virtuous, and in our state all the citizens share\n  in the government.\u201d--Aristotle (Politics. Bk. VII., 13).\n\n\nEducation, as organised by the state, can have but one object--the\nrearing of people who are fit to be decent and worthy citizens. A man\nmay educate himself privately in vice, in jazzing, in motoring, or\nin crime; he is at liberty to do this at his own expense and in his\nown time; but if he is educated at the expense of his fellow-men, the\nintention of these fellow-men must be to train him into a desirable\nmember of society. Only thus can the huge outlay be made worth while.\n\nNow a desirable citizen is above all a well conducted citizen. He may\nknow French and fencing, and be able to beat all comers at billiards\nor biology, marbles or mathematics; but he is only a nuisance if he is\nnot, in addition, well conducted--that is to say, reliable, sensible,\nunderstanding, and honest. It is more important that he should\nthoroughly grasp the first principles of sound conduct and thought,\nthan that he should know the whole of counterpoint or conchology.\n\nWhen once he has mastered the first principles of sound conduct and\nthought, he is prepared to do well at anything, according [p127] to\nhis gifts; whereas the most exhaustive knowledge of counterpoint and\nconchology will, in the most favourable circumstances, only make him a\ngood musician or a good classifier of shells.\n\nIn short, happiness and harmony are more easily achieved by a people\nholding deep and sound views concerning Life and Humanity, than by\npeople deeply versed in science, and top-heavy with information.\nHappiness has been achieved again and again upon earth by people\npossessing not a billionth part of the knowledge that has been\naccumulated by modern man. A sound instinct in regard to food, a\ncorrect understanding of one\u2019s self and one\u2019s fellows and a decent\nappreciation of the limits of individual caprice in a social community,\nare, after all, more precious than a large accumulation of facts. And\nthus education, if it is to be valuable, should consist very much more\nin a training in manners, sound views, and means of intercourse, than\nin the acquisition of knowledge about facts.[24]\n\nAll adults know how very few of the facts they learned at school\nare ever remembered in later life, and how only those elements of\nthe scholastic curriculum are turned to practical account, or even\nremembered, which come into daily use throughout life. Thus, a boy of\nthe working classes may remember a little elementary arithmetic and\na little geography--apart from that, all he recalls is the trick of\nreading, because he practises it every day of the year.\n\nNow, since the masses of the people form the bulk of the nation,\nand are ultimately the determining factor in the nation\u2019s character\nand achievements, nothing could possibly be more important than\nworking-class education. State education of the masses, therefore,\noffers the finest opportunity that the legislature could obtain, to\nexpress its concern about the nation\u2019s welfare, and to secure that\nwelfare by inculcating upon everyone, except the minority constituting\nthe well-to-do, who cannot matter nearly as much, decent manners, sound\nviews, and a proper, adequate means of intercourse.\n\nIt is certainly one of the most ugly features of our elementary\neducation in this country, that manners--which ought to be the first\namong the foremost objects of all education--are entirely omitted from\nthe curriculum. As if, forsooth, it were better for master Tommy and\nhis sister Jane, to know of the existence of the trade winds, than\nto know how to behave when an adult addresses them! In this way the\nlegislature imposes quite an unnecessary burden of discomfort and\nsorrow upon the poor, because without good manners life is made so very\nmuch more difficult and wretched, and so very much less smooth and\nharmonious. How the idea of education ever came to be divorced from\nmanners, it is hard to explain; but that it has been thus divorced is\nunquestionable. The consequences of this gross [p129] initial error\nfall with greater severity upon the poor, or the masses, than upon the\nrich; perhaps that is why so little is done to correct it. The reason\nof this unfair incidence of the evils resulting from a lack of manners,\nis not, however, due to the fact that the rich are necessarily good\nmannered, or better educated in manners than the poor; for there is\nample evidence to the contrary; but that the lack of manners of the\nrich is not so keenly felt by those in their immediate circle, because\nthey live in larger rooms, larger houses, larger areas, and they are\nthus able to get away from one another\u2019s bad manners--an escape which\nis denied the poor.\n\nBut while no attention is given to manners in elementary education, it\nmust not be supposed that training in sound views, whether concerning\nLife or Humanity, is the subject of more careful attention. Apart\nfrom copy-book maxims, nothing whatever is done for the masses of the\npeople in this matter. It is true that the Church and its teaching are\nsupposed to cover precisely this ground in the mental upbringing of the\nnation, but even if we admit that the Church is capable of teaching\nsound views concerning Life and Humanity, how many of the working\nclasses still believe in Christianity to-day? How many of them believe\nso fervently as to insist upon their children observing all the tenets\nof Christianity? Moreover, it is only fair to judge this department\nof education by its fruits. Where is the evidence at present, after\ngenerations of Church teaching, that the mass of the people have been\ntaught any views at all [p130] about Life and Humanity--not to mention\nsound views?\n\nAt all events, this is obviously a factor in education that ought never\nto have been left to an independent and uncontrolled body--particularly\na religious body. It ought to have been included as an essential\nelement in any scheme of secular education that was devised. What,\nindeed, could be more important than the necessity of imparting to your\ngrowing citizen sound views about himself, his kind, society, and life\nin general? What could be more vital in the formation of his character,\nhis outlook, and the moulding of his ultimate conduct? It scarcely\nrequires to be pointed out, however, that, like manners, this is a\nfactor in education which the State schools leave entirely aside.\n\nPeople will tell you that there is no time for such a branch\nof learning. _No time_--to attend to one of the most important\nprerequisites of a sound education!\n\nIt would be a mistake to suppose, however, that the wealthy and\nwell-to-do classes are any better off than the poor in this respect.\nOn the whole, they are a little worse off. For, while the children of\nthe working classes are sufficiently in touch with life\u2019s realities to\nhave a number of fundamental truths forced upon their attention, the\nchildren of the wealthy and well-to-do classes live in an atmosphere\nso perfectly truth-proof, so far removed from life\u2019s realities, and\ntheir schools do so little to correct the benighting influence of their\nhomes, that there is probably no creature on earth more hopelessly\ndevoid of sound views on any subject than the public schoolboy of\nseventeen. [p131] Everything has been done, no pains have been spared,\nto inculcate upon him every false doctrine and valuation of which the\npresent age can boast.\n\nIn a complicated society like ours, the means of intercourse in\neducation cover practically everything that does not come under\nthe head of \u201cvocational training.\u201d Men and women must know how to\nunderstand other people and how to make themselves understood. They\nmust know how to count money, how to read and comprehend a letter or a\nbook, and command such general information as will protect them from\ndeception, from going astray, or from otherwise failing to hold their\nown among their fellow beings.\n\nNow it is precisely in this department that the State education of\nEngland really does pretend to accomplish all that is desired; and yet\nnowhere is the inadequacy of its achievement more conspicuous. We have\nseen that it does not even pretend to teach manners, and that it does\nnot claim to inculcate sound views upon the masses whom it professes\nto educate; but it does claim to teach them the means of intercourse.\nCountless millions are spent upon this instruction annually. Hundreds\nof thousands of children are bored to stultification while they are\nsupposed to be acquiring it, and the net result is that 99 out of 100\nof them neither know how to understand other people, nor how to make\nthemselves understood. They do not even know how to understand what\nthey read. And nothing is done to equip them in this all-important\nbranch of knowledge. [p132]\n\nAnybody would have thought that one of the first concerns of any\neducational body dealing with \u201cnational\u201d education would have been\nto secure to all citizens of the same nation, irrespective of rank,\nat least a thorough knowledge of their native tongue. For what,\nindeed, could be more vital? It is the first pre-requisite of all\nsatisfactory communication, whether from or to the subject; it is the\nfirst essential weapon of the rational faculties. A particular native\nlanguage may have faults and shortcomings as compared with other native\nlanguages; it may be poorer in words, more complicated in syntax, less\ncopiously supplied with racy idiom, etc., but surely any national\nscheme of education that fails to make the mastery of this native\nlanguage--such as it is, perfect or imperfect--the foremost object on\nits programme, is guilty of a gross dereliction of duty. For whatever\nits faults may be, the masses, at least, have no other means of\ncommunication, and if they are going to be made articulate, they must\nbe taught their native tongue.\n\nAt present the situation of the English working classes is in this\nrespect, pathetic in its helpless and infantile humility. Their talk\nis the babble of babes, their vocabulary the means of expression\nfor creatures whose feelings and thoughts are no more complicated\nthan those of primitive savages. Not only are they incapable of\nunderstanding complex states of feeling or complex thoughts when\nthey hear them accurately and carefully expressed, but they are also\nutterly unable to give expression to at least three-quarters of their\nown thoughts and emotions. [p133] In regard to a very large number of\nthoughts and emotions, which, to the cultivated man, are commonplace\nmatters, the masses of England are therefore literally inarticulate.\nThe same word answers for a hundred meanings in their conversation, all\nof which it but inadequately expresses; while for those emotions and\nthoughts for which they have no words, there can exist only mute and\nmystified suspicion.\n\nThis is bad enough. Life is sufficiently tragic for millions of\ncreatures to-day, without its being either necessary or desirable to\naggravate it with the additional affliction of dumbness. And yet the\nfact that this inarticulateness, which ignorance imposes, is equivalent\nto dumbness, or at least to partial dumbness, is surely incontestable.\n\nBut there is a consequence of this ignorance which is even more serious\nthan that discussed above. And that is the danger to which it exposes\nits sufferers of falling under false guidance, misdirection and\npollution from outside. Whereas dumbness, although a sad affliction,\nis often merely another form of constraint; misunderstanding,\nmisinterpretation, or the inability to criticise and to reject the\nexpressed thoughts of others, may be a source of pollution, a source of\ngrave error, and a speedy means of complete and incurable perversion.\n\nIf people are to be protected from misconceptions, false leaders,\ndemagogues, and all those smart and slippery unemployed who are ever\nready to exploit ignorance, and take advantage of simplicity, they\nmust be in a position to listen critically to an address or an appeal\nmade to them in their [p134] own language. They must be in a position\nto tell to what extent their proposed leader or misleader understands\nwhat he is talking about. How much false sentiment, false doctrine,\ninflammatory teaching, is simply an abuse of language, a forcing of\nterms, in fact, catachresis! How much of it would be detected and\nexposed, if the majority of the nation possessed that precision and\nunderstanding in the use of words, which would come with a proper\nknowledge of their native tongue.\n\nTo-day the man who is ever ready to mislead, to confuse, and to\ninflame, the minds of ignorant people, encounters no check, no critical\nscrutiny of his pronouncements, for his listeners are hardly able\nto understand correctly the simplest words he uses. The temptation,\ntherefore, to use language loosely and even unscrupulously is as\npowerful as it is repeatedly unresisted.\n\nThe huge and flatulent press, that has grown up within the last fifty\nyears, cares as little for accuracy of expression, or for sober\nprecision in language, as it cares for any other ideal which formerly\nseemed worth striving after. The power of the press is enormous. It\nguides opinion, it influences the hearts of the people, it has the\nunited effort of nations under its direction; and yet where does it\nshow any signs of being chastened by the awful duties which, it is\ntrue, it may never deliberately have intended to shoulder at the outset\nof its career?\n\nThe traditions of the Middle Ages, at least, included certain\nprinciples which led to the protection of the poorer and more ignorant\nclasses; the Church of the Middle [p135] Ages also protected the\npoor and the ignorant according to its lights. It may be questioned,\nhowever, whether this new force, the press, has as yet even considered\nthe function of protecting the ignorant as among its most sacred\nprivileges. And by this protection there is no intention here to imply\na conspiracy to withhold truth from the uncultivated, or to distort\nfacts for their digestion; what is meant is that necessary vigilance\nand caution which, if observed by all editors and publishers of\njournals and periodical literature, would induce them to regard as a\npublic crime, as an unsocial act, the inculcation upon those who are\nill-equipped for self-guidance, of any notions, sentiments, or points\nof view concerning life and human relationships that were not sound,\nproper, or healthy--not to mention noble.\n\nUnlike that other force, the Church, the press was ushered in with\nscant ceremony, almost imperceptibly. It grew to omnipotence with but\na fraction of the solemnity and pomp which attended the development\nof the Church; hence, too, it has come to ripeness, to the zenith of\nits power, without any of that centralised organisation, without any\nof that self-conscious administration of its enormous powers for good\nand evil, and assuredly without any of that insight into the immensely\nsacred responsibility of its functions, which characterised the Church\nfrom the beginning.\n\nNow its shrieking headlines, its catchpenny exaggerations, its\nhysterical falsehoods, do not even savour of sanity. How, then, could\nit be suspected of a sense of [p136] responsibility? Sensationalism\nas a moneymaking method, ruthless and frequently thoughtless attacks\non the existing order, without any guarantee of being able to supply\na better order in the place of the one attacked, abuse of language as\na method, as _the_ journalistic technique for all occasions, and the\ndetermination not to enlighten, but to dazzle, dumbfound, scare, thrill\nand excite at all costs, willy nilly--_apr\u00e8s moi le deluge_,--these\nare among the characteristics of the modern press, and indicate the\ndirection in which its power is tending.\n\nTo overthrow or to curb this power has again and again proved too\ngreat a task even for the most popular government. It is invincible,\nimpregnable. The \u201cFreedom of the Press\u201d may mean the freedom to abuse\nthe credulity and the ignorance of the masses; but powerful claims are\nnot frustrated by exact definition, however condemnatory.\n\nThere is only one way of curbing the wantonness of the press and of\nbringing it to a sense of the responsibility with which its power ought\nto have inspired it, and that is to make the masses who are its readers\ncapable of reading it critically, capable of detecting its flagrant\nabuse of language, and of nailing to the counter its flame-words, its\ndecoy cries, its whole apparatus of sensationalism.\n\nAnd the only means to this end is to give to the masses a knowledge of\ntheir own language.\n\nWho doubts that the mountains of vulgar, inept and thoroughly\ndeleterious literature that is being published to-day depends wholly\n[p137] and exclusively upon those countless hordes to whom the State\nhas failed to impart that which is every man\u2019s direst need--a sound\nknowledge of his native tongue? Who doubts that all this literature\nwould be swept away in an hour if a generation arose which was equipped\nto detect its solecisms, its vulgarity, its false sentiment, and its\ntumid claptrap?\n\nThe newspaper press, and the flood of vulgar literature which daily\naccompanies its productions into the homes of almost all British\npeople, are together partly responsible for the steady enfeeblement\nof the nation\u2019s moral fibre and intelligence; and the so-called\n\u201ceducation\u201d with which the mass of the nation is equipped is one of the\nnecessary conditions to the success both of the present newspaper press\nand of the vulgar literature which supplements it.\n\nThus it amounts to this, that the huge outlay which this country makes\nevery year for the purposes of education, is virtually a subsidy to its\nmost incompetent, most unscrupulous and most despicable writers.\n\nIn order to render the outlay worth while, in order to convert it into\na profitable investment, which at one and the same time would produce\ndesirable citizens and lay the foundations of order among them, the\npresent writer suggests as a leading reform, to be placed at the head\nof every party\u2019s programme, that the English language should be made\nthe principal subject of study in our State schools.\n\nWhat subject is there that is not touched upon in the learning of\nthe precise meaning of words? And what subject is of any [p138] value\nwhatsoever if the precise meaning of words has been neglected in\ntuition?\n\nThis may sound revolutionary enough; but on examination it will be\nfound to guarantee a much more stable and orderly form of society than\nthe present system. For if it be asked what a man, educated in our\nelementary schools, remembers in after life of all the information he\nhas been given as a child, the answer is: a little arithmetic--enough\nto make the everyday reckonings involved in buying and selling--and the\ntrick of converting signs into sounds.\n\nIt is, however, precisely upon this trick of converting signs into\nsounds that his powers of subsequent self-education will chiefly\ndepend. For, when once he has left his school career behind him, the\nworking man who wishes to increase his knowledge and grasp of vital,\nhuman and social principles, will rely almost entirely upon the\nliterature he can obtain and understand.\n\nIf, therefore, he approaches this literature, not equipped to\nunderstand, criticise and test its soundness, as matter, or the care\nand accuracy of its form, but only practised in the trick of converting\nsigns into sounds, his attempts at subsequent self-education will be a\nfutile waste of time.\n\nFor there is all the difference in the world between this acquired\ntrick of deciphering, or converting signs into sounds, and true\n_reading_.\n\nWhat is precisely meant by this antithesis?\n\nBy the \u201cpower of reading\u201d most people understand not merely the power\nof deciphering signs, but also the ability to understand the meaning of\nthe decipher once it is [p139] made. Reading in the ancient Anglo-Saxon\nsense of the word (_r\u00e6dan_) \u201cto discern,\u201d is the only reading that can\npossibly be of any value, \u201cdiscerning\u201d therefore is the only valuable\nmeaning that the word reading can have.[25]\n\nBut reading in this, its true sense, implies an understanding of the\nlanguage deciphered.\n\nNow can it be truly said of the children that leave our elementary\nschools that they have been taught reading in this sense?\n\nThey have certainly been taught to decipher; they have certainly been\ngiven the mastery of converting signs into sounds; but have they been\ntaught to \u201cread\u201d?\n\nAt the most it might be conceded that they are partially taught to\nread--that is to say that they have a partial knowledge of reading; the\namount being limited by the extent of their acquaintance with their\nnative tongue. For the rest they know only a trick, which consists in\nturning signs into sounds.\n\nThus the neglect of English in our elementary schools to the advantage\nof other subjects, most of which are entirely forgotten by the pupils\nin later life, imposes upon our working classes, not only _dumbness_,\nnot only susceptibility to infection by unsound opinion and doctrine,\nbut also the inability successfully to achieve self-education by means\nof reading, when once the school career is done.\n\nThe question remains, are these distressing results sufficiently\ncounterbalanced by the advantages supposed to derive from the study of\nother subjects?\n\nThere surely can be but one answer to this question, and that is an\nemphatic negative.\n\nWhat greater asset can a man have then a sound knowledge of his native\ntongue? What surer safeguard could be given him against corruption,\npollution, false doctrine, and inflammatory counsels? What more coveted\npower could he hope to acquire? And, above all, in this age of loose\nthinking and even looser speech, what nobler check could he have upon\nthe vagaries of his fancy or the intemperance of his tongue?\n\nIt would constitute his greatest possession, and it is the nation\u2019s\nsoundest policy to endow him with it. If the principle of State\neducation be admitted at all, it is incumbent upon a people to teach\nits working classes to \u201cread\u201d before anything else, because reading in\nitself is at once a lofty accomplishment and the most certain means to\nall other accomplishments. Among the State\u2019s foremost and ineluctable\nduties, therefore, is the teaching of their native tongue to the\nmasses. For, without this, reading is an impossibility.\n\nWe have seen how social disturbances--aye, and even revolutions,\nhave been the outcome of falsely interpreting a single word; we have\nseen how national disillusionment and depression can arise out of\nthe pursuit of ideals that are ultimately found to be [p141] empty,\nsimply because the words in which they were originally framed, though\ncapable of creating much emotional activity never had any precise\nmeaning. We have seen, moreover, how difficult it is to ascribe any\ngenuine significance to such popular decoy words as Justice, Equality,\nand Liberty, than which no words in the English language can make\na stronger emotional appeal to a crowd. If these remarks have been\ncarefully considered, can there any longer be any question concerning\nthe most vital, the most urgent reform in our educational system?\n\nIt now remains to discover what modifications would have to be made in\nour elementary school teaching in order to effect this reform.\n\nThe children who attend our elementary schools work about 22 hours a\nweek--certainly not more--and they start their school career at about\nsix years of age, and finish it at fourteen.[26]\n\nThe boys\u2019 curriculum at an average elementary school consists of the\nfollowing subjects[27]:--\n\nEnglish, Arithmetic, Geography, History, Nature Study or Hygiene,\nPhysics, Drawing, Singing, Physical Exercise, Manual Work.\n\nThe reader will only need to glance at this curriculum in order to\nrealise how varied the programme is, and how assiduously the subjects\nwould require to be studied in the eight years of school life, in order\nto leave in the minds of the scholars a sufficient knowledge of them to\nbe of use in later life.\n\nEight years, with 22 hours a week for forty-four weeks[28] a year, and\nsuch a programme! Can it be possible for the boys to acquire anything\nmore than a mere smattering of each subject?\n\nSubtracting from the total 22 hours, the hour and forty minutes per\nweek allotted to Physical Exercise, there remain twenty hours and\ntwenty minutes during which English, Arithmetic, Geography, History,\nNature Study or Hygiene, Physics, Drawing, Singing and Manual Work have\nto be taught to children who reach school not yet knowing how to read.\nAnd elementary school teachers affirm that it is impossible to insist\non the children doing any homework.\n\nOf these 20 hours and 20 minutes in Standard VII.:--_English_ occupies\n5 hours 10 mins. per week, or 227 hours 20 mins., _i.e._, 32 seven-hour\ndays per year.\n\nThis leaves 15 hrs. 10 mins. per week for other subjects, and of this\ntotal:--\n\n_Arithmetic_ occupies 4 hrs. 20 mins. per week, or 190 hrs. 40 mins.,\n_i.e._, about 27 seven-hour days per year.\n\n_Geography_ occupies 2 hrs. per week, or 88 hrs., _i.e._, 12\u00bd\nseven-hour days per year.\n\n_History_ occupies 1 hr. per week, or 44 hrs., _i.e._, 6\u00bc seven-hour\ndays per year.\n\n_Hygiene_ occupies 30 mins. per week, or 22 hrs., _i.e._, 3\u215b seven-hour\ndays per year.\n\n_Physics_, the same as Hygiene.\n\n_Singing_, the same as History.\n\n_Drawing_ occupies 2 hrs. 45 mins. per week, or 121 hrs., _i.e._, a\nlittle over 17 seven-hour days per year.\n\n_Recreation and Registration_ occupy the remaining 3 hrs. 5 mins. per\nweek, or 139 hrs., 20 mins., _i.e._, a little over 19 seven-hour days\nper year.\n\nSeeing that there is little or no homework in elementary schools, it is\nobvious that none of these subjects, except, perhaps, Arithmetic, can\nbe taught sufficiently well to be of any use whatever to the child in\nafter life. For, in the lower standards, although the apportionment of\ntime varies somewhat, the variation is not material. When, moreover,\nit is remembered that most of the boys take 3 hours a week for Manual\nWork, and that these hours have to be subtracted from the time allotted\nto other subjects, it is clear that the ultimate result, in so far as\nthat knowledge is concerned which represents a permanent asset to the\nindividual, cannot be very satisfactory.\n\nIn fact, take it how you will, it must be acknowledged without either\nbitterness or malice that elementary education is nothing more than a\nvery expensive and very elaborate farce.\n\nIt teaches the boys two things that they undoubtedly remember: the\ntrick of deciphering letterpress, which constitutes them purchasers\nand readers of the lowest and most fatuous literature that sweated\nliterary hacks can produce, and enough arithmetic [p144] for them to\nmaster the ordinary numerical problems that may arise in the daily\nroutine of their adult lives. Of History nothing, literally nothing, is\nremembered, except, perhaps, that there was once a king who spoilt some\ntarts (they are not quite certain whether it was Alfred the Great or\nthe King of Hearts), and that there was once a monarch called William\nthe Conqueror. Of Geography only the vaguest notions are retained, and\nthese relate more often to the world as a whole than to their native\nland. Of Hygiene, Physics, not a trace is left--not even a recollection\nof the names of the subjects. While Singing and Drawing, except to the\nfew, are a pure waste of time.\n\nIt is safe to say that this is true of the majority of the scholars,\nand since it is the majority of the children that constitute the great\nmass of the nation, it is on them we must concentrate our attention.\n\nSince the object of all our expensive elementary school organisation\nought to be to impart to them some valuable knowledge that they can\nretain throughout their lives, some valuable knowledge, moreover, in\nthe acquisition of which the highest faculties of their mind would\nbe disciplined and trained, surely it would be an advantage in the\nfirst place to concentrate on a fewer number of subjects, and secondly\nto select only those which could be of service to them in later\nlife (for they are the only subjects that are ever remembered), and\nthirdly, to confine the study of the subject or subjects chosen, as\nfar as possible, to those limits which, while they guarantee a solid\nfoundation of learning, allow of further [p145] unassisted progress\nwhen once the school career is over.\n\nNow it seems to the present writer that no subject in the whole\ncurriculum of schools answers these requirements more satisfactorily in\nevery way than English itself.\n\nIt is at once an ideal means of disciplining and training the mind,\nof clarifying thought and of correcting vagueness and looseness of\nreasoning; it is an excellent preservative of natural nobility of\ncharacter, by opening up to the student the whole treasury of lofty\nthought and sentiment that the language contains; it is a mental weapon\nagainst befoulment by prurient and other deleterious influences; it\nis an instrument of criticism that can be employed at any moment,\nin any contingency, against the appeals of demagogues, agitators,\nand corruptors of all kinds, and it is a means of lucid and logical\ncommunication, without which no man can be said to be safe against\nmisunderstanding or confusion. Above all--and this is its principal\nvalue to-day--a knowledge of English is essential to anyone who wishes\nto know how to \u201cread.\u201d\n\nNow what would be the extent of the reforms required in order to make\nour elementary education chiefly a means of imparting a good and\nserviceable knowledge of English to the masses?\n\nIn the first place, the elementary school teacher himself would have\nto be selected from a rather higher grade of educationalists. He would\nhave to be qualified to teach English not only by precept but also by\nexample. To-day, in the majority of cases, he could not teach English,\neven if he had [p146] the time. As to expressing a thought in good\nEnglish, the elementary school teacher and his boys are a case of the\nblind leading the blind. This is not the teacher\u2019s fault. He does his\nbest, and in view of his training, his best is sometimes very good.\nWherever the present writer has been, moreover, he has been compelled\nto recognise the efficiency and conscientiousness of this class of\nState official, and to applaud the result he obtains with the material\nat his disposal. Nevertheless, able as he is within his own limits, the\nelementary school teacher is, as a rule, incapable of teaching English,\nand if it is ever decided to extend the programme on the English side,\nthe teacher himself will have to be the object of the first reforms.\n\nAs regards the curriculum, the changes would be more simple.\n\nTo begin with, the hours allotted to Arithmetic might well be reduced\nto a maximum of three per week. This would be ample to enable the\nleast proficient scholars to master all the method they could ever be\nexpected to require in after life, and at the same time would afford\nadequate opportunities for the detection of any mathematical genius who\nmight be lurking in the school, and for whose case special provision\nmight be made.\n\nThe time for Geography, the study of which might with advantage be\nconfined to the general relations of England to the rest of the world,\nwithout any specialisation in home topography, which is invariably\nforgotten, might be reduced to half an hour a week.\n\nHistory might be cancelled altogether, [p147] and the teaching of the\nsubject confined to such historical knowledge as the scholar could not\nhelp acquiring in learning the meaning of certain English words such\nas: Peer, Parliament, Constitution, Rebellion, Regicide, Suffrage,\nReformation, Prime Minister, etc.[29]\n\nHygiene, Physics and Singing might also be cancelled with advantage,\nand the detection of specially good voices, or musical talent, left to\nthat part of the English lessons given to the learning of old English\nfolk-songs, canons and ballads.\n\nWith regard to drawing, it seems ridiculous that all boys should devote\ntwo hours 45 minutes per week to this subject. To thousands it must\nmean the most intolerable drudgery. Surely one hour per week would be\nenough to reveal any exceptional talent in the school, and for the\nteacher to discover all those who could not possibly profit from the\nsubject, even if they continued at it to the end of their lives. The\nlatter could then be weeded out of the class, and the hour allotted to\ndrawing, in their case, could be sacrificed to Manual Work.\n\nAt all events, the hours set aside for Manual Work, seeing that\nit is a form of exercise, might be taken from the time allowed for\nRecreation[30] and the time allowed for Drawing (in the case of\nuntalented boys), or from the time allowed for Recreation and the time\nallowed for Arithmetic (in the case of artistic boys).\n\nBy this means it would be possible to add 7 hrs. 40 mins. per week to\nthe time occupied in teaching English, or 337 hrs. 20 mins., _i.e._,\n48 seven-hour days per year, making a grand total, with the existing\nhours allotted to English, of 12 hrs. 50 mins. per week, or 564 hrs. 40\nmins., _i.e._, 80\u00bd seven-hour days per year.\n\nAlthough this still appears to be an exiguous allowance, in view, not\nonly of the importance of the subject, but also of the home influences\nwhich for a generation at least would prove a serious obstacle to\nprogress, it is sufficient for much to be made of it; and in this\nperiod, for seven years, it ought to be possible to give each boy a\nvery considerable mastery of English. In any case, it would enable a\nfoundation to be laid upon which subsequent self-education could safely\nrepose.\n\nThe teaching would have to consist principally of exercises in the\nprecise meaning and proper use of words, the aim being to give each\nchild, not only a very much larger vocabulary than that which he learns\nat school to-day, but also a mastery in the use of each word, which\nwould prevent both confusion in expression, and misunderstanding in\nreading or listening. Good, careful reading would therefore be exacted\nfrom all, and the excellence of the performance of each boy would not\nbe judged so much from the standpoint of glibness or fluency, as from\nthe ease and accuracy with which he understands the meaning of what he\nhas read.\n\nIn the process of teaching the correct meaning of words, the boys\nwould necessarily acquire their stock of sound and proper ideas about\nlife and humanity, because it is impossible to teach the meaning of\ncertain abstract words relating to society and life, without imparting\ntrue ideas. Thus, without feeling any of the natural repulsion that\nhealthy boys would instinctly feel towards a moral or philosophical\nlesson, they would nevertheless be able to absorb a philosophy of life,\nthe lack of which in their education to-day is one of its principal\nblemishes.[31]\n\nMore stress would also be laid on the teaching of grammar than is the\ncustom to-day. The present system, inspired by the Board of Education,\ndeliberately neglects grammar, and the results are noticeable in every\nsentence that proceeds from the lips of a working class child.[32]\nSince logical expression, and the understanding of the logical\nconstruction of a long sentence are impossible without a complete\nmastery of Grammar, it is most important that Grammar should be\nproperly and specially taught. And with English as the only big subject\nof the school curriculum, this ought to be perfectly possible.\n\nNext in importance would be the study of good authors in and out of\nclass. The boys would have to learn to appreciate instances of happy\nconstruction, or apt and vivid expression. In Standard VI. and VII.,\nthey would also be encouraged to call the teacher\u2019s attention to what\nthey thought was a misuse or abuse of words, either in their father\u2019s\nnewspaper, or in any literature of doubtful quality at home.\n\nDaily practice in accurate expression, and in criticism of other\nboys\u2019 speech, together with the learning by heart of long passages\nfrom the best poets, the Bible, and some of the best prose writers;\nweekly exercises in composition, and a rigorous training in exact\ndefinition--these with a leisurely training in the best old English\nsongs, canons and ballads, would complete a training that would send\nevery child forth into the world with at least one subject thoroughly\nlearned, with at least one weapon well mastered for the struggle of\nlife, and above all with a more or less certain guarantee that he\nwould be immune to the lure of vulgar taste in literature, and to the\ndeliberate deceptions and traps that all those quill-driving monsters,\nwho to-day stand enthroned over the minds and the hearts of our working\nclasses, daily and hourly prepare for the further stultification and\ncorruption of their victims.\n\nVery soon a marked change would come over the nation. Its present\nhighly strung and hysterical condition, which has been induced chiefly\nby the sensationalism of its vulgar newspapers and other cheap\nliterature, would yield before a more sober and more dignified state\nof mind. Not a child whose spirits had been brought into vivifying\ncontact with the noblest of the nation\u2019s thoughts and sentiments,\ncould help manifesting signs of this invigorating intercourse in later\nlife. Among the meanest of them it would leave behind at least the\ndim recollection that there were things in heaven and earth that were\ngreater than themselves, that there were sacred and lofty heights in\nthe intellectual productions of their nation, which they had once gazed\nupon as it were from afar, and while this memory would sustain them in\ntheir patriotism and fortify them in their self-respect, it would also\ntend to check that spirit of irreverence for all things which is one of\nthe most alarming features of the Age.\n\nAgain, instead of opening the school gates to let loose a flood of\nfourteen-year-old hooligans, with no mental equipment except gutter\nsmartness, children taught in this [p152] way would be sent forth into\nthe world possessing at least a foundation of sound knowledge, a basis\nof valuable ideas and principles concerning life and humanity, the\nbenefit of which they themselves and their neighbours would feel at\nevery moment of their lives.\n\nAnd this immensely desirable result, this crying need of the present\nday, could be obtained at what cost? At the cost of small smatterings\nof History, Geography, Drawing, Hygiene, and Physics, which are\nforgotten within nine months of leaving school, which even remembered\nwould be of little practical value, and which, so far from having been\nintroduced into the curriculum with serious intent, appear rather to\nhave found their way there by accident and to have been retained purely\nfrom motives of idle and fruitless display.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 24: Even John Locke, who, as a thinker was, in many respects,\nsurprisingly superficial, exclaims with regard to education: \u201cYou will\nwonder, perhaps, that I put learning last, especially if I tell you I\nthink it the least part.\u201d (_Some Thoughts concerning Education_). While\nAristotle lays it down definitely: \u201cThat there is a sort of education\nin which parents should train their sons, not as being useful or\nnecessary, but because it is liberal or noble.\u201d (Politics VIII., 5).]\n\n[Footnote 25: The German _lesen_ and the French _lire_, both have the\nsame implication. They both imply discernment, understanding. The old\nhigh German _l\u00ebsan_ meant to collect with discrimination, and, with\nthe French _lire_ was allied to the Latin _legere_, which may mean\nto choose, to pick out, to single out, and to select,--all actions\nimplying discernment and understanding.]\n\n[Footnote 26: They may now continue their studies at continuation\nevening schools after fourteen years of age, if they choose, and earn\nmoney the while in some daily employment.]\n\n[Footnote 27: The girls\u2019 curriculum, into which it will not be\nnecessary to enter here, is very much the same as the boys\u2019, except\nthat it excludes Manual Work and Physics, and includes Laundry, Cooking\nand Needlework.]\n\n[Footnote 28: All the calculations that follow are based upon the\nassumption that eight weeks are allowed for holidays each year.]\n\n[Footnote 29: Owing to the great importance of history in inspiring\nchildren to maintain the traditions of their country, it is only with\nthe greatest reluctance that this subject is not allotted special\nhours to itself. It is, however, felt that in view of the short space\nof years that elementary education covers in the life-time of the\nworking-class child, some drastic pruning of the curriculum must at all\ncosts be made, as anything in the nature of a compromise inserts the\nthin edge of the wedge of superficiality in the teaching. Moreover,\nseeing that the English lesson will draw largely upon historical\nfacts for the explanation of words, the subject cannot be regarded as\nentirely neglected in this programme.]\n\n[Footnote 30: As the whole week\u2019s work amounts only to 22 hours, and\nthere is no home work, boys at an elementary school cannot in any case\nbe said to be overworked, and there would be no hardship involved\nin curtailing the time allowed for recreation, or in cancelling it\naltogether.]\n\n[Footnote 31: It is true that in its _Suggestions for the Consideration\nof Teachers_ (p. 28) the Board of Education does lay down that: \u201cOne\nof the fundamental purposes of education is to ensure that the child\nhas an ample fund of ideas about the world in which it lives, and that\nthese ideas should be, as far as may be, full and exact\u201d; but what\nfollows (pp. 28, 29) is so meaningless and reveals such an inadequate\nappreciation of the value of ideas in adult life, that it stultifies\nthe value of the foregoing.]\n\n[Footnote 32: _Ibid_, p. 39: \u201cThe minuti\u00e6 of Parsing should be\ncompletely omitted.... There should be no Grammar teaching apart from\nthe other English lessons, it should arise naturally out of the reading\nand composition lessons.\u201d One headmaster of an elementary school with\nwhom the present writer discussed the question of Parsing, declared\nthat he greatly regretted that it had been dropped.]\n\n\n\n\n                           [p153] CHAPTER VII\n\n                            SOCIAL REFORM[33]\n\n  \u201cThings are so bad that, to have any genuine insight to-day, any\n  special human feeling to-day, means perforce to devote these gifts to\n  the social problem, instead of to art and beauty. That is the curse\n  of having been born in this Age.\u201d--Extract from a novel of last year.\n\n\nA certain unaffected hopelessness characterises the mood of modern\nmen, for which it is difficult to find an adequate cause. There is a\npessimism rife to-day, which, far from being a pose or a pretence,\nlies so deeply imbedded in the hearts of most people, that it is their\nconstant effort to conceal, rather than to proclaim it, when they are\nin the presence of their fellows. A cheerful smile, a laugh that sounds\nlike merriment, a vivacious and buoyant manner--these outward signs of\nunruffled gaiety may now be simulated by men when they are in company;\nthey may even be enjoined upon all as social etiquette; but when once\nhe is left to himself, modern man smoothens out his laugh-wrinkled\ncheeks, compresses his relaxed lips, and abandons himself to that\nattitude of mind now perhaps as universal as it is secret, which for\nlack of a better term we may describe as settled despondency.\n\nAmong the cultivated this attitude remains more or less a private\nconcern of the individual. The thinking man, unlike the savage, does\nnot beat his wife and children, or blame his immediate surroundings, if\nhe feels hopeless. He knows the cause is probably more remote than the\nbehaviour of his kith and kin, or circle of friends; and though he may\nbe as incapable as the savage of finding the true cause, he withholds\nhis anger, or postpones the expression of his gloomy thoughts until\nsuch time as their true cause becomes apparent to him.\n\nAmong the uncultivated, however, this mood of gloom or of convinced\ndespair, harbouring as it does in minds that are less inclined to be\nphilosophical, renders them litigious and vindictive. Some one or\nsome circumstance not too remote must be responsible, it is thought,\nfor their peevishness; they therefore become irascible and angry,\nand seek to vent their spleen on that person or thing which, on the\nstrength of its proximity alone, appears to be the immediate cause\nof their ill-humour. Conditions that satisfied them theretofore now\nbecome insufferable and must be changed; prospects that smiled upon\nthem formerly now appear too black to be faced with calm. Pleasure--or\nrather distraction--is sought feverishly, gluttonously, until, since\nit leaves them still with the old langour at their hearts, it also is\nrejected as part of the general conspiracy to depress their spirits.\nNothing pleases, nothing beckons. The same aching certainty of\ndiscontent always returns, whatever else may go.\n\nWhen a nation feels like this, when a [p155] whole continent feels\nlike this, there arises what politicians are pleased to call a state\nof \u201csocial unrest.\u201d By giving it a name it is hoped presumably that it\nwill be explained away. Unfortunately, however accurate the terms of\na description may be, they do nothing towards helping to remove the\ntrouble they describe. But in this particular case it may be questioned\nwhether the words \u201csocial unrest\u201d form even an accurate description.\n\nA society that is at rest is not necessarily the ultimate desideratum.\nA society that is not at rest cannot therefore be necessarily bad.\nOn the contrary, social unrest has been characteristic of all the\ngreatest and most fertile moments in history. What could have been more\nunrestful than the period that witnessed the spread of the Roman power,\nor the period of the Renaissance?\n\nTo call the present period simply one of social unrest therefore does\nnot even give us an inkling of the true and alarming symptom of the\ntrouble--the settled despondency that is invading all hearts.\n\nBy the phrase \u201csocial unrest,\u201d we might, for instance, be led to\nsuspect that the secondary and particular symptoms of the trouble\nwere the primary and general symptoms. What are the secondary and\nparticular symptoms of the trouble? Labour\u2019s general and determined\ndissatisfaction with the conditions of labour all over Europe.\n\nSuppose we accept the secondary as the primary symptoms, how can we\nthen account for the deep pessimism and gloom of the cultivated--not\nmerely those among the cultivated who fear they may lose by [p156]\nLabour\u2019s attitude, but those who are disinterested enough to fear\nnothing except the incurable canker at their hearts? Can they truly be\nsaid to share Labour\u2019s general and determined dissatisfaction with the\nconditions of labour all over Europe?\n\nLabour\u2019s dissatisfaction, therefore, cannot possibly be a primary\nsymptom. It is only the proletariat\u2019s adaptation to the primary\nsymptom; just as hedonism, neurasthenia, lunacy and frenzied interest\nin new-fangled creeds and movements, may be the cultivated man\u2019s\nadaptation to the primary symptoms.\n\nTo call the present state of affairs simply social unrest is to magnify\nunduly a secondary and particular, into the importance of a primary and\ngeneral, symptom.\n\nWhatever the subsequent adaptation to it may be, the true primary\nsymptom must be common to both classes, the labouring and the employing\nclasses, and that true primary symptom, it is here suggested, is the\nmood of unaffected hopelessness that characterises all modern men. And\nsince, as a primary symptom, it is common to all men, it must have a\ncommon cause.\n\nDoubtless a good deal of it may be easily accounted for in the manner\noutlined at the opening of Chapter I. As everyone knows, physical and\nspiritual weariness do not need to last very long in order to induce\nthe most stubborn dejection; and since there can be no doubt that, as\nthe result of life\u2019s present unprecedented complexity and breakneck\nspeed, modern men of all classes are suffering from physical and\nparticularly nervous exhaustion, we might reasonably [p157] expect to\nfind depression as one of its accompanying features.\n\nTo the present writer, however, the recognition of this modicum of\nmelancholy that must be found everywhere wedded to bodily and spiritual\nweariness, although important, does not seem sufficient to explain the\nuniversality of the present existence of secret low spirits. It seems\nto him that a deeper cause must be sought; for it has come to his own,\nas it must have come to other people\u2019s notice, that the low spirits in\nquestion are to be found even where the harassing complications of life\nand the present high speed of life are least often and least severely\nfelt. It is as if a sentiment, and not a material cause were the chief\nsource of the pessimism that we are now considering. And, since this\npessimism is everywhere rife, it must be supposed that the sentiment\nalso is universal, and must have preceded the former in all men\u2019s\nhearts.\n\nAs to the precise nature of this supposed sentiment, there may be\nvarious and even conflicting opinions; the hypothesis favoured here,\nhowever, is the following:--\n\nThe sentiment that is now lodged in all European hearts, irrespective\nof class or country, and is responsible for the gloom that has\ndescended upon all nations, is a compound of deep and bitter\n_disappointment_ on the one hand, with the _suspicion_ of having been\n_duped_ and left stranded on the other.\n\nThere is a feeling that the leading ideals by which our fathers and\ngrandfathers guided their lives, and to which we, who were born in the\nlast century, also aspired, have proved false ideals. And, coupled\nwith this [p158] feeling, there is, in the first place, the growing\nconviction that we should have done better, and shown ourselves more\nexpert in managing our affairs, if, instead of trying to act up to\nthose ideals, we had renounced them altogether; and secondly, that now\nthat we see ourselves compelled to abandon these old ideals, we are\nstranded without any guiding principles whatsoever.\n\nThe old ideals have proved worthless and even dangerous, and we are\ntherefore abandoning them; but no new ideals have been created to take\ntheir place.\n\nIt is this feeling that now constitutes the disease in all men\u2019s\nhearts--the feeling of the enlightened child of besotted and degenerate\nparents, who, looking back upon them calmly and dispassionately in his\nmaturity, is ashamed of the guileless filial passion he once felt for\nthem in his childhood, and yet knows himself to be terribly cold and\nalone in his spiritual orphanage.\n\n\u201cProgress,\u201d that toughest among our grandfathers\u2019 and fathers\u2019\nideals, has been the last to perish; but with it perhaps went our\nstoutest hopes and our firmest beliefs. We have now buried it, to the\naccompaniment of the gravest doubts concerning not merely whether we\nare better, or better off, than the men of the 16th and 17th centuries,\nbut also whether we are better, or better off even than the Cro-Magnon\nmen who lived thirty thousand years before the present era.\n\nTo those who could believe in the existence of an all-powerful,\nbeneficent deity--and which of us had grandfathers or fathers who did\nnot?--there was something supremely [p159] logical and inevitable\nin this idea of Progress. How could life fail to improve seeing\nthat a beneficent deity was controlling it, and must therefore be\ndirecting all things towards a common good?\n\nBut now the objections to this belief scarcely require to be stated.\nEverybody knows, everybody sees, that it must be wrong. And those\nexceptional people whose minds and eyes still need some assistance\nbefore they feel able to reject it, have only to examine certain\nstatistics in order to become assured that their conservatism is\nwithout foundation.\n\nAnd how many ideals have not gone the same way as \u201cProgress\u201d? Who\nbelieves in \u201cDemocracy\u201d nowadays? Who believes in Parliamentary\nGovernment, in the ultimate triumph of Altruism, in the Brotherhood\nof mankind, in Universal Suffrage? In short, who believes in the\ndesirability of the whole of Western civilisation, or of its extension\nto countries that are still uncontaminated by it?\n\nHow could the contemplation of such a hecatomb of perverted ideals fail\nto create despondency, seeing that despite the lack of other ideals to\ntake their place, and everybody\u2019s horror at what has occurred, every\nsane man in every civilised land is convinced that, had the hecatomb\nnot already been made, he would have been compelled to pile it up with\nhis own hands?\n\nPerhaps it may sound to some an unwarrantable assumption to maintain\nthat a complete negation of the beliefs of a former century--aye, and\nin some cases, of a former [p160] millenium--necessarily constitutes a\nstate of deep distress.\n\nThose who entertain this view can only be recommended to ponder the\nenormous influence that strong, deep-rooted beliefs play in the lives\nof large communities, particularly when these beliefs constitute the\nvery confidence, trust and faith which such communities feel in the\nworthiness and the value of their common aims and endeavours. Shake\nthese beliefs, and the energy which theretofore had been directed\nevenly towards a certain bourne, a definite goal, finds itself dammed\nup or lost on the high road; remove them altogether, and it is not\nimpossible that the very generation of energy itself will cease. People\nbecome listless, indolent, hopeless; and the acute stage of danger is\nsoon reached when everyone cries openly or in his heart: \u201cWhat is the\ngood of it all? _Cui bono?_\u201d\n\nThe repercussion of this state of distress upon language has already\nbeen discussed. It is clear that, with the loss of guiding ideals\nand beliefs, the important leading words connected with these ideals\nand beliefs become entirely meaningless and devoid of any distinct\nassociations. In addition to finding himself completely astray,\ntherefore, modern man\u2019s forlorn condition is complicated by serious\nbewilderment. A large number of the words which, owing to their\nlong association with deep-rooted beliefs and guiding ideals, still\nstimulate great emotional excitement in him, have no corresponding\nmeaning in reality--in fact, have no meaning at all. The sounds remain,\nand from sheer habit evoke certain sensations; but the [p161] beliefs\nwhich gave these sounds some reality have departed.\n\nThus even the least sensitive man of the present age, has gradually\nbecome conscious of no longer having any secure footing. The ground\nunder his feet seems to be slipping away and he throws out his arms\ndesperately to catch at some support.\n\nDeep, almost rancorous disappointment, coupled with the suspicion that\nhe has been duped and left stranded--this compound, it is suggested,\nconstitutes the sentiment which is now lodged in the heart of every\nEuropean. And it is this sentiment which is the cause of the present\nuniversal and stubborn pessimism in all countries where Western\ncivilisation prevails.\n\nUnfortunately the only cure for this kind of chronic melancholy is the\npromulgation of new beliefs, new goals, new values. A new faith is\nperhaps the most crying need of all. But where are the great men of\nto-day who could undertake this task?\n\nIn the masses, or proletariat, of all countries, this pessimism,\narising out of the sentiment analysed above, expresses itself, as is\nonly natural, in the most irreconcilable discontent. What does the\nman in the street know of remote causes, particularly when they are\nspiritual? As we have already hinted above, material causes are the\nfirst he thinks of; because they are the first that lie to hand. And\nwhen, moreover, he finds every self-seeking agitator ready to prove\nthat material circumstances are the cause of his trouble, how can he\nany longer doubt that here indeed he has traced his misery to its\nsource? [p162]\n\nThus among the masses, the prevailing pessimism takes the form of an\neconomic struggle, which has little or nothing to do with the actual\namount of happiness or unhappiness that is to be gained. And in the\nleisured classes, the same affliction is leading to mad hedonism,\nneurasthenia, lunacy, and a thirst for new religions and movements,\nwhich is frequently out of all proportion to the sanity of the\ninterests these have to offer.\n\nWhile, however, the masses, owing to the more precise nature of their\ndemands (always confined to the economic field and never touching upon\nspiritual needs) and also to the greater volume of their clamour, have\nsucceeded in directing the attention of all would-be reformers upon\nthemselves, the cultivated also, partly hypnotised by the insistence of\nthe proletariat\u2019s outcry, have made the mistake of supposing that in\nmaterial reforms alone can salvation be found.\n\nIn the absence of new ideals, sound beliefs, and a great new faith,\nthat would once again knit modern mankind together in a united effort\nand a common aim, not only the proletariat, but also large numbers\nof the cultivated classes, have come to the conclusion that it is in\neconomic changes that a recovery of the _joie de vivre_ is to be found.\nAnd such ideals as Communism, Socialism, and Bolshevism, which are\npurely economic (_i.e._, material), in their objects and methods, are\nnow held up as panaceas for the ills of the whole world.\n\nTo suppose, however, that economic changes alone will make any\ndifference to the present [p163] deep depression of man, is to\nmisunderstand the whole nature of his trouble.\n\nIf there is anything in the analysis contained in the preceding\nparagraphs; if the diagnosis of modern pessimism which it offers is\nnot entirely wrong and beside the mark, it is obvious that economic\nchanges, however drastic, can and will do nothing to alleviate\nthe state of distress in which everybody who lives where Western\ncivilisation prevails, now finds himself.\n\nImprove the conditions of the indigent how you will, elevate the\nstandard of living as high as you choose, you are nevertheless\npowerless to reduce even by one gush of tears, the misery and\ndiscontent that prevails among all classes in the modern civilised\nworld, unless you understand and can deal with the more profound and\nmore complicated spiritual cause that lies at the root of this misery.\n\nNobody in his senses denies that there is yet room for improvement in\nthe standard of living among large sections of the proletariat; nobody\nwho has studied the question doubts for one instant that the conditions\nof the indigent are frequently directly conducive to both physical and\nspiritual disease, and therefore that they require modification; but to\nsuppose that the need for this departmental improvement is sufficiently\npressing and promising of good far-reaching results, to justify the\nupheaval of the whole of the existing system of life, is to confess\nyourself so completely fascinated and hypnotised by a particular aspect\nalone of modern unhappiness, as it is manifested in one particular\nsection of society, as to have remained blind [p164] to all other\naspects of it which are to be observed in other sections.\n\nPosterity will certainly look back upon this Age as an epoch in which\nthere existed but one really strong obsession. It will recognise that\nin matters of religion we were independent, individualistic, disunited,\nand scattered. It will also see that in the domain of art, literature,\nand science, divergence of opinion, to the extent of open civil war,\nwas general and commonplace. On one question, however, it will be\ncompelled to acknowledge our complete unanimity and concord, and that\nquestion is Social Reform.\n\nAll classes and all political parties at the opening of the 20th\ncentury in Great Britain will be declared to have been solidly bent on\nachieving this one object; and for some obscure reason, which perhaps\nwill for ever remain a mystery even to an enlightened posterity, that\nsocial reform will be characterised as having had in view always the\namelioration of but one section of the community--the poorer section,\nfrom the standpoint of material wealth--that is to say, that it was\ncertainly a downward glance, a downcast eye, that constituted the\nattitude of its most fervent advocates and their followers.\n\nSubsequent generations, if they are sufficiently philosophical, will\nperceive the error here, without perhaps being able to explain it. It\nmay be possible now, however, to forestall their speculations and to\nshed upon the question some light that may be helpful to them.\n\nIt has been said that misery is at present [p165] general, that it\nruns through all classes in all countries.\n\nFurthermore, it has been suggested that this misery has its root in\na sentiment which is a compound of rancorous disappointment and the\nfeeling that we have been duped and left stranded.\n\nThis sentiment has been traced to the failure and demonstrated\nemptiness of all the leading beliefs and ideals of the last century,\nand even before that.\n\nNow the particular expression of this misery which is at present given\nby the more indigent sections of the community, is discontent with\ntheir condition, leading to an economic struggle.\n\nThe expression of this misery which is at present given by the\nwealthier sections of the community consists in an unusually fierce\nform of hedonism, insanity, neurasthenia, and religious mania.\n\nStrange to say, however, the cure for the misery which is being\nrecommended by the proletariat and in the general terms of which large\nnumbers of the plutocracy are already acquiescing, is Social Reform,\nwhich, in its more moderate guise, aspires simply to the elevation of\nthe standard of living among the labouring classes; and in its extreme\nform (as in Russia, for instance) envisages the overthrow of the\npresent system in favour of Communism, Socialism, or Bolshevism.\n\nNow even if the analysis of modern misery given above were only\napproximately accurate, it must be plain that:--\n\n(1) To set out to relieve the misery of only one section of the\ncommunity--the [p166] poorer section--when all the community is\nunhappy, amounts obviously only to attempting a partial cure, in\nfact to concerning one\u2019s self only with one aspect and secondary\nmanifestation of the general trouble.\n\n(2) To concentrate upon social reform, even in its most moderate form,\nis to assume that which has yet to be demonstrated: that an improvement\nin the material conditions of the proletariat is really all that the\nworld wants in order to recover happiness.\n\n(3) To suppose that any such purely material or economic reform as\nCommunism, can effect a complete cure all round, is to assume that\nthe causes of modern unhappiness are purely material or economic--an\nassumption which, so far from being supported by the facts, has all the\nevidence of the unhappiness of the wealthy classes against it.\n\nNow let these objections be taken one by one in their order, and\nconsidered more fully.\n\n(1) Is it, or is it not a fact, that all classes, rich and poor alike,\nare now suffering from deep spiritual depression? If it is a fact,\nit is obviously ridiculous and unfair to attempt even along economic\nlines (that is by material reforms alone) to alleviate the pain only\nof one class; and the concentration of attention upon proletarian\nunhappiness, constitutes an absurd and utterly unjustifiable obsession.\nIf, on the other hand, it is not a fact that all classes are suffering\nequally from deep spiritual depression, a somewhat formidable\narray of unpleasant facts are left utterly unexplained [p167] and\nunco-ordinated. These are: the steady spread of apathy, cynicism,\nlistlessness and recklessness--always signs of great unhappiness--among\nthe wealthy classes; the frenzied search for new creeds, new movements,\nnew interests, however childish, always a sign of despair; and the\nunceasing pursuit of pleasure among the non-religious sections of the\nwealthy classes--a sign of intense boredom, weariness and gloom.\n\nNow it is only due to the characteristic obtuseness and shallowness\nof this Age, that no attention has been paid to the unhappiness of\nthe wealthier classes, which in many instances is very severe indeed;\nand it is due to the absurdly exalted notion of their prestige, and\ntheir own extravagant estimate of their dignity, that they themselves\nhave not made more clamour to call the attention of the community to\ntheir misery. Labouring under the utterly unsupported modern belief\nthat where economic conditions are sound, everything is sound, we do\nnot find the leaders of the Church organising missions to the mansions\nof the wealthy in order to make sure that their spiritual life is\nhealthy and free from the blights of gloom and despair; obsessed as\neveryone is by the supposed inaccessibility of wealth to the common\nspiritual distempers of the Age, we never hear of charitable charwomen\nundertaking a course of district visiting to the women of the wealthier\nclasses, in order to investigate the cause of their despondency and\nto help them to overcome it. And yet, strange as such a procedure\nwould sound to modern ears, is it really so palpably offensive to good\nsense? The very fact [p168] that most people would suspect a man of\njoking who recommended such action, shows conclusively how far we are\nfrom realising the extent of the spiritual misery, besottedness and\nturpitude prevailing among our wealthier classes.\n\nIs this misery to be left entirely suspended in the air by the proposed\neconomic reforms of the coming era? As a symptom it has been shown\nthat the unhappiness of the wealthier classes is as important and\nsignificant as any other phenomenon of modern times. Do people really\nsuppose that certain economic changes, certain improvements in the\nstandard of living of the poor, are going to set the whole world right,\nincluding the chronic unhappiness of the present wealthy classes?\nIt has been suggested that this unhappiness of the wealthy has a\ndeep root, and that at its root it joins with the unhappiness of the\nindigent. How can any tinkering at material conditions possibly be\nexpected to reach that root?\n\nIf social reformers had their way, if in their superficial analysis of\nmodern misery, they were allowed to proceed with their \u201cimprovements,\u201d\nthe changes they would be able to bring about would leave absolutely\nintact the whole of the major cause of the trouble that obsesses them.\nIn a trice the \u201cimproved\u201d conditions would become habitual conditions,\nand then, once the diversion had spent its force, the old unhappiness\nwould return with possibly even greater malignity. Anybody who doubts\nthis is invited to dwell on the economic improvements already achieved\namong the poorer classes of the nation, and to assess the proportionate\n[p169] amount of increased happiness that has accompanied them.\n\n(2) Many years ago, George Gissing, than whom no English writer was\nbetter qualified to speak with authority on the question of rich and\npoor, made the following remark: \u201cA being of superior intelligence\nregarding humanity with an eye of perfect understanding would discover\nthat life was enjoyed every bit as much in the slum as in the palace.\u201d\nIn other words, it must have occurred to most thinking people that\nlaughter, if heard at all, is heard quite as frequently in the kitchen\nas in the drawing-room,--that is to say, that happiness is relative,\nand that the possibility of ultimate adaptation to all conditions\nmakes the degree of happiness enjoyed by each human being more or\nless uniform. At all events, the fact that material conditions are\nthe first, which, if constant, cease to be noticed, and therefore\ncease to contribute actively to happiness, must have been observed\nby most people of ordinary acumen. It would therefore constitute a\ngross misunderstanding both of human nature and of life in general,\nto suppose that standards of living, even very much lower than those\nof our present unskilled labouring classes, would necessarily destroy\nhappiness for those compelled to endure them. And, conversely, it would\nconstitute a grave misconception of the nature of happiness to suppose\nthat an improved standard of living necessarily brings happiness in its\ntrain, or has anything to do with happiness. All those who, for five\nyears of the Great War, had to live on indifferent food, imperfectly\ncooked, served [p170] in inconvenient and frequently filthy quarters,\nand on unsightly and grubby utensils, will bear the present writer out\nin this, and will agree with him when he says that material conditions\ncannot possibly bear the deep causal relation to happiness that so\nmany thousands of solemn would-be philosophers now allege. Beyond a\ncertain point--that is to say, _when once the possibility of daily\nrepletion with wholesome foodstuffs, and sufficient daily repose has\nbeen attained_, material conditions, so far from being conducive to\nhappiness or unhappiness, are not even noticed.\n\nTo improve the material conditions of the proletariat beyond the stage\nof comfortable security, therefore, will not and cannot increase their\ngeneral happiness by one iota. It may urge them to the mad hedonism of\nthe rich, it may drive them to the surfeited apathy and neurasthenia of\nthe plutocratic classes and stimulate their appetite for new-fangled\ncreeds and movements, but it will not increase their happiness, neither\nwill it do anything to alleviate the misery that was analysed in the\nfirst half of this chapter, under which they, like the wealthier\nclasses, are now groaning.\n\n(3) Assuming, however, that the whole of the above reasoning is\nhopelessly wrong and even vicious; taking it for granted, as many\nundoubtedly will, that the misery here alleged to be common both to\nthe modern rich and the modern poor, which social reform cannot alter,\nis a pure myth, an ingenious fiction, inspired by the trumpery aims of\nreaction alone; it may still be asked whether those who concentrate so\npainstakingly [p171] upon material and economic reforms, have satisfied\nthemselves that their diagnosis of the trouble is the correct one.\nThe implication underlying their activities and their programme, is\nthat material and economic conditions should be the principal concern\nof all. They pin their faith to the amelioration of the standard\nof living, and whether they wish to achieve this end by Communism,\nSocialism, or Bolshevism, they confess by the principles they adopt,\nthat they recognise no other avenue to salvation.\n\nBut it is surely no quibble to demand of them some proof that their\nproposed cures have been conceived as the result of a scrupulously\ncareful investigation into the causes of the disease. Without\nnecessarily incurring the suspicion of undue prejudice, it is surely\nnot unreasonable to request them, before inaugurating their subversive\nreforms, to give their critics some demonstration of the accuracy of\ntheir diagnosis.\n\nHas this been done? Has any conclave of accredited psychologists,\nthinkers and social reformers, ever sat to deliberate upon the true\ncauses of modern misery? And having deliberated, have they published\nto the world any conclusion to the effect that everything in modern\nsociety _except only the condition of the poor_, can be continued and\nmaintained with impunity, without fears of a recurrence of the present\nmalady?\n\nNobody can contend that the advocates of social reform in so far as\nthis is confined to material and economic changes, have even satisfied\nthemselves--still less the rest of the world--that economic causes\nare the most potent in accounting for the [p172] misery prevailing\nin Western Civilisation. Nobody would even argue that they had begun\nto question the correctness of their materialistic interpretation of\n\u201cSocial Unrest,\u201d and since the reforms they propose are drastic and\ndestructive, as witness the Utopia in Russia, the world has a right,\nand more particularly have the working masses in all countries a right,\nto insist upon the disease of modernity being thoroughly understood\nbefore it is treated.\n\nIt is not claimed for an instant that the analysis given in the first\npart of this chapter is necessarily the right one; but it is certainly\nhoped that by suggesting perhaps a new avenue of approach to these\nproblems, it will not only show that there are more ways than one of\nsolving them, but also stimulate thought along lines not habitually\nfollowed by social reformers.\n\nThe present writer himself is, at any rate, convinced of two things:--\n\n_First_, that social reform, either moderate or in its extreme\nexpression as Communism or Bolshevism, is a modern obsession, resulting\nfrom a gratuitous concentration upon the material conditions alone of\none class only of the community; and that all changes that are inspired\nby this obsession are certain to be wrong and utterly disastrous,\nseeing that it takes no cognisance of the great unhappiness that is\nunconnected with the state of indigence.\n\n_Second_, that the relation of happiness to material conditions is\na subject of such deep misunderstanding at the present day that, at\nall events, reforms which rely too obstinately upon the accepted and\ngeneral [p173] view of this relation, are sure to lead to the most\ndistressing blunders, without relieving by one iota, the burden of\nmisery that is borne by the whole population, rich and poor alike.\n\nIn conclusion, the following considerations may prove of value in\nregard to the general question of social reform, and to the particular\nquestion of happiness:--\n\n_The present state of settled despondency in all classes may be the\nresult of a number of agencies, with the continued operation of any\none of which it might be fatal to start a new era with any hope of\nachieving greater happiness._\n\n_The world has come to its present pass by means of the observance\nof hundreds of values, among which it is possible that the most\nunsuspected are the most powerful causes of the general decline in the\njoie de vivre._\n\nFor instance, to make a few suggestions at random, it is possible\nthat the general European attitude of toleration towards disease,\ncrippledom, congenital debility and physical disabilities of all kinds,\nmay be totally wrong. It may be that the steady infection of the\nhealthy mass of the people by the careful perpetuation, preservation\nand propagation, of the population\u2019s unhealthiest elements, may\nhave acted as a gradual poison in four ways: (_a_) as a depressing\nspectacle and therefore as a destroyer of joy to the sensative; (_b_)\nas an unnecessary burden upon the hale and the hearty, exacting too\nheavy a toll from their energy and good spirits; (_c_), as a source\nof deterioration to the healthiest elements in the race; and (_d_)\nnegatively, by making it difficult for the desirable percentage of\nvery successful creatures to be [p174] born,--those creatures who,\nby their beauty, grace and wanton spirits, ennoble life, by holding\nup a lofty example of Life\u2019s highest possibilities. It is possible,\nthat is to say, that Humanitarianism is merely an inverted form of\ncruelty; in other words, instead of directing their cruelty against\nthe undesirable, humanitarians direct it against the desirable, and\ncheerfully sacrifice the hale and the hearty to the physiologically\nbotched.\n\nIt is also conceivable that democratic institutions, by levelling\ncompetition and rewards down to the plane of the meanest attainments,\nhave introduced a sort of craft-apathy, or eagerness-mute-stop,\ninto the hearts of all those superior workmen who, along ordinary\nunrestricted and unconstrained paths, would have delighted in\ndisplaying the higher gifts that differentiate them from their\nfellows, and would thus have increased the sum of general happiness by\ntheir contribution of triumphant spirits and the expression of their\ngratified effort.\n\nIt is possible, too, that life in very large cities, like London,\nBirmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, etc., by bringing each\nindividual man and woman too constantly into touch, in fact into\ndaily irritating contact, with thousands of their fellows,--so that\nin the thoroughfares of these large cities human beings may truly be\nsaid to stand as rank as weeds,--has led to a kind of semiconscious\nmisanthropy, which steadily depresses the _joie de vivre_, by\ndestroying the joy that all should feel in the contemplation and\nsociety of their fellows. The struggle for room, for sheer air space,\nis sometimes so acute in these large cities, and in the fight [p175]\nfor unobstructed progression each advantage is contested with so much\nmalice and spite, that it is not extravagant to suppose that a natural\nand perfectly instinctive impulse to be friendly and philanthropic, may\nstep by step, be turned to the most irreconcilable hatred and contempt\nof humanity. It is not even impossible for this change to occur without\nthe person in whom it has taken place being in the least conscious\nof the true causes of his mental transformation. But upon convinced\nmisanthropy of this sort it is impossible to build a happy and\ncontented community. Hence possibly a goodly portion of the unhappiness\nof modern times in large cities.\n\nAgain in regard to the very alternative of philanthropic or\nmisanthropic sentiment, in a well-known passage of the moral teaching\nof most Europeans, there occurs the famous command \u201cLove thy\nneighbour.\u201d And there are not a few sentimentalists who, accepting\nthis doctrine as the remedy for all social evils, proclaim with\nfull-throated fervour, that if only there were more love in the world,\nall would be well. Now it must surely have occurred to a large number\nof people, that if there is one human impulse known to all mankind that\nresponds with difficulty to the word of command, it is precisely the\nimpulse to love. A man may, by an effort of will, stop his breathing\nand die,--it is said that negro slaves constantly did this in the holds\nof humane British seamen\u2019s ships in the 18th century;--a man may by\nan effort of will obey the command to kill himself and unhesitatingly\nraise the means of suicide to his throat;--in Japan this command\nused [p176] frequently to be given and as frequently obeyed;--but by\nno effort of will, however severe the command, can a man be made to\nfeel the impulse to love his neighbour. Love springs spontaneously\nin the human breast. Its provocation is invariably, not a word of\ncommand, not a behest, but the charm, grace, or other perfection of an\nobject contemplated. There is therefore little psychological insight\nin the command \u201cLove thy neighbour.\u201d Nobody would deny that to love\none\u2019s neighbour is an excellent prescription for happy social life;\nbut nobody who was not sadly ignorant of human nature, or divinely\ninsular, would dream of attempting to achieve this end by commanding\nit. The only way to set about loving one\u2019s neighbour, with benignity\naforethought, as it were, is, in the first place, _to make him\nloveable_. For love is a spontaneous impulse springing up in the breast\nthrough contemplation or comprehension of some charming or otherwise\nalluring object.\n\nNow it is possible that modern life, with all its besotting,\nemasculating, and uglifying occupations, with its total absence of\nany check upon the multiplication of the unsightly and unsavoury, its\nsickness, and its second-rate, third-rate and fourth-rate healthiness,\nis pursuing diametrically the opposite aim. It is destroying the\n\u00e6sthetic basis of the impulse to love; and, except where sexual\nattraction is at work, renders love of one\u2019s neighbour a practical\nimpossibility. It would be ridiculous, and eminently unscientific, to\noverlook this factor in the gradual disintegration and unhappiness of\nmodern society. For a community in which all the [p177] elements fly\nasunder when they meet, is unlikely to be either harmonious or happy.\nThus the increasing unloveableness of one\u2019s neighbour, as the result of\nthe increasing ugliness and unsavouriness of most European populations,\ncannot be altogether disregarded.\n\nThe above are only a few among the unsuspected and possible\ncontributory causes of modern misery. It would be easy to continue on\nthe same lines at considerable length, and further suggestions will be\nmade in the last chapter; but surely, even at this stage, enough has\nalready been said, to persuade the thoughtful reader that social reform\nalone, as it is generally understood, both in its moderate and extreme\nguise, might be completely and even magnificently realised, and yet\nleave some of the most potent causes of despondency as flourishing and\nas prevalent as ever.\n\nSome of our most respected values lie at the root of the contributory\ncauses just outlined. Would it not be wiser, before starting on our\nwild goose chase in search of new world orders, to decide whether\nsuch values as those which are radical to the contributory causes,\nare sufficiently sound to be maintained? For these contributory\nand unsuspected causes, which have been outlined above, are all\nsupplementary to the principal cause analysed in the first part of this\nchapter.\n\nThus a good deal of spade work would appear to be both wise and even\nindispensable, before we can proceed with any confidence to the facile\nsolution of modern misery, consisting in altering our economic [p178]\nconditions;[34] and this spade work, which seems to the thinker to be\nlittle more than a measure of ordinary prudence, overlooked though it\nhas been by the Bolshevists, may in the end prove the very means of\nsustaining the success and ensuring the permanence of whatever economic\nmodifications may subsequently appear necessary and advisable.\n\nAt all events, to proceed along any other lines, would certainly mean\nthat a large number of essential and principal elements in the general\ncausation of modern misery, would run a grave risk of being overlooked;\nit would therefore mean that the continued presence of these elements\nwould remain to mar any measure of success that any radical economic\nreform might achieve, and would thus demonstrate to the whole world a\nfact which, despite the example of Russia, is by no means sufficiently\nclear: that social reform like Protestantism in the 15th century, like\nPuritanism in the 17th, and like Republicanism in the 18th, is an\nobsession, the hypnotic power of which is out of all proportion to the\namount of good it can possibly establish by its successful fulfilment.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 33: The ideas from which this essay has been developed were\nfirst embodied in a short article called _Happiness and Social Reform_,\ncontributed by the present writer to the \u201cOxford Fortnightly,\u201d in\nNovember, 1913.]\n\n[Footnote 34: It will not have escaped the careful reader\u2019s notice that\nthe reason why social reform and new economic programmes generally\nhave enjoyed so much favour, particularly with the mass of superficial\nmankind, is that in the midst of misery, they seem to offer immediate\n\u201cpractical\u201d remedies. That word \u201cpractical\u201d is the passport, or rather\nthe password, of most of the stupidest beliefs and practices that\nsucceed in becoming popular. Because deeper remedies, and the deeper\ncauses of unhappiness, do not occur to the superficial minds of the\nmasses in all countries, social reform, which is palpably obvious, is\ncalled \u201cpractical\u201d and thereby canonised by the crowd.]\n\n\n\n\n                           [p179] CHAPTER VIII\n\n                     THE PHYSIOLOGY OF SOCIAL UNREST\n\n  \u201cHe caused the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service\n  of man; that he may bring forth food out of the earth; and wine that\n  maketh glad the heart of man ..... and bread which strengtheneth\n  man\u2019s heart.\u201d\n\n    Psalms, 104, 14, 15.\n\n\nOne day, perhaps, an enlightened generation of historians will arise,\nwho will regard it as their mission to inform mankind concerning the\nrepeated instances in the past when cherished romantic illusions\nalone--quite apart from economic conditions, the vagaries of monarchs,\nor the viciousness of laws--have led to disastrous upheavals, both\nnational and universal, in the life of the race. History has not been\nstudied sufficiently from the standpoint of ideology. The tyranny of\nthe individual, whether monarch, statesman or rebel, still remains\nthe obsession of our writers of national annals. We have yet to see a\nhistorical work in which the tyranny of an idea, of a principle, and\nparticularly of an illusion, is traced with meticulous care throughout\nits manifold ramifications; and in which the national, or universal\nhero, be he soldier, politician or insurrectionist, is depicted\nrealistically merely as the victim of that tyranny.\n\nSuch history would fail in its principal object if it were not\nunderstood to teach, among other things, the useful lesson that words\nand the ideas they embody, whether [p180] false or true, can become\ntyrants far more dangerous and heartless than any human despot has ever\nbeen, and if it did not sufficiently emphasise the fact that, a false\nidea that has been made a universal possession, and the representative\nterm of which has become a household word, is frequently a scourge more\nterrible than any plague that has ever yet decimated the species.\n\nA child will travel some distance and wear itself out in overcoming any\nnumber of obstacles, if it be started off in pursuit of some alluring\nobject by someone whose word its experience has not yet taught it to\ndoubt. The alluring object may be entirely mythical--no matter! Granted\nthat the object has been made to appear sufficiently desirable, the\nchild will pursue its quest, sometimes with heroic perseverance. But\nis there anyone prepared to maintain that the full-grown adult would\nbehave any differently under the influence of similar inducements?\nAllowing for the difference between the minds of children and of\nadults, and postulating for the adult an object which, though quite as\nchimerical as that chosen for the child, is yet of a kind calculated to\nfire his imagination, does anyone really question whether the adult\u2019s\npursuit of it would be fully as eager and tenacious as that of the\nchild?\n\nConsider, for instance, the time-honoured method of obtaining votaries\nand adherents for any anti-social scheme. Certain states of mind or\nbody are first posited by the agitators, or would-be reformers, as\nhighly desirable; they are then shown to be unrealisable in the social\nscheme which it is [p181] proposed to destroy; and finally humanity\nis told that by destroying the social scheme already existing, those\ndesirable states of mind or body will be procured and enjoyed. These\nhypothetical states of mind or body which are unrealisable in the\nsocial scheme selected for destruction may be entirely fantastic and\nunrealisable anywhere or how, but this objection the agitators do\nnot trouble to discuss; all they say is: \u201cHere we hold up before you\ncertain desirable states of mind or body\u201d (call them, if you will,\n\u201cetherealness\u201d and \u201cimponderability,\u201d--qualities that would enable\nthose possessing them to overcome gravitation and all its concomittant\ninconveniences) \u201cthese desirable states of mind or body can be obtained\nonly by breaking up certain traditions. Break up these traditions, and\nyou will possess them.\u201d\n\nIt will be seen at once that the examples chosen, \u201cetherealness\u201d and\n\u201cimponderability,\u201d are sufficiently extravagant to strike even the\nmeanest intelligence as being absurd, and an anti-social agitator\ndepending upon such desiderata alone would stand but a poor chance of\ngaining followers. Substitute the words representing these vaporous\nqualities, however, by another word which, though representing a\nquality equally illusory, nevertheless does not strike the average man\nimmediately as being unrealisable, and the insidious operation of false\ndesiderata straightway becomes evident.\n\nMost honest political thinkers have realised by now, for instance,\nhow visionary and unreal is the accepted notion of the reign of\n\u201cJustice\u201d--not the justice that is administered [p182] in our Courts\nof Law, or which we strive to exercise in daily life, but the\n_justice immanente_ of Gambetta, already discussed, in which natural\ninequalities and their accompanying disabilities and inconveniences\nwill be for ever removed or neutralised. But the glaring impossibility\nof this desideratum, and the consequent meaninglessness of the word\nused to designate it, does not seem to hinder millions from declaring\nthemselves ready to fight and to lose their blood and their lives in\ntrying to effect its realisation. And the same may be said of the ideas\nembodied in the words \u201cLiberty,\u201d \u201cEquality,\u201d \u201cFraternity,\u201d etc.\n\nGiven sufficient ingenuity in the agitator, therefore, it may be taken\nfor granted that the grand method of fomenting social upheavals is:\n(1) to postulate a state of mind or body that is impossible in the\nsociety which it is intended to destroy--the fact that the particular\nmental or bodily state would be impossible in any society is either\njudiciously concealed, or else not known to the agitator; (2) to\nmake the name for that particular state of mind or body a household\nword representing a universal desideratum; and (3) to exploit any\nexisting disaffection, from whatever cause, in order to add momentum\nto the general desire to see this hypothetical state of mind or body\nrealised by fair means or foul. In this way it is possible to make\nmillions destroy opposing millions, and violence outrival violence,\nwithout anyone becoming aware, until too late, of the futility of the\nconflict and of the criminality of the hoax. Aye, in the exhaustion and\nconfusion that [p183] follow, people are necessarily so busy overcoming\nthe multifarious difficulties that the struggle has created, that\nfrequently they have not even the time, much less the composure, to\nask themselves whether they have really obtained that for which they\ndestroyed their fellows, their own homes, and their civilisation. It is\nin this way that false ideas often escape condemnation and exposure.\n\nThe tyranny of words and the ideas they represent, whether sound or\nunsound, is therefore obvious enough; and, in the history of peoples it\nis the principal tyranny of all. Beside it the tyranny of individual\nmonarchs is mere child\u2019s play, and the deeds of a national hero only\nstage effect. Where the ideas have been false, however, where the\ndesiderata striven and struggled for have been wholly chimerical, this\ntyranny stands for the most prodigious romanticism of human life,--a\nromanticism which, like all romanticism, has to be paid for very\nheavily, and the price of which is frequently the peace, happiness and\norder of centuries.\n\nNow the extreme danger of the existing ideology of Europe and America\nis that it is full to bursting with romanticism precisely of this kind,\nand that in its catalogue of chimerical hopes, objects, and desiderata,\nthere is also many a belief upon which it is impossible to base a sound\ncode of conduct.\n\nThe romanticism of the ideology of Western Civilisation can be seen\nin no feature of modern life more plainly than in the manner in which\nmodern man approaches the problems of his Age. The simple, the obvious,\n[p184] the elementary solution, the solution nearest to hand, is never\nthe first to be tried; frequently it is not even selected. Western\nSociety believes in machinery in every form, it therefore approaches\neven its problems mechanically--that is to say, with instruments\nwhich, far from being primitive or human, are frequently so thoroughly\nunfitted to deal with the social wants and ailments of the time (all\nessentially primitive and human in their nature) that they actually\naggravate and complicate these ailments and wants.\n\nMuch of this superficiality in statesmanship is due, of course, not so\nmuch to the prodigious romanticism of the Age, as to the mediocrity\nof those whom democratic representation and Parliamentary methods\nbring to the fore. A majority must consist of mediocre people, and\nmediocre people cannot exercise judgment except in a mediocre way.\nThe person selected by mediocrities to represent them must therefore\nbe a man capable of appealing to such people, that is to say, a\ncreature entirely devoid of genius either for ruling or for any other\nfunction. As a matter of fact, all he need possess is a third-rate\nactor\u2019s gift for haranguing his electors about matters they can easily\ngrasp, in language calculated to stimulate their emotions, and he\nmust be guaranteed to hold or to express no original or exceptionally\nintelligent views.\n\nAs an instance of this mediocrity both of insight and initiative,\nobserve the attitude of Western Governments to the phenomenon known\nas Social Unrest. It is either one of complete mystification, or else\neconomic [p185] remedies alone are thought of and applied.[35] With\nthe example of Bolshevik Russia before them, Western Governments have\ndoubtless learnt this easy lesson, that a people who have enough to\neat are immune against revolutionary doctrine, and therefore that all\nquestions of grave domestic disorder are primarily physical. It might\nbe imagined, however, that this first step in wisdom would have led\nthem still further afield, and even directed their attention to some of\nits less obvious consequences. For, if Bolshevik Russia teaches that\na well-fed proletariat does not rise in revolt, it also proves, by\nimplication, that the condition of the human body is an all-important\nfactor to be reckoned with in domestic troubles. _The unit in a\npopulation manifesting signs of acute unrest may therefore be examined\nto some purpose with a view to ascertaining his physical condition._\n\nOne of the most stubborn beliefs constituting the prodigious\nromanticism of modern times, is, however, a fatal obstacle in the road\nleading to this simple discovery; and this belief is that the physical\ncondition of a man can be independent of his attitude of mind, and\n_vice vers\u00e2_. Apart from the one exception to this modern dogma, which\nhas recently been learnt from Russia, and which is to the effect that\nstarvation foments revolt, the modern mind is more or less convinced\nthat the physical condition of a population is not a very important\nfactor in determining their political opinions.\n\nTrue enough, when we hear anyone make a false claim, or pronounce a\nharebrained statement, we may ask in jest, \u201cIs he well?\u201d; but not one\nof us latter-day Europeans, or any creature like us, is convinced that\nthe question is relevant. Since we do not approach with suspicion any\nspecimen of our literature, our poetry, our art, or our philosophy\nwhich hails from dyspeptics, cripples, dypsomaniacs, or drug-maniacs,\nhow could we regard such a question as relevant? The absurd levity\nwith which we deal with the physical side of our national life is only\none proof of this. It required a great war to prove to our emotional\nand opportunist Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, that the physical\ncondition of the nation was indeed \u201cappalling,\u201d and it was only the\nwork of the tribunals that brought home to him the extent of our\nnational ill-health.[36] It may be presumed, therefore, that had not\nthe Great War made the medical examination of our younger men necessary\nand imperative, our popular Premier would still be in ignorance\nconcerning this all-important question.\n\nApart from actual starvation, therefore, no physical condition is\nregarded by modern man as an important factor in the etiology of a\npeople\u2019s mental attitude.\n\nAnd yet we have in the acute social unrest of England alone, a curious\nphenomenon, sufficiently hard to explain merely on economic lines. For\nit is not confined to people who are underfed or who do not know where\nto-morrow\u2019s loaf is coming from. It is not even rooted in them. We\nfind it manifesting itself principally among well-paid and perfectly\ncomfortable artisans and skilled workmen--nay, it actually originates\nand draws its greatest strength from these elements in the population.\nHere, then, is a problem which no amount of material improvement in\nliving conditions would appear to hold out any promise of solving. And\nyet everyone believes--aye, even the restless proletarians themselves\nare prepared to swear--that the trouble is chiefly economic; while some\nof the capitalist class might suggest, in addition to economic causes,\nBolshevist, German or Socialistic propaganda or gold.\n\nIn a previous chapter the present writer has hinted at a number of\ncauses, not altogether obvious, which may lie at the bottom of modern\nproletarian unrest; he now wishes to discuss that which he regards as\none of the principal and most fundamental causes; and that he suggests\nstraightway is _ill-health and debility_.\n\nA jaundiced view of life, a pessimistic outlook, and a general mood of\ndissatisfaction with all things, may possibly in one or two enlightened\nand profound thinkers, have a purely intellectual basis. In such men it\nmay be the outcome of a dispassionate and laborious survey of modern\nconditions and modern aims, and constitute a considered judgment based\nupon the available data. When, however, it characterises a multitude,\nparticularly a multitude consisting largely of people who never in any\ncircumstances form anything but an emotional opinion on any matter, it\nis simply wanton prejudice [p188] and romanticism not to suspect and\nnot to presuppose a partly physiological cause for the condition.\n\nThe fact that this cause is nowhere suspected, either by journalists,\nstatesmen, Members of Parliament, or the working men of England\nthemselves, does not make its operation any the less conspicuous; but\nit does show with what stubborn tenacity a false belief--a romantic\nbelief particularly--clings to the minds of a people when once it has\nbeen sedulously inculcated upon them. For the fact that physiological\ncauses are operating in the acute social unrest now prevailing in\nEngland alone, can be ascertained in two minutes by any one who wishes\nto examine this unrest at close quarters in the person of any workman\nrepresenting it.\n\nAny such investigator will discover very speedily that although the\nmasses are probably adequately provided with food, as regards bulk,\nthey are suffering from various forms of slight but sufficiently\ndisturbing debility, owing to the two following causes:--\n\n(_a_) The inferiority of a good deal of the food and drink they\nconsume;\n\n(_b_) Their gross ignorance regarding the proper way of preparing it.\n\nIndependent evidence pointing to the conclusion that food is at the\nbottom of the physiological causes of unrest, apart from an examination\nof that food itself, may be gathered from the appalling statistics of\nhealth recently published by the Ministry of National Service. The\ntemptation in reading this report is to conclude that [p189] unhealthy\nurban and industrial conditions are the cause of the general debility,\nof which only the acute cases are noticed in the report. But the\ncompilers of the document itself carefully warn the reader against\nthis facile explanation of the trouble, and call attention to the fact\nthat ill-health is also very great in rural districts. Now, short of\na plague, an epidemic, or a condition of universal degeneration, the\nonly factor that can possibly account for ill-health and debility being\ngeneral both in urban and rural centres, is either food or climate,\neither of which is common to both kinds of population. Dismissing\nclimate as having been a more or less constant factor, we are therefore\nleft with food.\n\n(_a_) Now it is the present writer\u2019s conviction that much of the\npresent debility of the masses, or at least enough of it to account for\nsome discontent and disaffection, is to be ascribed to the inferiority\nof the foodstuffs they consume from their earliest infancy to the very\nend of their days.\n\nIn all cases where mothers cannot nurse their children, the trouble\nbegins at the very dawn of life, and starts by disordering a system\nwhich is doomed to continuous disturbances until it can find ultimate\nrelease only in death. The Baby Welfare Centres recently established\nare all doing their utmost, it is true, to combat this evil, but they\nhave to fight not merely against the ignorance of parents and of\nlocal doctors, but above all against the criminal unscrupulousness\nof commercial food proprietors. Everywhere advertisements are to be\nread concerning foods of which it is claimed [p190] that they are\nan adequate substitute for mother\u2019s milk, and there is no law, no\nregulation, and no official system of instruction, to prevent ignorant\nmothers from being taken in by these means of publicity.\n\nThe organisations, small and inadequate as they are, which are\nattempting to fight this evil, are entirely the result of private\nenterprise. The Government of the country does nothing to secure\ninfants against the double and pernicious operation of these two first\nenemies of life, Ignorance and its Commercial Exploitation. As growing\nchildren and adults, these infants continue under the debilitating\ninfluences of their earliest days by being fed on every kind of\nadulterated food, from impure bread to faked jam; and even when they\nhave had the good fortune to have been reared at the breast, their\nregimen of inferior food in later life quickly undermines the solid\nbasis of their constitutions.\n\n_It is impossible without some expert knowledge or advice to obtain for\nlove or money a pure loaf of bread in many parts of England to-day._\n\nThe fat that is eaten with that bread, and which together with the\nbread forms a most important part of the food of working-class\nchildren, _when it consists of vegetable margarine, is almost useless\nto the body_.\n\nThe various tinned fruits and meats (except perhaps tomatoes) which\nare also much favoured among working-class women, owing to the ease\nwith which they can be prepared for table, also constitute inferior\nfood, owing to the method by which they are canned. [p191]\n\nThe jams, far from containing pure fruit, frequently contain no fruit\nat all.\n\nAdd to this, that the liquor--tea--which is chiefly drunk with these\ninferior foods, is in every way deleterious, being neither a food,\nnor a tonic, nor even an innocuous means of quenching thirst; and\ndebility, far from being an exceptional occurrence, would seem almost\nan inevitable static condition of our masses.\n\n(_b_) But what commercial adulteration of food, and the commercial\nproduction of inferior food, may sometimes fail to accomplish, the\nignorance of the working-class housewife usually manages to consummate\nin the secret privacy of her kitchen.\n\nThere every imaginable error is perpetrated, even in dealing with\nfirst-class foods, such as butcher\u2019s meat and fresh vegetables; and the\nresulting deteriorated compounds only confirm, in the individual child\nor adult, a condition which by the adulteration of other foodstuffs we\nare doing our utmost to establish.\n\nThe ignorance among the female population of England, both rich and\npoor, regarding the _time_ during which meat or vegetables, or milk,\nor fruit, or fats, can safely be allowed to boil, or to stew, or to\nsimmer, without losing every particle of goodness they ever possessed,\nis frankly astonishing. One wonders how an occupation such as cooking\ncould possibly have remained by tradition in the hands of a particular\nsex for generations, without more knowledge, more wisdom--even more\nrule-of-thumb wisdom--having collected around it, than has collected\naround the domestic [p192] culinary practices of the British\nhousewife.[37]\n\nNot only is she ignorant of the right thing; she is deeply, firmly,\nself-righteously and aggressively convinced of the wrong. It is\na compliment, an act of grace, to give your husband, your eldest\ndaughter, or your visitor \u201ca nice, strong cup of tea.\u201d Mutton is nicest\nwhen it has been boiled to shreds in an effort to attain tenderness.\nCurries are stimulating even with twice or thrice cooked meat as their\nmost substantial ingredient. Cabbages and, in fact, all greens, should\nnever be eaten _raw_ (even the foolish local practitioner adds his mite\nof wisdom to the housewife\u2019s in pronouncing this practice injurious to\nthe digestion), though this is really the only form in which they are\nuseful and palatable to the human organism; they must be boiled and\nboiled in water softened with soda, until the obnoxious steam produced\nby the process infects the whole house, and ultimately whole streets\nand neighbourhoods.\n\nRepletion being the principal object aimed at, the means of effecting\nit are not considered too nicely, and adequate quantities are provided,\nwhich, however, can only gravely disorganise and disturb the alimentary\ncanal of all those who cloy their appetites by means of them.\n\nIn adult life, in addition to strong tea, there also enters the\nfurther disturbing influence of impure beer or spirits; so that it is\nonly with the most extreme good luck that any man, woman or youth in\nthe working-classes, can maintain sufficient health to remain at their\ndaily occupations, not to mention resist and throw off disease, enjoy\nlife and keep good spirits.\n\nNo amount of tinkering at working-class children\u2019s teeth, or of careful\nscientific medical treatment, can ultimately cope with the steady\ndeterioration, which year in and year out is being caused by the\nincessant consumption of inferior or badly prepared food in poor homes;\nand yet it is in the highest degree romantic to suppose that by leaving\nthis department of life alone, it will necessarily right itself.[38]\n\nIn fact, no belief in the whole ideology of \u201cDemocracy\u201d is more\npernicious and more crassly stupid than the belief that errors and\nfalse practices must in the end right themselves. The natural indolence\nof mankind in the mass very soon makes a supposed principle of this\nkind a popular and highly appreciated stand-by in the face of difficult\nproblems, but it does not make it true. With the history of previous\ncivilisations and races before us--civilisations and races which we\nare now convinced pursued error and false practices with the heartiest\nand most cheerful conviction to their ultimate doom--with the evidence\nof biology to hand, which shows us myriads of creatures, all the\nparasites in fact, having steadily descended from superior and more\nhighly organised creatures, merely through having followed the line of\nleast resistance, it is difficult to account for the prevalence of this\nutterly stupid notion that evils and errors tend to right themselves.\nFor of this we can feel quite certain, that all those peoples and races\nwho do in fact believe, and act on the belief, that their errors will\nright themselves, will suffer not only extinction in their culture and\ncivilisation, but also ultimate evanescence in themselves.\n\nThus, as we have seen, quite apart from the inferiority of the raw\nmaterial she has to deal with, the working-class woman no longer knows\nthe simplest rule of sound culinary science, and whatever wisdom might\nstill have survived by pure tradition in the kitchens of the poor,\nhas been satisfactorily suppressed by the innovations of commerce and\nindustry.\n\nTo deny that the existing food conditions have any bearing upon the\nspirit and therefore the temper and the outlook of the nation, is to\nsupport the doctrine that a man\u2019s physical condition can be independent\nof his attitude of mind.\n\nNobody would claim that the peculiar virulence of modern Social Unrest\nis entirely to be accounted for by the debility of the masses, or that\nthis debility is entirely due to faulty nourishment; but, on the other\nhand, it would be obviously absurd to attempt to put an end to Social\nUnrest without giving very serious attention to the people\u2019s debility,\nor without examining one of its chief contributory causes, which is\nbad food. And any legislative measure, or economic readjustment or\nreform which [p195] is brought about without some drastic provisions\ncalculated to meet this important factor in the trouble, is bound to\nend in failure.\n\nThe temperance movement is nothing more than a helpless and\nnon-statesmanlike solution on Puritan lines of the liquor side of the\nfood question. What is required is obviously not the abolition of\nfermented liquor, for that would be tantamount to depriving the people\nof a necessary foodstuff,[39] but such reforms in the liquor trade as\nwill secure pure drinks to the masses of the nation.\n\nIt is the present writer\u2019s conviction that if the Governments of Europe\ncould secure absolutely pure bread and pure fermented drinks to their\nvarious peoples, the gravity of social unrest would immediately be\nrelieved. Granted that pure bread and pure fermented liquor would only\nconstitute a beginning (for there are numbers of other foodstuffs that\nare adulterated), nevertheless, it would be a good beginning; for bread\nis the principal food of the working classes, and a sound, healthy\nbeverage added to it would go a long way towards rehabilitating their\nconstitutions.\n\nThe fermented liquor recommended by the present writer would be the\nold English ale of pre-Puritan days, the ale which besides being free\nfrom the pernicious properties of hops, was made from pure _unboiled_\nmalt. The vice of modern beer does not consist only in the fact that\nit contains properties that are injurious to the human body, such as\nhops or the many harmful substitutes that are used instead of hops,\nand other ingredients[40]; but chiefly in the fact that it is prepared\nfrom boiled wort, that is to say, wort from which heat has removed all\npossible trace of the necessary _vitamines_ so valuable to health. The\nbrewers\u2019 objection to a re-introduction of the old ale of pre-Puritan\nEngland will of course be this, that it _will not keep_. But what does\nthat matter? There are hundreds of foodstuffs that won\u2019t keep. Does\nthat justify our removing all their most vital properties in order to\nmake them keep? Milk will not keep. Does that prevent it from being\npurveyed retail to every householder in England every day? The immense\nvalue of the old ale of England as a food and health-giving beverage\nought alone to ensure its supersession over the utterly worthless\n\u201cbeer\u201d that is universal at the present day[41]; and the fact that in\ncombination with pure bread, it would restore to modern people the\nstaple articles of diet of our mighty peasants of the Poictiers and\nAgincourt period, should be enough to recommend it.\n\nVery soon after the legal restoration of these two precious foods\nto the masses, the legislation could be extended to include other\nfoodstuffs, and also to provide in the elementary schools for some\nkind of instruction concerning the value and sound preparation of the\nprincipal foods. And then, it is the present writer\u2019s firm belief,\nGovernments would find themselves so appreciably relieved of \u201csocial\nreform\u201d problems, and of the incessant demand for measures required\nto redress some grievances among the labouring classes, that they\nmight find more time to attend to questions of development and\nreconstruction, all of which remain adjourned and neglected from one\ngeneration to the next.\n\nBut, for this \u201cphysiology\u201d of Social Unrest to be understood, and for\nits problems to be tackled, the physique of our race will require to be\nregarded very much more seriously than it is at present, and prejudices\nwill have to be overcome which are as deep-rooted as they are old.\nThere are very few of us to-day who do not cling fanatically to that\nromantic ideology according to which the body of man, together with its\ncondition, seems out of all proportion less important than his mind and\nhis soul. There are few of us to-day who are sufficiently primitive,\nsufficiently instinctive, to feel the same horror at the sight of\nsickness in a human being as we feel at the sight of sickness in an\nanimal. Our bias, therefore, is all against tracing what appears to be\nonly a matter of discontent, like Social Unrest, partly to a bodily\ncause. But it is precisely for a false belief of this kind that mankind\nalways has paid, and always will pay, most dearly; for even in the\nuprooting of it, apart from the harm it does, much pain and frequently\nmuch sorrow is incurred. It [p198] behoves us, therefore, to enquire\nwhether we do not now know too much, whether we are not now suffering\ntoo much, any longer to refuse to explore any avenue of reform along\nwhich it can be shown with some plausibility that we may find some\nsolution of our troubles; and even if, in order to take this step, we\nhave to question a very much cherished ideology, we may, after all,\nfind ourselves none the poorer for having made this daring venture, if\nin the end we find that ideology to have been false.\n\nAt all events, the effort partially to solve the problem of\nSocial Unrest on the lines suggested in this chapter cannot in any\ncircumstances prove wholly fruitless; for while everybody may not\nagree that food conditions in England are alarmingly bad, none it may\nbe presumed will question the expediency of improving them, even if\nthis be attempted simply with the object of perfecting and developing\nthe race. All those, however, who realise the deep and constant\nrelationship between bodily conditions and mental outlook, and who are\nmoreover aware of the immense disadvantages to which modern industrial\nconditions, quite apart from the inherited debility of their past,\nexpose the masses of every Western people, must welcome any reform\nwhich promises to remove even one among the multitude of adverse\ncircumstances conspiring to impoverish and to undermine the vitality\nof modern nations, and hail with some satisfaction a solution, which,\nwhile being practical, yet involves no drastic upheaval of our social\norganisation.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 35: The possible spiritual causes of Social Unrest will be\nfound discussed in Chapter VII.]\n\n[Footnote 36: See his speech at Manchester on Sept. 12th, 1918.]\n\n[Footnote 37: In trying to account for this state of affairs, however,\nit should not be forgotten that the entrance of women into industry,\namong the proletariat, and feminism in the wealthier classes, have both\naccomplished a good deal in the matter of breaking valuable domestic\ntraditions among women.]\n\n[Footnote 38: For a demonstration of the damage done to food by\nunskilful cooking, see the present writer\u2019s \u201cMan\u2019s Descent from the\nGods\u201d (Heinemann, 1921).]\n\n[Footnote 39: For proofs in support of this statement, see the present\nwriter\u2019s work already referred to on p. 193.]\n\n[Footnote 40: By the Free Mash Tun Act of 1880 the regulations for\ncharging the duty were so framed as to leave the brewer practically\nunrestricted as to the description of malt, or corn, or sugar, or\nother description of saccharine substitutes which he might use in the\nmanufacturing and colouring of beer.]\n\n[Footnote 41: For a confirmation of this statement, see p. 61 of the\nMedical Research Committee\u2019s Report on Accessory Food Factors. For a\nmore elaborate discussion upon the whole subject of old English Ale,\nsee the present writer\u2019s _Defence of Aristocracy_, Chapter V.]\n\n\n\n\n                            [p199] CHAPTER IX\n\n                 THE GREAT ALTERNATIVE TO SOCIAL REFORM\n\n  \u201cAy, if dynamite and revolver leave you courage to be wise:\n   When was age so crammed with menace? Madness? Written, spoken lies?\u201d\n\n  Tennyson--(_Locksley Hall, Sixty Years After._)\n\n\nIt has been man\u2019s besetting sin, almost throughout history, to trace\nwhatever evils might befall him, rather to his institutions, his social\nsystems and his conditions, than to himself and his fellows. Many a\nprecious scheme of life, many a sound system, has been broken up and\nabandoned, not because of its inherent badness, or of the incorrigible\nvices of its design, but owing to the fact that those men who attempted\nto carry it on in its last days, were neither as able nor as vigorously\nendowed as those who inaugurated it and laid its foundations.\n\nInstitutions may thus outlive the quality of men, although the reverse\nof this proposition, that men outlive the quality of institutions, is\nalways taken for granted.\n\nIf we saw a man of our acquaintance forsake house after house, however\nperfectly designed and beautifully appointed; if we saw him wander\nfrom town to town, from country to country, and even from continent to\ncontinent, always leaving the best for something else and yet never\nfeeling at ease; furthermore, if we noticed that he dropped friend\nafter friend, relative after relative, all [p200] in bitter enmity\nand anger, we might be excused if we felt tempted to suspect that his\nrepeated changes and upheavals were not the fault either of his houses,\nhis various adopted towns or countries, or his friends and relatives,\nbut were due to some obscure infirmity in the man himself, some hidden\nthough serious hepatic affection, which rendered him radically unfit to\nbe happy or contented anywhere.\n\nAnd we should arrive at this conclusion, not necessarily out of any\nfeeling of bitterness or hostility towards him personally, but rather\nbecause we should consider it irrational, in the face of such chronic\nrestlessness and irascibility, to ascribe all the blame consistently\nand repeatedly to his conditions, and not occasionally to the man\nhimself.\n\nNow it is a most remarkable thing that in the contemplation of similar\nrepeated changes in the life of a nation or a people, the average\nobserver is not nearly so prone to be guided by the highest standards\nof rational thinking. On the contrary, as often as changes take place,\nhe is prepared to ascribe the necessity for the change, not to the\ninferiority of the men who ushered it in, but always to the inferiority\nof the institutions or systems that were superseded. The unsupported\nprejudice involved in the idea of \u201cProgress\u201d compels him, as it were,\nto assume that, since all changes must be for the better, any change\nthat has occurred in our social system or our institutions in the\npast must of necessity imply a just condemnation of the systems or\ninstitutions that formerly existed.\n\nNever does the average observer dream of suspecting that the proposed\nchange of a system or of an institution may be the surest [p201]\npossible proof of the inferiority of the men who are trying to carry it\non. Inferiority to what?--Inferiority to the men who originally founded\nthe system or institution.\n\nNow the prevalence of this curious bias ought to make everyone\nprofoundly suspicious of all those who clamour for radical alterations\nin our established systems and institutions. In any case it ought to\nmake every thinking man demur before he acquiesces too readily in the\nconclusion that it is our institutions and systems that are wrong, and\nnot man himself.\n\nFor, suppose that the men who declare things are wrong, merely confess\ntheir own inferiority by this declaration, how can their recommendation\nregarding a new order of society be accepted with confidence? How can\nanyone hope that their schemes can possibly be better than those they\nhave shown themselves incapable of continuing?\n\nAt all moments, then, when there is much loud talking about the\ntransformation of society and the modification or overthrow of her\ninstitutions, the wise reformer, the cautious innovator, will turn his\nscrutiny upon man himself, and endeavour to find out first what reforms\nand improvements must take place in him, before any scheme of society\nwhatsoever, no matter how perfect, can hope to be a success.\n\nAnd it is in this direction that the present writer hopes that\nresearch and inquiry will be prosecuted in the immediate future. The\nexamination of institutions and systems is not nearly as important at\nthe present juncture as the examination of modern man himself, and\nif this examination be conducted [p202] on the principle _that it is\npossible for institutions to outlive the quality of man_, certain\nvaluable and extremely fruitful discoveries cannot fail to be made.\n\nFor instance, in a previous chapter it was pointed out that a mood of\nstubborn dejection had fallen upon civilised man, and it was suggested\nthat this was due to the complete collapse of the ideals, beliefs, and\nprinciples, by which he had allowed himself to be inspired and led\nfor many generations. Now if this analysis be correct, it might be\nprofitable to inquire into the origin and nature of ideals, beliefs and\nprinciples; and if, as the present writer does not doubt, it were found\nthat man\u2019s ideals, beliefs, and guiding principles are always created\nfor him by the great examples of his species, it might be asked why the\nhuman species has ceased from producing great examples. What has come\nover man that he should have suffered a collapse of his leading ideals,\nbeliefs and principles, and yet have no one to give him others in their\nplace? Has the species suffered a general decline? Has it sent forth\nits highest shoots, and is it now exhausted?\n\nAnd, if these questions seemed to be sufficiently solemn and important\nto be pursued with energy and resolution, the causes of racial\nexhaustion might possibly become the subject of special investigation.\nA provisional question mark might be set against every modern ideal\nand value, in order to determine whether perhaps it might not be\nresponsible for the social exhaustion of civilised man.\n\nSo far from assuming that all our institutional changes have\nnecessarily been progressive, [p203] the value to the race of every\nmore or less recent innovation might be tested and proved.\n\nFor instance, the nature of \u201cdemocracy\u201d might be treated critically.\nIt might be questioned whether there is not in all democratic order\na tendency to reduce and truncate the ultimate gamut of human\ncapabilities. While population has multiplied as never before, under\nthe democratic r\u00e9gime, it might be questioned, perhaps with some\nprofit, whether any section of this increasing mass of humanity, or\nany individual of that section, has attained to that old magnitude, in\nvolition, intellect and health, which human nature once regarded as\neasily within the compass of its powers. And if the investigation of\nthis question seemed ultimately to point to a negative reply, it might\nthen become necessary to weigh the alleged advantages of democratic\nprinciples against the consequences to man of this ascertained loss of\ngreatness and lofty capabilities.\n\nAgain, the whole of our accepted notions of charity, humaneness and\ncompassion, might be subjected to a searching inquiry. Since it is a\ncertain unknown but suspected infirmity of man that may be the cause\nof his complete dissatisfaction with his institutions and systems,\nnothing, however sacred, should be left unscrutinised, untested. It\nmight be asked whether we have not been wrong all the time to allow our\nsecond-rate, third-rate, fourth-rate, and x-rate fellow-creatures to\nmultiply and to live in our midst unbranded. In view of the alarming\nreports on the nation\u2019s health recently published by the Government; in\nview of the fact that a [p204] British Prime Minister, and no society\ncrank or faddist, has found it necessary to warn us that an \u201cA1 nation\ncannot be built up out of C3 men\u201d; in view, moreover, of the immense\nburden that the nation shoulders annually for the maintenance of\nlunatics, incurables, cripples, and other congenital degenerates, it\nmight be asked, almost with trepidation, whether the healthy sections\nof the nation are even now plentiful enough and vigorous enough to be\nsaved and secured from further infection.\n\nSince we have been brought to this pass by the most sacred ideals and\nprinciples of the past, these ideals and principles would require to be\nreverently taken up and examined.\n\nAgain with regard to the idea of non-selective human\nmultiplication,--apart from any suspicion it may have incurred of\nincreasing disease or degeneration,--it might reasonably be questioned\nwhether any species of animal could for long allow itself the liberties\nthat we have allowed ourselves, in fostering undesirable examples of\nour kind and in scientifically persuading even the half-reluctant to\nlive, without ultimately having to pay for it very severely indeed.\nWhat breed of sheep, what breed of horses, what breed of common\nbarn-fowl, could have been abandoned to the promiscuous mating alone\n(not to mention other errors) to which modern man has long been\nabandoned, without suffering ultimate degeneration?\n\nA very fruitful method of inquiry would consist in investigating to\nwhat extent modern society may have failed as an organism through\npursuing too ardently survival values alone, uncontrolled by \u00e6sthetic\nsurvival [p205] values. In plain English, has modern man pursued\nsurvival at all costs, even at the cost of caring _how_ he survived,\nor what manner of man he was when he did survive? The check of the\n\u00e6sthetic survival values might have prevented many a step, which though\nit insured the survival of abundant numbers, yet removed some grace,\nsome desirable quality, from the form or mind of man.[42]\n\nBiologists tell us that organisms frequently survive in the animal\nkingdom at the cost of qualities, which, from the human standpoint\nmay seem eminently desirable. Thus the tape-worm is said to be the\ndescendant of a race that once led a nobler and more independent\nexistence. Survival is thus frequently purchased at too heavy a cost.\nIs it possible that by the observance of survival values alone,\nunchecked by \u00e6sthetic values, man has lost, or is rapidly losing,\nvaluable qualities that once made a higher and more lasting kind of\ncivilisation possible?\n\nThe daily lives, the food and the drink of the whole population,\nparticularly its rural elements, might be advantageously criticised\nfrom the standpoint of their body-building and health-giving qualities;\nalso from the standpoint of their ultimate influence in moulding the\nmind and tempering the heart of the people. After many centuries of\noveremphasis of the soul\u2019s importance, attention might be bestowed with\npre-Puritan fervour upon the body and its needs.\n\nIn these various ways might the scrutiny of earnest and profound\nreformers be profitably concentrated upon the most probable cause\nof the apparent decay and disease of modern institutions and\nsystems,--that is to say, upon man himself, and upon the noble and\nstirring task of making him once more whole, if it is indeed his\ninfirmity from which civilisation is suffering. In this direction alone\nis there any hope; in this direction alone is there any practical\nchance of achieving lasting success.\n\nThe immense difficulties that the problem of man himself immediately\npresents, need not deter even the most faint-hearted from embarking\nupon the enterprise; for it is surely possibly even for the most\ncraven to be induced to choose between two alternatives. And what is\nthe alternative to the measures here proposed?--To continue tinkering\nat mankind\u2019s institutions and systems, as we have been doing for\nthe last three hundred years? To continue tampering with society\u2019s\nlaws and customs instead of with her units? These methods may sound\nmore simple and more commensurate with the powers of blundering and\nchildish fingers, but is the simpler, the easier method, always to be\nthe more _practical_, merely because it is simple and easy, and quite\nirrespective of its ultimate effectiveness? Is \u201cpractical\u201d synonymous\nwith elementary or infantile? Is a procedure \u201cpractical\u201d because it\nappeals immediately and vividly to a room full of babies?\n\nPrecisely because the true causes of modern anarchy, disaffection and\ndisunion, probably lie much deeper beneath the surface than established\nsocial and economic conditions, there is a danger that the latter\nwill [p207] be seized upon and shattered, in the endeavour to achieve\nreform. The blindest can apprehend their existence, and to the blind,\nholding is seeing.\n\nBut, if the infirmity is man\u2019s, how can it be \u201cpractical\u201d to reform\nhis institutions and systems? You might as well begin rebuilding your\npalaces because your monarchs have failed you.\n\nNor can it be argued with any cogency, at this time of day, either\nthat the materials are not to hand for pursuing the inquiries outlined\nabove, or that the prescriptions for a recovery of man\u2019s lost quality\nhave not been foreshadowed if not definitely specified. Of modern and\nancient thinkers there have been enough to show, at least in broad\noutline, the methods that should be adopted for almost any contingency.\nNobody would deny that the undertaking bristles with immense\ndifficulties, but even if the science that will help us to accomplish\nit had to be created _pari passu_ with our attempts at overcoming these\ndifficulties it would still be worth while, since it is quite possible\nthat it is the only great alternative.\n\nSo much for _man_ as the suspected primary cause of the malady of\nmodern civilisation.\n\nIf now we turn to other details (other than material and economic\nconditions of course) in the fabric of modern life, which would strike\neven the most myopic as requiring instant correction, they spring in\nsuch profusion before our eyes, that it would be impossible in the\ncompass of this small and elementary treatise, to refer to any except\nthe most salient.\n\nOne of the most salient is the absurd [p208] attempt that society\nhas made during the last, or commercial and industrial era, in modern\nEurope, to build a harmonious and united community upon the principle\nof _cleavage_. Doomed to failure from the start, as it was, this vice\nof cleavage, that is at the root of the failure of modern society,\nhas not yet,--no, not even at this late hour,--been recognised and\ncondemned by all.\n\nLet it be thoroughly understood what is here meant by the principle of\ncleavage. Cleavage is not to be confused with classification. You may\nsubject your children or your parents to classification, while they are\nall hanging affectionately on each other\u2019s necks; but if you group them\nby cleavage, the idea \u201casunder,\u201d is bound to follow. The classification\nof a population, therefore, does not necessarily leave any clefts or\nchasms between the classes. If, however, you proceed by dividing up\nyour population on the principle of cleavage, definite clefts or chasms\nbetween the groups are inevitable; and this is the principle upon which\nthe commercial and industrial Age has worked.\n\nAs the result either of the ridiculous pomposity of those who have\nacquired riches by commerce or industry, or else of the questionable\ntitle to superiority that wealth alone confers, a curious phenomenon\nbegan to be noticeable in England during the course of the latter half\nof the 17th century,--and that was a certain artificial and asinine\nhaughtiness among the well-to-do, which made them unable to unbend in\nthe presence of those whose purses were less portentously swollen. It\nis suggested that this became noticeable in the latter half of the\n17th [p209] century; but, truth to tell, all the causes of it were in\nexistence in the middle of the previous century as the result of Henry\nVIII.\u2019s vulgar and disastrous reign. Most authorities would, however,\nadmit that the phenomenon, as a marked innovation, became noticeable\nonly in the 17th century.\n\nTheretofore, wealth and good breeding, wealth and good family, wealth\nand sound instinct, wealth and good manners, had, with but few and\nnotorious exceptions, been the only kinds of wealth known.\n\nSuddenly, however, with the capitalistic exploitation of the land, the\nnation\u2019s mineral resources, and her people, a new kind of wealth came\ninto existence, wealth utterly unconnected with anything except the\nmost solemn and most self-complacent vulgarity in those who possessed\nit.\n\nThese people, unable to rely upon those natural distinctions that\neverybody recognises at once, which compel the inferior or the fool\ninstinctively to refrain from importunacies, and restrain the too\nfamiliar hand, were forced to adopt a new method of holding their\nbrethren, so like themselves in all but brass, satisfactorily aloof.\nHow did they accomplish this? Since they had no natural dignity no\ninnate distinction, which might have allowed them to befriend the poor\nwith impunity, without any fear that is to say, of \u201closing caste\u201d;\nsince they could not be classified apart from their poorer fellows\nexcept by means of the ticket \u201cwealth\u201d; they invented barriers and\ngulfs which were designed to be as wide and insuperable as their fear\nof being taken for their poorer fellows was great. Being unable to rely\n[p210] upon classification, they proceeded by means of cleavage.\n\nThis foolish and foolhardy expedient on the part of the vulgar rich,\nwhich has survived to this day, has led to the absurd anomaly of a\nsociety,--a community if you please,--in which a whole complicated\nseries of stratified groups, never meet, never in any circumstances\ncommunicate with one another, except with the most ludicrous grimaces,\ncompressed lips, whispers, frowns, embarrassment, fear, contempt, and\nhatred.\n\nThe wonder is, not that society constituted on these lines is now\nfalling to pieces; the miracle is that it should have lasted so long.\n\nThink of it! Think of the advantage of friendly and free communication!\nThink of how much is gained, even among equals, by constant and\nunrestrained intercourse! Reckon the inestimable profit that a man\nof minor attainments can derive from free and easy association with\nhis superior, and _vice vers\u00e2_. And then ponder the thousands of\nunbreakable links that such relationships would have forged between the\nclasses in every village, town, city, country and province throughout\nthe Empire!\n\nWhen is it that a man ceases to believe in natural distinctions\nbetween men? When is it he begins to suspect that there is nothing\nabove him?--Only when, for a very long time, he has been deprived of\nany intimate knowledge of superiority, or of any association with\nsuperiority in his own form.\n\nCan we wonder at the absurd decoy cries of modern Europe,--at\nthe cry for Equality above all? Can we marvel any longer at class\nhatred? How does a man best learn [p211] the fundamental law of\nnatural inequality?--Only by moving out of his circle and finding a\nsufficiently friendly welcome when he does so, to be able to learn from\nwhat he sees.\n\nThe principle of cleavage instead of classification,--this is one of\nthe vices for which we have to thank the vulgar rich of the past, and\ntheir kith and kin of the present day. But it is one of the first\nbrutal stupidities that must be abolished if anything approaching an\norderly and harmonious society is to be established.\n\nAnother salient error of modern society, at least in England, has been\nthe consistent indifference shown by successive Governments towards the\nsteady encroachment of the huge cities of the nation upon their rural\nenvirons. Like monster cankers these vast urban complexes of England\nare allowed to spread north, south, east and west, year in, year out,\nas if for all the world, it were an advantage, a boon, in fact the most\nunspeakable blessing, that every inch of green pasture land, of golden\ncornfield, should be converted as quickly as possible into muddy,\nsmoky, stuffy and hideous thoroughfares.\n\nIf town life were so eminently desirable, if the kind of man and woman\nwho live and breed amid city and suburban shoddy, were without question\nthe proudest examples of the nation\u2019s blood; if town occupations, town\ntemptations, and town pastimes were the healthiest, the most ennobling,\nthe most productive of useful virtues, we might suspect the various\nGovernments, that have tolerated the spread of this urban miasma, to\nhave winked their eye knowingly at what was, [p212] after all, only a\nsentimental grievance, a sort of poet\u2019s plaint, an artist\u2019s loss of\npicturesque compositions.\n\nBut seeing that nowadays one is reduced almost to wandering about hat\nin hand begging for _one_,--just one,--redeeming point in favour not\nonly of town life, town conditions and town charms, but also of one\u2019s\nown fellow townsmen themselves; it must strike people as a little odd\nthat the accredited authorities for generations should have been so\ncompletely lacking in any definite policy concerning this all-important\nquestion.\n\nIs England to become one long ugly street, full of ugly, toothless\npeople, pretending that their clammy urban passions are something more\nexalted than the rut of rats?\n\nYou would have thought that a consideration of the food situation\nalone, apart from any other aspect of the matter, would have induced\nthe rulers of the nation, long ago, to adopt some means to encourage\nrural, and to discourage urban life; and yet, as if with malice\nprepense, all the efforts of past Governments have secretly been made\nin the very opposite direction.\n\nOne is almost inclined to cavil less at the growth of urban centres and\ntheir unwieldy proportions, than at the absurd lack of policy towards\nthis question which continues to be shown by the legislature.\n\nIf it be a desirable movement, then by all means promote it openly; if,\non the other hand, it can only fill every patriot\u2019s breast with alarm,\nthen, be sure to frame a definite policy about it, and do so quickly.\n\nThe present writer can only see disaster [p213] ahead, if these\nlarge urban centres are allowed to spread any further, and he would\nfeel inclined to inaugurate immediately, a movement for strictly\ncircumscribing their area. Concurrently with this drastic move, he\nwould encourage by all means in his power, the adoption of rural\noccupations and homes by the proletariat.\n\n\u201cBut what about the increasing population?\u201d cry a hundred voices,--as\nif an increasing population were a sort of elemental phenomenon like\nthe rising tide, or the waxing and waning of the moon, that no man can\nhelp.\n\nThe reply to this question brings the author to the last of the\nmatters of detail with which he proposes to deal, and therefore to his\nconcluding remarks.\n\nThe question of population, like that of the relative desirability\nof urban or rural life, is one to which it is madness to maintain an\nattitude of indifference or unconcern. The rulers of this country can\nas little afford to ignore the consideration of the multiplication of\nits inhabitants, as they can afford to ignore the consideration of\nthe nation\u2019s finances. And the more the State arrogates to itself the\nr\u00f4le of a beneficent and divine Providence,--that is to say, the more\nit interferes with the natural consequences of improvidence in the\nmatter of bringing forth children, either by helping indigent parents,\nor by mitigating the hardships of the unmarried mother, the more it\nis entitled to impose and to inflict penalties upon irresponsible and\nwanton procreators of children.\n\nIf this is true of the healthy and the sound, however, how much\nmore true ought it to be [p214] of the unhealthy and the degenerate!\nAgain, in regard to them, if the State takes upon itself to shoulder\nthe burden of indigent degenerates of all kinds, it is entitled to\nimpose limits upon their multiplication. He who pays may lay down his\nconditions.\n\nAnd this would remain true, whether the present system were to be\nmaintained, or whether it were superseded within the next quarter of a\ncentury by Bolshevism or Communism.\n\nSince it is the iron law of population that multiplication follows\nany easing of the conditions of the indigent, either by making\nearlier marriages a possibility, or by making the consequences of\nearly marriages tolerable, it follows that all Governments, whether\nCapitalistic, Bolshevist, or Communistic, if they undertake to succour\nthe indigent, whose families exceed their resources, must in the end\nimpose certain limits upon multiplication. And where they take over the\nwhole burden as they do in this country, of indigent lunatics and other\ndegenerates, they have the right to exercise all the means at their\ncommand for preventing degenerates from being born.\n\nCommunists and Bolshevists may scout this question, just as dishonest\nvote-catching past Governments have done; but let a Labour Government\ncome permanently into power, let a Bolshevist minority attempt to rule\nthis country, and it would soon discover, what all creditable thinkers\nknow already, that the question of population is one about which even\nthe most benign government _must_ frame some definite policy. Indeed\nit would soon discover the fact, which will [p215] perhaps only become\napparent to all in many years to come: that a truly benign policy in\nthis matter is one which at present would strike all sentimentalists,\nand other Utopians as hopelessly ruthless and inhuman.\n\nIt is in the procreation of children that a man and woman\u2019s sense of\nresponsibility first encounters its crucial test. For generations in\nthis country, men and women\u2019s sense of responsibility in this matter\nhas been systematically undermined; and, as regards the procreation of\ndegenerates, of the unhealthy, and of the insane, it might be said that\nthere is literally no conscience left in modern man concerning this\ncrime.\n\nIt will behove all serious and patriotic governments in the future,\ntherefore, whether they are capitalistic or Bolshevist, to face\nthis pressing problem of modern times, and the vandalistic work of\ncenturies,--the destruction of the English working man and woman\u2019s\nsense of responsibility in regard to procreation,--will by hook or by\ncrook have to be repaired, and a new conscience regarding this matter\ncreated in the breasts of all.\n\nThus the tasks hinted at in this short chapter are seen to be\nstupendous enough, and yet which of them can possibly be accomplished\nsimply by the wand of the Communist, Bolshevist, or economic social\nreformer?\n\nLet no one imagine, however, that because they are beset with the\nmost serious difficulties, that they are therefore to be discarded as\n\u201cunpractical.\u201d We know the extremes of stupidity to which so-called\n\u201cpractical politics\u201d has led us. Nothing is practical, that in practice\ndoes not achieve [p216] the end desired. And since the mere change of\nour institutions and systems cannot even graze the surface of these\ndeeper causes of unhappiness, it is simply conjuring and buffoonery\nto call \u201cpractical\u201d only those measures of reform or reconstruction,\nwhich every gallery of schoolboys, every crowd of holiday-makers, can\nrecognise at a glance as at least \u201csomething done.\u201d\n\n\n                                The End.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 42: For an exhaustive discussion of survival values as\ncompared with \u00e6sthetic survival values see _Man\u2019s Descent from the\nGods_ (Heinemann) Chapter IX.]\n\n\n\n\n                              [p217] INDEX\n\n\n  Abstract terms, importance of, 12;\n    have no uniform meaning to-day, 13, 14, 19;\n    to teach meaning of, leads to instruction in true ideas, 149.\n\n  Advertisement, unscrupulous, of commercial foods, 188, 189.\n\n  \u00c6sthetic values disregarded to-day, 205.\n\n  Agitators, their unscrupulous use of words, 181, 182.\n\n  Ale, old English, the value of, 195, 196;\n    the brewers\u2019 objection to, 196.\n\n  Amputation, resorted to in desperation by the weary, 30.\n\n  Aristotle, on the desirability of a liberal education, 127 _n_.\n\n\n  Beer, impure, 193;\n    harmful properties of, 195;\n    utterly worthless, 196.\n\n  Beliefs, _see_ Ideals.\n\n  Bishop of London, his misuse of words, 16.\n\n  Bolshevism, a conspiracy against life, 35;\n    insists on compulsory labour, 93;\n    offers only material ideals, 162.\n\n  Bolshevist, the, an invalid, 31;\n    a determined opponent of life, 36.\n\n  Brahmin, the, highly respected though poor, 40.\n\n  Bread, pure loaf of, unobtainable in many parts of England, 190.\n\n\n  Cabbage, should be eaten raw, 192.\n\n  Catachresis, the rule in journalism, 16;\n    much false doctrine is, 134.\n\n  Charles I., an ideal monarch, 122.\n\n  Charwomen, charitable, do not go out on missions of comfort to the\n        rich, 168.\n\n  Church, the, its failure to teach sound views about life and\n        humanity, 129;\n    of the Middle Ages protected the poor and ignorant, 135;\n    had a sense of responsibility, 135.\n\n  Cities, large, breed misanthropy, 174, 175;\n    mistake of allowing, to spread indefinitely, 211-213.\n\n  Citizen, the desirable, must be well conducted, 126.\n\n  Cleavage, the industrial Age has worked upon the principle of, 208;\n    the expedient of the vulgar rich, 210, 211;\n    must be abolished if harmony is to be restored, 211.\n\n  Communism, a conspiracy against Life, 35;\n    its unscrupulous appeal to malcontents, 112;\n    offers only material ideals, 162.\n\n  Condorcet, not a thinker but a mathematician, 67.\n\n  Cro-Magnons, doubtful whether modern man is better or better off than\n        the, 158.\n\n  Culture, a common, produces a common tongue, 11;\n    might be saved by a re-definition of words, 26.\n\n\n  David, his moral insistence on justice, 47, 48.\n\n  Decline, means retrograde development, 34.\n\n  Definition, of words desirable, 21;\n    and might avert revolution, 25, 26.\n\n  Degenerates, hate Life as she is, 59.\n\n  Democratic institutions, put a damper on superiority, 174, 203.\n\n  De Quincey, on poetry, 83. [p218]\n\n  Despondency, prevalent to-day, 153;\n    national, leads to social unrest, 156;\n    not due to a material cause alone, 157;\n    but to a lack of satisfying ideals, 158, 159, 161;\n    the only cure for, new values and a new faith, 161;\n    economic changes cannot cure, 163;\n    due to false values, 173;\n    cannot be cured by social reform, 177.\n\n  Development, the law of higher life, 33, 34.\n\n  Disease, European attitude of toleration towards, totally wrong, 173.\n\n  Disraeli, his speech on the Compensation for Disturbance Bill, 95.\n\n\n  Education, failure of modern, 123;\n    the object of State, the rearing of worthy citizens, 126;\n    should be a training in manners rather than in the acquisition of\n        facts, 127, 128;\n    elementary, does not teach sound views about Life and Humanity,\n        129-131;\n    does not even succeed in teaching means of intercourse, 131;\n    importance of knowledge of native tongue in, 132;\n    elementary, an expensive farce, 143.\n\n  Education Act of 1870, introduced cheap literature, 15.\n\n  Emigration, the violence of, 107.\n\n  English, importance of teaching, 145;\n    better teachers wanted for, 146.\n\n  Equality, quite meaningless to-day, 24;\n    the cry of, can provoke real emotion, 61;\n    originally borrowed from mathematics, 62;\n    and has no meaning except in mathematics, 65, 76;\n    of opportunity, the fallacy of, 67-71;\n    not desired by the beautiful, able or desirable, 72;\n    a powerful weapon in the hands of the discontented, 73;\n    due to indolence and a belief in Justice, 74;\n    had a definite meaning at the end of the 18th century, 75;\n    a decoy cry when superiority is extinct, 210.\n\n  Errors, do not right themselves, 194.\n\n  Eugenists, their moral interpretation of phenomena, 47, 48.\n\n\n  Fatalism, the, of modern Europe, 95.\n\n  Feminism, has broken valuable domestic traditions, 192 _n_.\n\n  Food, inferior, purveyed to the masses, 123;\n    ill-prepared, at bottom of physiological causes of ill-health and\n        social unrest, 188, 189, 190, 194, 197;\n    unscrupulous advertisements of commercial, 188, 189;\n    suggested reforms in, 195;\n    question of, should lead to discouragement of urban development,\n        212.\n\n  Freedom, Rousseau\u2019s misunderstanding of, 17;\n    now meaningless, 21, 23;\n    but provokes wild enthusiasm, 22;\n    Rousseau\u2019s idea of, 22;\n    a wildly fantastic idea, 77;\n    babies have no, to choose their destiny, 78;\n    a will o\u2019 the wisp in manhood, 80;\n    nonexistent even in childhood, 81;\n    strength has no, 83-85;\n    the cry of the weak, 84, 85;\n    the only circumstances when it can have any meaning, 86-89, 92, 94;\n    the frequency of these circumstances, 88;\n    real, greater under the Tudors than new, 90;\n    political, a deception, 90-92.\n\n\n  Gambetta, his \u201c_justice immanente_,\u201d 44, 45, 182;\n    a sentimentalist, 57.\n\n  Gissing, George, on the comparative happiness of the poor, 169.\n\n\n  Happiness, is relative, 169;\n    has little to do with material conditions, 170, 172.\n\n  Humanitarianism, an inverted form of cruelty, 174. [p219]\n\n\n  Ideals, lack of satisfying, leads to social unrest, 158, 159, 161;\n    loss of, makes words connected with them meaningless, 160;\n    tyranny of, the most powerful, 179, 180, 183.\n\n  Ill-health, Lloyd George on national, 186, 204;\n    a fundamental cause of social unrest, 187, 188, 194;\n    great in rural districts owing to bad food, 189;\n    an inevitable static condition of the masses, 191.\n\n  Indolence, may avert disaster in England but not on the Continent, 24;\n    demands equality, 74.\n\n  Industrialism, creates besotting occupations, 89.\n\n  Institutions, often outlive the quality of men, 199-202.\n\n\n  Japan, suicide in, 175.\n\n  Jefferson, imbibed much nonsense from France, 61 _n_;\n    a disciple of Condorcet, 67.\n\n  Journalism, a cause of present day muddle, 15;\n    makes catachresis the rule, 16.\n\n  Justice, quite meaningless to-day, 24;\n    necessary for belief in equality, 44, 74;\n    the abstraction of a moralist, 45;\n    Gambetta\u2019s _justice immanente_, 44, 45, 182;\n    modern idea of, 46;\n    and its moral basis, 46-50;\n    meaningless when applied to the universe, 52;\n    unknown outside human society, 53, 54;\n    a myth, 57, 58;\n    reign of, a visionary ideal, 181.\n\n\n  Labour, dissatisfaction of, 155.\n\n  Language, confusion of, leads to revolution, 14, 15, 17;\n    and to impossibility to lead or be led, 15;\n    disease of, everywhere rampant, 25;\n    importance of understanding one\u2019s own, 133, 134;\n    a knowledge of, the only means of curbing the press, 136;\n    the English, should be chief subject in State schools, 137, 140.\n\n  Liberty, quite meaningless to-day, 24.\n\n  Life, has a descending tendency, 33;\n    development the law of higher, 33;\n    hopelessly unjust and unmoral, 51-53;\n    as she is, hated by degenerates, 59;\n    the enjoyment of, largely \u00e6sthetic, 117;\n    inequality necessary to the charm of, 118;\n    itself attacked by the Socialist, 119.\n\n  Lloyd George, on national ill-health, 186.\n\n  Locke, John, put learning last in education, 127 _n_.\n\n  Love, cannot be produced by word of command, 175, 176.\n\n  Luther, a slave to his own strength, 83.\n\n\n  Man, Rousseau\u2019s misunderstanding of, 17, 18, 23;\n    modern, tired in body and spirit, 27-29;\n    his sickness and degeneracy responsible for decline of our\n        institutions, 31;\n    made responsible by moralists for the injustices of Life, 50;\n    his moral interpretation of the world, 51;\n    modern, essentially democratic, 96;\n    and suffering from exhaustion, 156;\n    man, not his institutions wrong to-day, 201-202;\n    all reform should begin with, himself, 206, 207.\n\n  Manners, education in, most essential, 127;\n    no attention given to, in elementary education, 128, 129, 131;\n    lack of, falls with greater severity on poor than on rich, 129.\n\n  Margarine, vegetable, almost useless to the body, 190.\n\n  Mathematician, the, a hopeless psychologist, 62;\n    dangerous as soon as he deals with humanity, 67. [p220]\n\n  Mediocrities, alone \u201cfree\u201d to choose a calling, 80.\n\n  Mediocrity, can only rule in a mediocre way, 184.\n\n  Middle Ages, had a common culture, 12;\n    protected the poor and ignorant, 134.\n\n  Mill, John Stuart, proved that Parliament is not representative, 91,\n        92 _n_.\n\n  Misanthropy, bred by overcrowding of large cities, 174-175.\n\n  Monks, the mendicant, lost power when they became rich, 41.\n\n\n  Napoleon, on the cause of the Revolution, 72;\n    and the lawyers, 82;\n    a slave to his own strength, 83;\n    what freedom meant to, 86.\n\n  Nature, misunderstood by Rousseau and the Victorian poets, 17, 18;\n    utterly immoral, 51-53;\n    innately unjust, 55, 59;\n    violence supreme in, 99.\n\n  Negro slaves, committed suicide on British ships, 175.\n\n\n  Parliament, quite unrepresentative, 91, 92.\n\n  Pessimism, takes form of economic struggle among the masses and\n        madness and religious fervour among the rich, 162.\n    _See also_ Despondency.\n\n  Pessimist, the, can alone logically assail Private Property, 36.\n\n  Physical conditions, disregarded by modernity, 186.\n\n  Poor, the, know certain truths owing to their contact with reality,\n        130;\n    social reform directed towards, alone, 165;\n    not more unhappy than the rich, 166-169.\n\n  Population, problem of growth of, 213;\n    definite policy necessary regarding, 214;\n    a ruthless policy regarding, probably necessary, 215.\n\n  Poverty, to-day entails besotting and heartrending work, foul\n        surroundings and ignorance, 39.\n\n  Power, the proper equipment of, 42.\n\n  \u201cPractical,\u201d the password of the stupidest beliefs, 178 _n_;\n    the foolishness of, reforms, 216.\n\n  Press, the, its enormous power to-day, 134;\n    does not protect the poor and ignorant, 135;\n    has no sense of responsibility, 136;\n    a knowledge of language the only means of curbing the, 136;\n    modern education leads to omnipotence of, 137.\n\n  Private property, assailed by present Muddle Age, 31;\n    a principle of Life, 32, 35;\n    the principle of, still believed in by the masses, 32, 35;\n    can be logically assailed only by the pessimist, 36;\n    among animals, 36;\n    abuse of, to-day, 37;\n    the oldest of human principles, 38;\n    evil results of, to-day, 38-39;\n    but these not inherent in the principle of, 40.\n\n  Procreation, injustice rooted in the very act of, 56, 57;\n    means violence, 102-113, 125;\n    society cannot regulate, 109;\n    inadvisable to meddle with, 112;\n    limitation of, or deliberate sacrifice can alone eliminate\n        suffering, 114;\n    \u201cDown with,\u201d should be the cry of the Socialist, 120;\n    modern lack of responsibility concerning, 215.\n\n  Profiteering, an act of violence, 122.\n\n  Progress, stupidity a form of, 14;\n    the last 19th century ideal to perish, 158;\n    belief in, natural to those who believe in a beneficent deity, 159.\n\n  Psycho-analysis, revelations of, in cases where procreative instinct\n        has been checked, 109 _n_. [p221]\n\n\n  Reading, should involve discernment, 139;\n    real, not taught in State schools, 139;\n    teaching of English necessary for, 145.\n\n  Religion, comforts people for the sufferings of others, 50.\n\n  Renaissance, a period of social unrest, 155.\n\n  Revolution, due to confusion of language, 14, 15, 17, 19.\n\n  Rich, the, their truth-proof environment, 130;\n    show their misery in neurasthenia, hedonism, etc., 165;\n    as unhappy as the poor, 166-169.\n\n  Right, quite meaningless to-day, 24.\n\n  Romanticism, destroys happiness and order, 183;\n    romantic not to suspect physiological causes for unrest, 188.\n\n  Rousseau, his misunderstanding of words led to French Revolution, 17;\n    falsifies evidence, 23;\n    a sentimentalist, 52;\n    his meaningless phrase about freedom, 77, 82.\n\n  Rulers, their duty to assuage violence, 122.\n\n  Russia, revolution in, fomented by starvation, 185.\n\n\n  Schools, elementary, curriculum in, 141-144;\n    suggested reform of curriculum, 145-151;\n    probable good results of this, 151, 152.\n\n  Socialism, a conspiracy against Life, 35;\n    must if honest insist on compulsory labour, 93;\n    offers only material ideals, 162.\n\n  Socialist, the, an invalid, 31;\n    a determined opponent of Life, 36;\n    compassionate for the sufferings of mankind, 97;\n    his desire to eliminate violence, 98;\n    does not reckon with the basic natural element of procreation, 110;\n    cannot accept the means by which alone violence can be eliminated\n        from society, 115;\n    wars against Life itself, 119;\n    exploits stigma attaching to modern success, 124.\n\n  Social Reform, the only question on which modernity is unanimous, 164;\n    but directed only towards the poor, 164;\n    aims only at elevation of standard of living of the poor, 165;\n    directed towards one class only, 172;\n    cannot cure despondency, 177;\n    falsely thought to be \u201cpractical,\u201d 178 _n_.\n\n  Social unrest, due to despondency, 155, 156;\n    caused by ill-health, 187, 188, 194, 197.\n\n  Starvation, foments revolt, 185.\n\n  Strength, has no choice, 82;\n    or freedom, 83-85;\n    except in certain cases, 85.\n\n  Stupidity, increasing, 14.\n\n  Suffering, necessary so long as society is based on violence, 113,\n        114;\n    can only be eliminated by restricting procreation, 114;\n    in modern society not borne by the unworthiest, 124.\n\n  Success, is not to-day connected with superiority, 43 _n_;\n    stigma attaching to modern, 124.\n\n  Sweating, an act of violence, 122.\n\n\n  Tea, in every way deleterious, 191.\n\n  Temperance movement, a helpless and Puritanical solution of the\n        liquor question, 195.\n\n  Tyranny, of ideas, the most powerful, 179, 180, 183.\n\n\n  Ugliness, increasing, of modern Europe kills love, 177.\n\n\n  Values, transvaluation of, still possible, 42, 43;\n    the vulgar, of modern society, 124, 125;\n    survival, alone too ardently followed to-day, 204, 205. [p222]\n\n  Vanity, responsible for revolution, 73.\n\n  Victorian Poets, their misunderstanding of Nature, 171.\n\n  Violence, the, of modern wealth, 42;\n    the desire of Socialists to do away with, 98, 100;\n    supreme in Nature and essential to life, 99;\n    cannot be eliminated even from Socialist State, 102, 104;\n    inherent in procreation, 102-108, 125;\n    the, of emigration, 107;\n    necessarily entails suffering, 113;\n    necessary for the charm of life, 116;\n    man-made deeds of, 122, 123.\n\n  Voluntary actions, generally associated with weak and useless people,\n        82.\n\n  Vote, the, does not secure freedom, 91.\n\n\n  Wealth, to-day tends to get into the hands of the unworthy, 38;\n    and those who use it unscrupulously, 39;\n    was not always respected _per se_, 40, 41;\n    to-day a curse owing to false values, 42;\n    connected generally with vulgarity since the 17th century, 209.\n\n  Women, the supposed injustice of their lot, 46;\n    less social than men, 48;\n    the ignorance of English, about cooking, 191.\n\n  Words, may be used as missiles, 13;\n    may inspire uniform action, 20.\n\n  Working-classes, their inarticulateness, 132, 133;\n    their women\u2019s ignorance of cooking, 191.","title":"The false assumptions of \"democracy\"","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":56638}